Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Do you think viewers would enjoy my giving it a good shredding. It lacks humility, it is naive, biassed, off topic, has no beef, is misleading, is evidence light and so generalised as to be meaningless. It only tells us something about what you think.

Teaching of evolution to go under microscope
(By KAREN AYRES SMITH / The Dallas Morning News / December 13, 2007)

Science instruction is about to be dissected in Texas.

The resignation of the state's science curriculum director last month has signaled the beginning of what is shaping up to be a contentious and politically charged revision of the science curriculum, set to begin in earnest in January.

At stake is the way teachers present evolution, the biological theory that humans and other species evolved from lower forms of life.

Former science director Chris Comer says she resigned from the Texas Education Agency to avoid being fired after officials told her she had improperly endorsed evolution. She had forwarded an e-mail announcing a speech by a prominent scholar on evolution, which the state requires schools to teach.

For all the years I was there, I would always say the teaching of evolution is part of our science curriculum. It's not just a good idea; it's the law," Ms. Comer said last week during an interview in her Leander home. "We have teachers afraid to teach it, parents who don't want it taught and parents who do want it taught. It comes from all different angles."

TEA officials say Ms. Comer, 57, also made unauthorized remarks not tied to evolution. But in disciplinary paperwork they stressed that she needed to remain neutral in what was becoming a tense period leading up to the first review of the science curriculum in a decade.

Many conservatives, including the chairman of the State Board of Education, have long wanted biology teachers in Texas to address issues that some national groups and scientists say expose weaknesses in the theory of evolution.

They stress that they aren't pushing for schools to teach creationism or intelligent design, a theory that says certain features of the universe are so complex that they are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

But their opponents argue that there is no debate: Research consistently supports evolution. They argue that attempts to discredit Charles Darwin's theory of evolution amount to sneaking God into the classroom under the guise of intelligent design.

The board must vote on any changes to the curriculum. Most board members, including the chairman, have said publicly they don't want to introduce intelligent design into the curriculum, and many of them also have said they want to keep the current language on evolution.

To some, this exercise could turn into a pivotal opportunity for change. Even small changes in the language could mean big changes in textbooks later on.

The curriculum standards will be used to develop content for textbooks in Texas and across the nation.

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On Oct. 26, Ms. Comer received an e-mail from the National Center for Science Education announcing a speech in Austin by Barbara Forrest, an author and scholar who has criticized the intelligent design movement for undermining science education.

Dr. Forrest also testified in a prominent federal district court case in Pennsylvania in 2005 that resulted in a ruling that struck down the Dover school district's policy of introducing intelligent design in the classroom as unconstitutional.

Ms. Comer forwarded the message to some science teachers and professors with a short message: "FYI."

An hour later, Ms. Comer says, a TEA official came to her office and showed her an e-mail from Lizzette Reynolds, another official in the agency, who said the FYI e-mail was worthy of termination or reassignment because it implied that TEA supported the speaker. Ms. Reynolds came to the TEA to run the agency's educational initiatives after working with the Bush administration.

Ms. Comer said she doesn't know who forwarded the e-mail to Ms. Reynolds.

Ms. Comer said she quickly sent out another e-mail stressing that her original message didn't express the views of the TEA.

After spending the next week out of the office, Ms. Comer said, she returned to hear that she had one day to resign or she would be fired.
TEA officials presented her with a three-page memo criticizing her for speaking at a conference without permission and for questioning the leadership at the agency when Robert Scott was serving as acting commissioner. Mr. Scott had since been named commissioner.

The memo also stated that Ms. Comer's e-mail about Dr. Forrest's speech had compromised the agency's neutrality in the curriculum revision process.

"I left there in shock," Ms. Comer said. "I was so embarrassed. I've never been fired in my life."

She resigned the next day.

"Obviously this is a personnel issue I can't comment on," Mr. Scott said. "Suffice to say there are other issues as well."

