Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

You can't cloak Louisiana Science Education Act's religious intent
(Barbara Forrest, Shreveport Times, July 18, 2010)

In his June 26 response to Charles Kincade, the Rev. Gene Mills, executive director of the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), portrayed the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) as "landmark" legislation — a "bold step" to "promote critical thinking skills" in public school science classes.

Decrying "censorship over academic freedom," Mills credited "the courage of our policy writers" for Louisiana's "cutting-edge, beneficial law." He added that "the LSEA passed the Louisiana House of Representatives and Senate with near unanimous bipartisan support."

Of these assertions, only the last is consistent with the facts. The Legislature did pass the LSEA, but their doing so had nothing to do with courage. It had everything to do with Family Forum's aggressive lobbying and cultivating legislators for almost 10 years. Most important, the LFF finally got a governor, Bobby Jindal, who would sign a creationist bill. The fact that a largely new Legislature was scared to death of crossing Jindal made 2008 the right year for the LFF to strike.

Nor did "our policy writers" write the Louisiana Science Education Act, as Mills claims — unless one considers the LFF a policy writer, which is precisely the status that this organization enjoys under Bobby Jindal's administration.

The LFF announced on their website that they wrote the bill. They were assisted by the Discovery Institute (DI), a creationist think tank in Seattle that has hawked "intelligent design" for almost two decades. The LSEA is a variant of DI's creationist "Model Academic Freedom Statute," variants of which the Discovery Institute was peddling in six state legislatures in 2008, as it did again in 2009. Only Louisiana has enacted this piece of rubbish into law.

Denying that the Science Education Act permits teaching creationism, Rev. Mills asserted that the bill's prohibition of "discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion" was included at "LFF's insistence." However, religion disclaimers are an old creationist tactic.

The Science Education Act's disclaimer is part of DI's model bill and was included in all of the various state versions in 2008-2009. Such disclaimers were used in "creation science" legislation in the early 1980s. The act's disclaimer is merely a transparent, pre-emptive attempt at legal self-defense against the accusation that the LSEA promotes religion.

But legislation that is about real science education need not include religion disclaimers. Disclaimers are typically included in creationist laws, which are precisely about promoting religion. Moreover, only creationists complain, as Mills did, about "Darwinian dogma in our schools." As recently as October 2009, the LFF's Family Facts newsletter was bashing "evolutionist propaganda" while presenting "Design Theory" as reflecting "the text of the Bible."

Rev. Mills' denial that the LSEA is a creationist bill is also belied by the fact that the only people that the Louisiana Family Forum brought forward to testify for it were creationists, including a Discovery Institute operative. Only two groups promoted the LSEA: the LFF, which featured creationist materials on their website at the time the LSEA became law, and the Discovery Institute, whose chief project is hawking "intelligent design," which has been thoroughly documented as creationism — including in federal court. Public school science teachers did not request this law. On the contrary, they opposed it.

Finally, Mills' referring to public schools as "our schools" is sheer hypocrisy. Mills considers himself qualified to manipulate the education of other people's children in public schools to which he doesn't send his own. In his 2008 Christmas newsletter, updating readers on his children's activities, he revealed that they don't attend public schools. They are home-schooled and attend a private Christian school. Yet this man is dictating educational policy.

Ps, why dont you just finish your bottlew of gin and pass out for the night Pvt Anus.

because its not even remotely evidenced beyond a blackboard

Irreparable harm to sciences if LePage elected
(Michael Hawkins, Kennebec Journal Opinions, July 19, 2010)

In a televised debate on May 27, Paul LePage seems to indicate he thinks public schools ought to teach creationism to children.

One version of creationism tells students that Adam and Eve really existed, that the entire globe flooded (in just over a month, no less), and that the universe is 6,000 years old.

All these things are falsehoods.

And LePage is OK with teaching them to children because he doesn’t really understand science.

This isn’t just some abstract misfortune in science education. There will be real-world consequences, including the harming of future conservation and management efforts.

