Texas State Dinosaur an affront to creationists

Texas has a new State Dinosaur.

Scientists are working to make a good model of the beast for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, as reported in the October 6 Fort Worth Star-Telegram (often referred to locally as the “Startle-gram,” but still one of America’s good-to-great newspapers).  David Casstevens reported:

The official state dinosaur would look big even inside Cowboys Stadium.

The creature stood 15 feet tall at the shoulders.

Sixty feet long, head to tail, it weighed 20 tons or more.

Sadly, despite being native to Texas, the species lived and died without ever tasting brisket.

“It was a herbivore,” paleontologist Dale Winkler said.

The quadrupedal sauropod — sort of a giant prehistoric giraffe — was the state’s first vegetarian.

Winkler, an SMU professor, stood with several other men around a workbench inside a building west of Azle, arms folded, their eyes studiously fixed on a rare and wondrous object, the skull that once contained the very small brain of Paluxysaurus jonesi.

They are members of a team that is meticulously reconstructing the dinosaur’s framework.

An articulated skeleton of the beast, which roamed this part of the country more than 100 million years ago, will become the centerpiece of DinoLabs, a dinosaur exhibit at the new $80 million Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, which opens Nov. 20.

Texas is the ample belly of the nation’s Bible Belt, don’t you know.  Creationists could not let such science endeavors proceed without their version of a blessing, provided in this case by a letter to the editor by a local guy named Richard Hollerman:

Unwarranted assumptions

David Casstevens’ Oct. 6 story tells of work to restore a dinosaur, Paluxysaurus jonesi, that will soon have its place in the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. (See: “Dinosaur skeleton to lead exhibit”)

Thousands of professing Christians, including scientists with advanced degrees, deny basic elements of his account and views held by unbelieving paleontologists. (1) Consistent Christians believe God created dinosaurs relatively recently — about 6,000 years ago — whereas skeptical scientists assert they lived 100 million years ago. (2) Christians contend that dinosaurs were created as dinosaurs instead of evolving from prehistoric life that spontaneously sprang from nonlife 3 billion years ago. (3) Consistent Christians believe that dinosaurs became extinct after the worldwide Noaic flood 4,500 years ago.

We totally reject the unfounded assertion that this dinosaur “roamed this part of the country more than 100 million years ago” — as the reporter asserts. The discerning reader can verify this by consulting the Institute for Creation Research ( www.icr.org), Answers in Genesis ( www.answersingenesis.org), Apologetics Press ( www.apologeticspress.org) and others showing the fallacy of the evolution model and reasonableness of recent creation, along with the creation and extinction of dinosaurs.

I encourage the Star-Telegram to report these findings in a way that harmonizes with established facts instead of blindly accepting unfounded assertions by unbelieving paleontologists.

— Richard Hollerman, Richland Hills

You should be impressed that so many other local residents have differing views.  The newspaper published several letters in response to Hollerman, on October 17:

Good science vs. non-science

After reading Richard Hollerman’s Oct. 14 letter, “Unwarranted assumptions,” I gather that he believes that only atheist scientists think that dinosaur fossils are millions of years old.

That is incorrect. The vast majority of scientists, regardless of religious beliefs, think that the evidence is overwhelming that dinosaur fossils are millions of years old. If he needs some examples of scientists who are Christian, specifically evangelical Christians, I would point out Mary Schweitzer, Keith Miller, Francis Collins, Richard G. Colling and Stephen J. Godfrey, who are biologists and paleontologists and are also evangelical Christians. Were it not for space limitations I could list thousands more.

This is not about belief vs. disbelief. It is about good science vs. non-science.

— Bill Robinson, Arlington

Hollerman and “thousands of professing Christians” have declared that their religious beliefs trump science, and they have a constitutional right to their notions. On top of that, they also have their churches, family units, private schools, home schooling, colleges that teach pseudo-science and the amazing Creation Museums in which Noah built a third tier on the “ark” to keep dinosaurs at a respectful distance. Fine.

