Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

There are people living now who walk on all fours.

I hope they can mine some DNA from em.

Alabama's House Bill 133 — which would, if enacted, "authorize local boards of education to include released time religious instruction as an elective course for high school students" — was passed by the House Education Policy Committee on February 29, 2012, according to the Birmingham News (February 29, 2012). Its sponsor, Blaine Galliher (R-District 30), previously explained his motivation for introducing the bill to WAFF in Huntsville, Alabama (February 5, 2012): "They teach evolution in the textbooks, but they don't teach a creation theory ... Creation has just as much right to be taught in the school system as evolution does and I think this is simply providing the vehicle to do that."

While released time programs are generally constitutionally permissible, a controversial feature of HB 133 is its allowing local boards of education to award course credit for participating in religious education. In 2009, a local school district in South Carolina was sued for its implementation of such a policy pursuant to the South Carolina Released Time Credit Act, enacted in 2006; in 2011, the trial court held that the policy was constitutional and granted summary judgment to the school district. But the plaintiffs appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and oral arguments are scheduled to begin on March 20, 2012. The case is Robert Moss et al. v. Spartanburg County School District No. 7.

Besides the question of the bill's constitutionality, the state board of education opposed the bill when it was introduced as HB 568 in 2011, according to WAFF. But the only concern reported by the Birmingham News was about the educational appropriateness of the scheme. Phil Williams (R-District 6), the vice chair of the House Education Policy Committee, was described as saying that what schools need is courses in mathematics and science: "The future jobs are in that area." Williams added, "I can't imagine us putting school children on a bus and sending them to a mosque to learn about the Koran. Or pick your religion." HB 133 could be considered by the House "as soon as next week," the newspaper reported.

Second thoughts from Springer
March 1st, 2012 Anti-Evolution 2012
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A scientific publisher is having second thoughts about a forthcoming cryptocreationist volume, Inside Higher Ed reports (March 1, 2012). The volume in question, entitled Biological Information: New Perspectives, edited by R. J. Marks II, M. J. Behe, W. A. Dembski, B. L. Gordon, and J. C. Sanford, and slated to appear in a series of engineering books dubbed the Intelligent Systems Reference Library, was advertised by Springer as presenting "new perspectives regarding the nature and origin of biological information," demonstrating "how our traditional ideas about biological information are collapsing under the weight of new evidence," and written "by leading experts in the field" who had "gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information."

In a February 27, 2012, post at The Panda's Thumb blog, however, Nick Matzke charged, "It looks like some creationist engineers found a way to slither some ID/creationism into a major academic publisher." He asked, "Do you think Springer commissioned any actual population geneticists to peer-review his work and his editing? Any actual biologists at mainstream institutions anywhere? Or was it creationist engineers peer-reviewing theologians masquerading as information theoreticians? Does the volume actually address any of the detailed and technical rebuttals of the favorite ID arguments? ... Wouldn't this be a minimal requirement, even if a publisher like Springer decided to publish pseudoscientists on the everyone-deserves-to-be-heard-even-cranks theory, or whatever?"

Addressing the advertisement's claim that the papers derived from a conference at Cornell University, Matzke observed, "a few posts from attendees tell us what actually happened — the conference wasn’t advertised, mainstream scientists with relevant expertise were not invited to attend, and participants were told several times to suppress their apparently otherwise overwhelming tendency to bring in their religion and do fundamentalist apologetics like they do in most other venues. It was basically just another fake ID 'conference' where the ID fans get together and convince each other that they are staging a scientific revolution, all the while ignoring the actual science on how new genetic 'information' originates."

Subsequently, information about the book disappeared from Springer's website. A spokesperson for Springer told Inside Higher Ed that although the initial proposal for the book was peer-reviewed, "once the complete manuscript had been submitted, the series editors became aware that additional peer review would be necessary ... This is currently underway, and the automatically generated pre-announcement for the book on Springer has been removed until the peer-reviewers have made their final decision." He added that the publisher does not "endorse intelligent design as a legitimate area of scientific research. Springer stands behind evolutionary theory as a fundamental component of modern science."