Biologists often use genetic markers to determine variation within and between populations to determine the best way to maintain healthy species. One example involved the use of microsatellites to determine the temporal and spatial population structure of Atlantic cod populations across the Gulf of Maine.

Some of the questions that had to be asked in order to better manage Maine’s Atlantic cod population: Were we seeing several distinct populations or was there breeding between seemingly distant groups? How much variation was there within populations that were being treated as separate?

Under LePage, students could be discouraged from ever getting to know what microsatellites are, what their importance in genetic testing is, or what they mean to management services in Maine.

LePage could instead encourage students to reject science — especially biology and its underlying theme and fact of evolution — by having teachers instruct them that faith is an OK way of knowing.

If LePage has his way, the future of Maine biologists — and all the species they manage — will be threatened. And that’s just the first field of science we know he could harm.

CANDIDATE FOR MAINE GOVERNOR FAVORS TEACHING CREATIONISM

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Irreparable harm to sciences if LePage elected
(Michael Hawkins, Kennebec Journal Opinions, July 19, 2010)

Under LePage, students could be discouraged from ever getting to know what microsatellites are, what their importance in genetic testing is, or what they mean to management services in Maine.

Microsatellites — Evolution and Applications. Daniel B. Goldstein and Christian Schlötterer (eds). Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1999. Pp. 352. Price £27.50, paperback. ISBN 0 19 850407 1.

Les Noble1

1Department of Zoology, Aberdeen University Tillydrone Avenue Aberdeen AB24 2TZ UK

If you're still one of those biologists who think tandem repeats are something to do with bicycles then this is the book for you! Packed with need-to-know facts, well illustrated and not overburdened by technical jargon, the editors should be congratulated for having had the foresight to assemble 20 chapters, each by active leading experts in their field, which must become a standard reference work. Microsatellites – those short but enormously useful repeated stretches of DNA – are found in most species and exhibit exceptional variability, attributes which make them the marker of choice for everything from investigation of mutational mechanisms, population genetic analyses, fitness consequences of inbreeding, historical reconstruction of human populations, conservation genetics and detection of selective sweeps, as well as having a variety of forensic and medical applications.

The book begins with essays describing the mutational properties, generation, decay and possible functional roles of microsatellites, painlessly introducing the theoretical models which form the analytical basis necessary to interpret the wealth of information these markers provide. Although dealing with topics related to microsatellites several chapters, such as that by Armour et al. make useful comparisons with other repetitive markers such as minisatellites. Population geneticists will find the chapters on evolution, mutation and migration, inbreeding/outbreeding and conservation particularly useful and detailed. Several of these chapters, for example Pemberton et al., really do place some classical field studies in a new context, promising useful tools for investigating hitherto intractable problems in natural populations. While those sections on microsatellite diseases and the role of microsatellites in mapping disease-associated regions within the human MHC may have a rather more limited audience they nevertheless provide a fascinating view of the medical consequences and utility of these repetitive regions. The discussions of reconstructions of human populations and the forensic applications are gripping and well-written, and the application of population and phylogenetic approaches to the analysis of human tumours illuminating.

Although an invaluable reference source with a useful glossary and a detailed appendix on numerical modelling, this text will be most valued by proponents of the art for pulling together a series of such wide-ranging and usefully detailed topics. Not all chapters will appeal, but most readers will consider their money well spent. After dipping into this text newcomers to the world of molecular biology could be forgiven for thinking there never was a time before microsatellites — how could biologists have got by without such phenomenally useful tools for so long?

Loved the "some sort". All purpose authority eh?

As far as seeing evolution in action, any specific species or groups youve in mind?

I cant believe you think you are a scientist.

Show me a lab experiment where I can affect a major change in evolution and produce a new species of multi-cellular animals with inherent differences of function.

Heres one. Stick your head in a loo up to your nares . If evolution works as its supposed to you will develop gills.
If you dont, youre a witch.

And once they are up there in the heavens, what keeps them from bumping into God and annoying him?

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And once they are up there in the heavens, what keeps them from bumping into God and annoying him?

You think Carl Sagan will bump into satellites and will be annoyed by them ?