Those of us who do not share the beliefs of “thousands” ask only that you use the aforementioned resources to educate your young, accustom yourselves to the thought of life in a Third World country and leave the rest of us alone!

— Jackie Bell, River Oaks

According to creationists, science is correct about the following:

Chemistry, computer science, mathematics, engineering, sociology, systems science, psychology, medicine, nuclear science, agronomy, astronomy, nanotechnology, acoustics, biophysics, condensed matter physics, electronics, fluid dynamics, geophysics, plasma physics, vehicle dynamics, solar astronomy, meteorology, limnology, soil science, toxicology, marine biology, parasitology, anatomy, biochemistry, structural biology, entomology, cetology, phylogeny, algebra, calculus, cartography, geopolitics, criminology, agriculture, language engineering, pathology, pediatrics, nutrition, physical therapy and dermatology.

But for some reason, according to creationists, science is wrong about evolution. How is that even possible?

— Mark Stevens, Fort Worth

Millions of professing Christians, including intelligent people from all religions and all walks of life, view the basic elements of paleontology as reasonable and logical. (1) Bones found in the different layers of soil show a chronological time line extending much further than 6,000 years ago. (2) Evolution is an observable, rational concept that is ongoing even in today’s “educated” world. (3) Claims that dinosaurs became extinct in a worldwide flood 4,500 years ago are laughable.

Uneducated Christians contend that dinosaurs became extinct in the Noaic flood, yet if you read the Bible it says Noah took two of every animal into the ark to preserve the different species. Did he overlook dinosaurs? Were they deemed unfit to survive by God?

Being raised as a Southern Baptist, I was taught that God guided evolution to fit His plan. Even the most devout Christians in my church had enough intelligence to see the facts that were right before their eyes. I encourage Star-Telegram readers to open their minds and their eyes to prevent the corruption of future generations and find a way to harmonize their beliefs with established facts instead of blindly accepting unfounded fantasies from uneducated Christians.

— Terry Brennan, Haltom City

I sat in total amazement after reading Hollerman’s letter disagreeing with the history of the Paluxysaurusjonesi. To cite Genesis as a historical reference is almost laughable, except for the fact that there are people who honestly believe the Adam and Eve story of creation. To believe that humans lived in this form, only with less clothing, millions of years ago is incredulous to say the least.

I give thanks that there is a science that disproves these myths. Why can’t these folks see the divine spirit in the creation and evolution of life forms on our planet, rather than actually believing what is in the Bible literally? I find it exciting that there are higher forms of being, and that new knowledge is being revealed every moment of every day.

— Betsy Stell, Arlington

I don’t know whom Hollerman was referring to in his letter when he wrote about “Consistent Christians.” I guess he means “fundamentalists” since they’re the only ones who believe in Bronze Age myths rather than modern science. Or perhaps he means people who believe the pseudo-science in the silly, anti-evolution Christian fundamentalist Web sites he cited.

The truth, of course, is that every scientific discipline from archeology to zoology contributes to the vast body of knowledge and huge amount of evidence supporting evolution. Thanks, Star-Telegram, for publishing facts and not allegorical stories written by Middle Eastern tribesmen thousands of years ago.

— Terry McDonald, Grapevine

I was impressed by the Star-Telegram’s reporting on the restoration of the fossil Paluxysaurus jonesi by the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. The article gave the facts and some feel-good information about the people involved in the reconstruction of the dino fossil.

However, Hollerman’s letter would be a joke if it weren’t for the fact that so many people really do think that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and will deny the fact that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. It has been proven by scientific method.

Creationists have a distorted view because the one book that they use (written 2,000 years ago by primitives) disagrees with the science that proves the existence of natural history. The age of this fossil is not unfounded but rests on the work of many thousands of scientists over a couple of hundred years in scores of different scientific disciples. The scientific method that is used to vet new and existing research is a crucible that is used to sort facts from fallacy and has been used to debunk fake, false and misleading science for a couple of hundred years.