Matzke told Inside Higher Ed that he suspected that the editorial staff at Springer was caught unaware: "This falls into a trend that has been going on for the past few years, where creationists/IDists have been exploiting engineering venues to get carefully-phrased versions of their stuff published," Matzke said. "But as is often said, publication isn't the end of peer review, it's the beginning of it. And if a scientific publisher seems to be dropping the ball, it’s the responsibility of the rest of us to say so." Douglas Theobald, a professor of biochemistry at Brandeis University, agreed, saying, "Our default take on this is that Springer has been duped and that the senior editors are unaware that this is a quack group of anti-evolution creationists."

Theobald, who with a number of fellow Springer authors is drafting a letter of protest to the publisher, expressed concern that the book would compromise the credibility of Springer as a scholarly publisher and deter prospective authors. He called the book the latest effort "in a long sordid history here of trying to get pseudoscientific, anti-evolution papers published in journals to raise the respectability of ID with non-scientists." NCSE's Glenn Branch observed that such efforts pose a threat to scientific literacy in the United States, commenting, "Once published, they can claim that scientific authority is behind them" — particularly, of course, in their attempts to undermine the proper teaching of evolution in the public school science classroom.

John Sanford, one of the editors of the book and a courtesy associate professor at Cornell's Department of Horticulture told Inside Higher Ed, "Obviously we are only trying to exercise academic freedom and freedom of speech, and are challenging a sacred cow." In May 2005, before the "kangaroo court" on evolution orchestrated by three antievolutionist members of the state board of education in Kansas, Sanford testified that he believes the earth is between 5000 and 100,000 years old, that he rejects the general principle of common descent and the idea that humans are descended from prehominid ancestors, and that he agrees that "the teaching of science as is currently practiced is an indoctrination in naturalism."

This is rotine in many sciences. (Think: spendi, except with a bunch of new 20 dollar technical words thrown in just for self -aggrandizement)

My own efforts had been stalled a bit becase some wag in New England thought that "Another book on Appalchian geology wasnt needed unless there were some really big new conclsions drawn"

Evolution-as-theory bill not fit to survive in House
(By DAVID BROOKS and KEVIN LANDRIGAN, The Nashua Telegraph, March 16, 2012)

CONCORD – A bill that would have required public schools to teach evolution as a theory, a move often used by proponents of creationism to discredit the science of evolution, was handily shot down by the House of Representatives Thursday, 280-7.

Lawmakers who voted against HB 1148 said the law would have crossed boundaries between state and local control of education.

“Regardless of what you or I believe about the teaching of evolution in public schools, education laws are very clear on this matter,” said Rep. Mike Balboni, R-Litchfield.

Balboni noted that while the state provides curriculum guidelines, it is the responsibility of local school district to provide instruction.

The bill was put forward by Rep. Jerry Bergevin, R-Manchester, who has previously testified to his belief that evolution is an evil idea which has led to genocide and other horrors.

The vast majority of lawmakers Thursday disagreed with telling local school districts what to teach.

“This is the responsibility of the local school board,” said Ralph Boehm, R-Litchfield, chairman of the Education Committee. The committee opposed the bill last month.

Republican House members voting for the bill, along with the sponsor, were Francestown Rep. Harry Hardwick; Manchester Reps. Will Infantine and Connie Soucy; New Hampton Rep. Tyler Simpson; Auburn Rep. Stella Tremblay; and Meredith Rep. Colette Worsman.

Another bill that also targeted the teaching of evolution in public schools, mandating instructions about “proper scientific inquiry” (HB1457), was killed by voice vote last week.

“If we make this a requirement, then what is next? Leave it to your imagination,” Boehm said.

Evolution says all species, including human beings, came into being over billions of years as random genetic mutations and allowed individuals to adapt to changing environments. Mutations that helped individuals thrive have been passed down, slowly building up via “natural selection” to create species seen today.

Since first developed by English biologists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1860, evolution has grown to become the centerpiece of all biological sciences.

It has also been the source of constant controversy, often due to religious or philosophical objections. Critics say it has become so entrenched that it can no longer be questioned, making it closer to a faith than a science.

Prominent among those critics are Washington state-based Discovery Institute, which had a representative testify in hearings about the two New Hampshire bills.

The institute says that life is too complicated to have developed via evolution and therefore must have been created by some intelligent being or beings. It argues that this idea, usually called creationism or intelligent design, should be taught in science classes alongside evolution.