The TEA posted the science director's position a few days ago. Debbie Ratcliffe, an agency spokeswoman, said Ms. Comer's replacement will probably be chosen by a panel of agency employees.

The agency hopes to fill the position in January, the same time review groups are set to begin meeting and examining each aspect of the science curriculum.

Since Ms. Comer's departure, professors and teachers across the country have lined up to support her, as well as scientifically sound lessons on evolution. She now plans to retire. She is talking to a lawyer, but she said she hasn't yet decided whether to sue the agency. She said she is not optimistic about what the final standards will say about evolution.

"The way things are being done these days I don't think rational minds have a chance," she said.

Ten Republicans and five Democrats sit on the state board. Dr. McLeroy is part of a bloc of seven social conservatives who often vote together.

Mavis Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, said she supports evolution from a scientific standpoint.

"I think intelligent design is a sophisticated slick way of easing in biblical perspective, and that is not what science is about," she said.

The Science Teachers Association of Texas has issued suggested curriculum standards that keep evolution but eliminate the specific requirement to teach the strengths and weaknesses of theories.

Dr. McLeroy said he wouldn't vote to approve the change. He said he supports the current wording and also could support an addition that requires teaching the strengths and weaknesses specific to evolution.

"I'm a Christian, and I think about how this impacts everything," Dr. McLeroy said. "Religion is not just something you put on the side. It's everything. I see us all created in the image of God. I don't believe nature is all there is."

"Obviously this is a personnel issue I can't comment on," Mr. Scott said. "Suffice to say there are other issues as well

Even small changes in the language could mean big changes in textbooks later on.

wande quoted-

Quote:

"Obviously this is a personnel issue I can't comment on," Mr. Scott said. "Suffice to say there are other issues as well

Any chance of details wande on the "other issues".

Even if some of them might be remotely connected to-

Quote:

Even small changes in the language could mean big changes in textbooks later on.

"Did I question them when they said things that I thought were wrong? Yes, I did that," Comer said. "I did speak up for myself. I was not a shrinking violet. But then, as the director of science, I thought it was important to hear my expert opinions of what is going on."

wandeljw wrote:

TEXAS UPDATE

Quote:

Biology professors statewide react to science scandal
(By Laura Heinauer, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, December 11, 2007)

More than 100 biology faculty members from universities across Texas signed a letter sent Monday to state Education Commissioner Robert Scott saying Texas Education Agency employees should not have to remain neutral on evolution.

"As educators, we simply feel strongly that scientifically sound information be taught in public schools, and certainly having people sympathetic to quality evolution education at the TEA is important," Bolnick said.

What is the TEA exactly? Is that a state agency, or is it a private group?

What happens in Texas affects all schools in the US, and I'm sure this fact has not slipped by the creationists who are trying to alter basic science education in the US (and have been succeeding for many years).

One issue that is not often broached, but cannot be ignored is the production of textbooks. Every effort to "dumb down" science education can and often does result in the bowdlerization of text books, because publishing houses which have big stake in textbook publishing are anxious not to offend school boards.

Three years ago, Florida scientists have grown a brain in a petri dish and taught it to pilot an F-22 jet simulator.

The brain-in-a-dish is the idea of Thomas DeMarse, 37, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida. His work has been praised as a significant insight into the brain by leading US academics and scientific journals.

The 25,000 neurons were suspended in a specialised liquid to keep them alive and then laid across a grid of 60 electrodes in a small glass dish.

Under the microscope they looked at first like grains of sand, but soon the cells begin to connect to form what scientists are calling a "live computation device" (a brain). The electrodes measure and stimulate neural activity in the network, allowing researchers to study how the brain processes, transforms and stores information.

In the most striking experiment, the brain was linked to the jet simulator. Manipulated by the electrodes and a desktop computer, it was taught to control the flight path, even in mock hurricane-strength winds.