We would still be living in caves without the scientific and technological advances that we enjoy today. I applaud the Star-Telegram for its fair and unbiased science reporting. Keep it up.

— Charlie Rodriguez, Arlington

Meanwhile, e-mails between members of Texas Citizens for Science chase another interesting facet:  Where in Texas is there enough Jurassic rock to support such a find?

Oh, those scientists!

More information:

• Home page for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, with news about the new construction
• Stories on the naming of the new state dinosaur earlier this year, from the Dallas Morning News, here and here; more here, PowerPoint here.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Annette Carlisle, a member of Texas Citizens for Science.

Cast away a note in a bottle, in the Paluxy River:

Dembski’s students sent into the crucible of Darwinism, at SMU!

Oh, the sermons they’ll be able to preach!

We learn from a couple of sources that Bill Dembski has assigned his students in two different classes at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary to try to crash a program honoring Charles Darwin and evolution theory at nearby Southern Methodist University, on Thursday, September 24.

Fall 2009

Christian Apologetics (SWBTS #PHILO 4373 – Fall 2009)

<> New as of 09.16.09! Dear Class, I want to share with you a few things: (1) For extra credit I’d like you to go to SMU on September 24th. On that day there are two back-to-back events at SMU celebrating Darwin — go to smu.edu/smunews/darwin/events.asp and scroll down to September 24th. I don’t want you going there merely as spectators but will indicate in class how you might actively participate and engage the Darwin-lovers you’ll find there.

*     *     *     *     *

Intelligent Design or Unintelligent Evolution (SWBTS #PHILO 2483 – Fall 2009)

<> New as of 09.16.09! Dear Class, I want to share with you a few things: (1) For extra credit I’d like you to go to SMU on September 24th. On that day there are two back-to-back events at SMU celebrating Darwin — go to smu.edu/smunews/darwin/events.asp and scroll down to September 24th. I don’t want you going there merely as spectators but will indicate in class how you might actively participate and engage the Darwin-lovers you’ll find there.

You gotta wonder just what would happen if one of those abused students were to actually pay attention to the science, turn honest, and become a defender of science and Darwin.  SWBTS students are not required to swear to honesty, however, so it’s unlikely they will turn (not at the tuitions they pay!).

SMU’s Year of Darwin programs feature the NOVA episode on the Pennsylvania trial on evolution and intelligent design.  The NOVA piece will be screened, and discussions will include the Honorable John E. Jones, the federal judge who presided over the trial and has since been maligned unfairly by Dembski and other religionists who reject the views of science.  Other lecturers include reporter Laurie Lebo and the team that produced the NOVA episode:

Sept. 24, 2009 Reception 10 a.m. Lecture 10:30 a.m. DeGolyer Library	The Friends of the SMU Libraries/Colophon and The Friends of KERA Invite the public to a special event in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species and the 200th birthday of its author, Charles Darwin. Featured speakers will be Paula Apsell, senior executive producer of NOVA, and Melanie Wallace, senior series producer of NOVA. Please RSVP to 214-768-3225 or cruppi@smu.edu, Complimentary Valet Parking.
Sept. 24, 2009 4-6 p.m. O’Donnell Hall Owen Art Center	Screening of “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” a NOVA documentary. Introduction by Paula Apsell, senior executive producer of NOVA, who received an honorary degree from SMU in 2008.
Sept. 24, 2009 Reception 6-7 p.m. Panel 7-8:30 p.m. Caruth Auditorium Owen Art Center	A panel discussion on the legal, ethical and journalistic issues surrounding the making of NOVA’s documentary film, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. Participants include John E. Jones, the federal judge who barred a Dover, Pa., public school district in 2005 from teaching “intelligent design”; Paula Apsell and Melanie Wallace, NOVA producers of the documentary; plaintiff’s council Eric Rothschild; and Laurie Lebo, author of The Devil in Dover.
Sept. 25, 2009 10:30 a.m. – noon Karcher Auditorium Storey Hall	“Intelligent Design in the Classroom,” a panel discussion on First Amendment issues featuring Judge John E. Jones III, Eric Rothschild (Pepper Hamilton, LLP), Hiram Sasser (Liberty Legal Institute) and Lackland Bloom, SMU’s Dedman School of Law.
Sept. 25, 2009 10-11:30 a.m. 3531 Garson Owens Art Center	Master class on Documentary Film Making, taught by Paula Apsell and Melanie Wallace of NOVA. Strictly by RSVP (to Teri Trevino, trevinot@mail.smu.edu)
Sept. 25, 2009 2-3 p.m. Hughes-Trigg Forum	Lauri Lebo will speak on “From Dover to Texas: Reporting on Extremist Views in a Fair and Balanced World” followed by a book signing of her book, The Devil in Dover.

I have attended sessions around Dallas where Dembski and other ID creationists were the featured speakers.  We know one thing for certain:  Dembski’s students will be given a more polite and mannerly reception at SMU than Dembski and his crew give scientists and critics at their own sessions.  For years, since 1991 at least, SMU has allowed Dembski and his accomplices to use the facilities and good offices of SMU to promote their anti-science screeds, though Dembski’s views are not shared by Methodists, and are contrary to positions taken by the Methodist General Assembly.

It is impossible to imagine that SWBTS would allow Methodists to do the same thing, teaching and promoting science and especially evolution theory, at the seminary.

SMU’s program is open to the public (go to the SMU site above to see more events set over the next few months).

Dembski is teaching apologetics.  Creationist apologists are not licensed, and generally cannot be sued for pedagogical or theological malpractice, even by their students.  Standards for apologetics don’t exist.  Scientists, on the other hand, are subject to peer review, and if using federal funds, prosecution should they tell falsehoods.

Nota bene: SMU’s lectures on Darwin’s Evolving Legacy are available on video, on-line.  See the wonderfully informative and explanatory presentation by Dr. Barbara Forrest, for example.

Products of intelligent design

Polychaete worm, 4-foot long version. A product of intelligent design?

Fish and coral-eating polychaete worms can cause destruction in otherwise peaceful fish tanks.  Read about it here.

Fish tongue-eating isopod parasite. Image from Pharyngula, borrowed from someone else

Read about that one here.

Does William Dembski really explain these things with his maths?  What was God thinking then?

Tip of the old scrub brush and a shake of the old lobster trap to Pharyngula.

Share the word:

P.Z. Myers, “Darwin’s cephalopod,” threatens to sleep forever

Well, how would you read this?  P.Z. said:

Wake me up when a creationist says something intelligent.

Denying Darwin’s God

While we’re at it, note that Cornelius Hunter is both a propagandist, and a bit of a coward.  Truth wins in a fair fight, so Hunter can’t afford to allow a fair fight to break out in the comments section of his blog.

I don’t know what his readership is, but were he to open his blog to comments, he could learn a lot.  As it is, he’s spreading false information a lot.  Let’s hope his readership is small, as are his arguments against science.

Seriously:  Does he really believe in point #1 that DNA does not demonstrate family relationships?  Or is this just his subtle way of saying no one is legitimate, trying desperately to avoid the “b” word?

The blog is an embarrassment to Christians.

Oh, but now I see why.  He’s a fellow at Discovery Institute.  It’s normal for those who can’t be embarrassed by their own errors.

Intelligent design in science classes: Two views

Texas’s ACLU chapter’s convention on August 1 featured a lively and informative session on intelligent design.  It might seem like it was set up as a debate, but as the video shows, the two views complemented each other surprisingly.

Presenters were Liberty Legal Institute’s Hiram Sasser and Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University, the premier chronicler of the creationism wars in the U.S.

Help others to see:

One less blog with history leanings

The Necromancer signed off.  For several reasons including this informative discussion of dealing with creationism in the classroom, let’s hope the archives stick around online.