{ The Age | Continue reading }

To control the simulated aircraft, the neurons first receive information from the computer about flight conditions: whether the plane is flying straight and level or is tilted to the left or to the right. The neurons then analyze the data and respond by sending signals to the plane's controls. Those signals alter the flight path and new information is sent to the neurons, creating a feedback system.

"Initially when we hook up this brain to a flight simulator, it doesn't know how to control the aircraft," DeMarse said. "So you hook it up and the aircraft simply drifts randomly. And as the data comes in, it slowly modifies the (neural) network so over time, the network gradually learns to fly the aircraft."

Although the brain currently is able to control the pitch and roll of the simulated aircraft in weather conditions ranging from blue skies to stormy, hurricane-force winds, the underlying goal is a more fundamental understanding of how neurons interact as a network, DeMarse said.

"There's a lot of data out there that will tell you that the computation that's going on here isn't based on just one neuron. The computational property is actually an emergent property of hundreds or thousands of neurons cooperating to produce the amazing processing power of the brain."

In a recent episode of South Park there came a point when the kids had got fed up of Al Gore and to avoid having to go hunting Manbearpig, a creature Mr Gore claimed was destroying the earth, with him as their leader, they excused themselves on the grounds that they had to go to school.

To try to keep them under his sway Mr Gore said--"I can get you excused from school."

Which had Cartman pricking up his ears and saying- "You really have the power to do that!?!??" in a tone of voice Woody Allen might use playing Aladdin.

Such an attitude to school is quite natural to intelligent kids, which these kids are, obviously, being only 6 or 7 and having brains like J.K. Galbraith, when they see their education in the hands of adults playing mind-games and office politics and who are shifting the agenda away from traditional disciplines and over to ideas about us all being shagged, health politics, feminism etc and how we are only monkeys, which is, actually, getting them excused from school whilst retaining its child-minding function.

South Park is a Saturn rocket compared to the rickshaw which transport's wande's carefully selected posts to our attention.

Creation college seeks state's OK to train teachers
(By HOLLY K. HACKER / The Dallas Morning News / December 14, 2007)

Texas' debate over teaching evolution is going to college.

The nonprofit Institute for Creation Research in Dallas wants to train future science teachers in Texas and elsewhere using an online curriculum. A state advisory group gave its approval Friday; now the final say rests with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which will consider the request next month.

Some advocacy groups are attacking the creation institute's plan, saying it's an attempt to undermine the teaching of science in public schools.

"They teach distorted science," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the California-based National Center for Science Education, which opposes teaching creationism in public schools. "Any student coming out from the ICR with a degree in science would not be competent to teach in Texas public schools."

The institute was created in 1970 by the late Henry M. Morris, a Dallas native known as the father of "creation science," the view that science - not just religion - indicates that a divine being created the Earth and all living things.

Patricia Nason, chairwoman of the institute's science education department, said that, despite the institute's name, students learn evolution along with creationism.

"Our students are given both sides," said Dr. Nason, who has a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Texas A&M University. "They need to know both sides, and they can draw their own conclusion."

The institute, through its graduate school, wants to offer an online master's degree in science education.

According to the school's Web site, it offers typical education classes, teaching such fundamentals as how to use lab equipment, the Internet and PowerPoint in the classroom. But it also offers a class called "Advanced studies in creationism."

And the course Web page for "Curriculum design in science" gives this scenario: "The school board has asked you to serve on a committee that is examining grades 6-12 science goals. ... Both evolutionist and creationist teachers serve on the curriculum committee. How will you convince them to include creation science as well as evolution in the new scope and sequence?"

The school has offered science degrees in California for years. It offered its first graduate courses in 1981, and its first online courses about two years ago.

The institute began moving its headquarters from the San Diego area to Dallas last year, making it necessary to get approval from the state of Texas to offer degrees here.

The school now has more than 50 students taking online classes all over the world, school officials say.

Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), is the case in which the United States Supreme Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 7th grade, as it violated their fundamental right to freedom of religion.