In comedy, truth, wisdom, and education

Remember Jonathan Miller and “The Body in Question?“

Dick Cavett remembers, discusses the now-75-years-old man.  Plus, delightfully, Cavett has video at his blog at the New York Times.

And here, Miller explains to Cavett just why creationism is in error, and why the study of Darwin and evolution is worthwhile.  You’ll have to go to the  Times site for the full program; here’s a few minutes’ of of Miller:

Crankery under the microscope: Denialism as pathology

You can see it in this little-noted blog.  Someone drops by to tell me I’m in error, that Rachel Carson really did plot with Pol Pot to murder millions, and then they also show up in the creationism threads defending the view that dinosaurs never existed, or in a tangentially-related note on climate change, perhaps arguing that ocean levels rising are either not a problem, or the product of Atlantis’s rising from the depths (and therefore no problem, since the denizens of that city had better science than we do and will be able to fix things, never mind their being dead for 5,000 years).  [That last description is mostly fictional - mostly.]

What is it that makes one person deny reality on so many different fronts?

Mark Hoofnagle hit the research journals, listing results at denialism blog, demonstrating that crankery can be studied.  This raises in my mind the interesting little question of whether such crankery is a pathology, and perhaps treatable or curable.

Our recent discussions of HIV/AIDS denial and in particular Seth Kalichman’s book “Denying AIDS” has got me thinking more about the psychology of those who are susceptible to pseudoscientific belief. It’s an interesting topic, and Kalichman studies it briefly in his book mentioning the “suspicious minds”:

At its very core, denialism is deeply embedded in a sense of mistrust. Most obviously, we see suspicion in denialist conspiracy theories. Most conspiracy theories grow out of suspicions about corruptions in government, industry, science, and medicine, all working together in some grand sinister plot. Psychologically, suspicion is the central feature of paranoid personality, and it is not overreaching to say that some denialists demonstrate this extreme. Suspicious thinking can be understood as a filter through which the world is interpreted, where attention is driven towards those ideas and isolated anecdotes that confirm one’s preconceived notions of wrong doing. Suspicious thinkers are predisposed to see themselves as special or to hold some special knowledge. Psychotherapist David Shpairo in his classic book Neurotic Styles describes the suspicious thinker. Just as wee see in denialism, suspiciousness is not easily penetrated by facts or evidence that counter individuals’ preconceived worldview. Just as Shapiro describes in the suspicious personality, the denialist selectively attends to information that bolsters his or her own beliefs. Denialists exhibit suspicious thinking when they manipulate objective reality to fit within their beliefs. It is true that all people are prone to fit the world into their sense of reality, but the suspicious person distorts reality and does so with an uncommon rigidity. The parallel between the suspicious personality style and denialism is really quite compelling.

Go read it at denialism.

Denialism may be a little greater problem than is generally acknowledged, in my opinion.  When it infects policy makers it causes legislative and executive crackups, like Oklahoma’s Sen. Tom Coburn, who held up the naming of the Rachel Carson Post Office for a year under the bizarre misconception that she played a role in spreading malaria (ditto for Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, who shared the view but was unable to stop the bill in the House), or like the Bush administration officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development who kept refusing to authorize spending for pesticides in Africa, claiming environmental groups would oppose them while the environmental groups were lobbying the agency to spend the money on those pesticides.

Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki denied that HIV causes AIDS.  Mbeki’s refusal to act on the best science available may have led to as many as 350,000 deaths, some accounts say.  Ashley Montagu told the story of Adolf Hitler’s odd views of heritage being spread by blood transfusions — to avoid any possibility of his soldiers’ being turned Jewish by a blood transfusion, Hitler forbade the use of blood banks.  Tens of thousands of German soldiers died unnecessarily from lack of blood for transfusing during World War II.  Partisans and scientists still debate whether  and how much Ronald Reagan’s belief that AIDS was a syndrome caused by sin rather than a virus early in the AIDS crisis created a cascade of actions that still frustrates the development of a vaccination or cure.

Denialism in high school students is interesting, but most often a classroom problem.  When kids take great issue with the course material the class can get derailed.  Even when a teacher is able to keep the class on track, the denialist student may feel marginalized.  A colleague reported a student had informed that historians now concur that George Washington was African-American.  She could not be dissuaded from the view.  I had a student who insisted well into the second semester than Adolf Hitler was a great leader, smart and humanitarian, framed for war crimes of the British and Americans.  Unfortunately, I could not put him in contact with the earlier student who believed Hitler had been framed by the Soviet Union, and that the Americans and British were victims of the cruel hoax.

As the nominal head of public relations in the old (Pleistocene?) office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, my crew and I got the brunt of denialists and crazies.  We had one woman in Salt Lake City, “Mrs. B,” who regularly called the Salt Lake office to complain about Hatch’s actions and what she assumed his beliefs must be.  For a while she complained that, as someone born outside of Utah, he could never appreciate the views of the Latter-day Saints in Utah.  When at last we persuaded her that he was also a Mormon, she began complaining that he ignored Utah’s non-Mormon population.  Her ability to switch sides in an argument so as always to remain on the opposite side of Sen. Hatch got noticed.

Near the end of a summer session just before the recess the Senate had a lot of late-night meetings.  The news of these sessions did not always make the morning papers.  On one issue of some Utah import, Hatch had suggested he would probably vote one way, because of some issue of agency direction that had him concerned.  In the end the agency agreed to amendments that assuaged all of Hatch’s concerns and he was happy to support the bill (I forget what it was — the issue is absolutely irrelevant to the story).

I had caught a late-night flight to Salt Lake, and arrived at the SLC office early enough to catch our Utah problem solver Jack Martin explaining to Mrs. B that Hatch did indeed care about Utah . . .   Jack and I could carry on a conversation with only his occasional remarks to Mrs. B keeping her going, a scene out of a Cary Grant comedy, perhaps.  “Yes, Mrs. B . . .  No, Mrs. B  . . . I think I see your point.”  What he said was unimportant.  I could hear her rant on the telephone, while I was on the other side of the room.  I finally asked Jack what her issue was, and he explained it was the bill that Hatch had reveresed his position on.  She was complaining at great length about his original position.  I explained to Jack that an accommodation had been reached and that Hatch changed his vote in the final tally.

Jack smiled broadly as he handed me the phone.  “You tell her!”  It took a long time to get her to stop talking so I could explain who I was and that I had new information.  Finally she fell silent and I explained that she should be happy because Hatch had come around to her position.  There was a silence of a few more seconds, and she started in again:  “Hatch is an idiot!  Only a fool would vote that way.”  And she was off again on a rant against Hatch, eviscerating the views that she herself had held less than a  minute earlier.

The issue wasn’t important to her.  Hatch was wrong, whatever he did, even when he supported her views.

That’s denialism in full force, a raw, unmitigated power of nature.

Hoofnagle concludes at denialism:

So what do these studies mean for our understanding of cranks? Well, in addition to providing explanations for crank magnetism, and cognitive deficits we see daily in our comments from cranks, it suggests the possibility that crankery and denialism may be preventable by better explanation of statistics. Much of what we’re dealing with is likely the development of shoddy intellectual shortcuts, and teaching people to avoid these shortcuts might go a long way towards the development and fixation on absurd conspiracy theories or paranormal beliefs.

Wouldn’t you love to see that study replicated on readers of Watt’s Up With That?, Texas Darlin’ , Junk Science, or one of the anti-vaxxer blogs?

You may also want to read:

• “Is Texas the state most vulnerable to climate change?“
• “Accuracy:  A good bias (DDT again)“
• “Perry to everybody:  ‘Drop dead!’“
• “Well, Texas!  How do you like your culture war?“
• “Making a false case against Gardasil“

Whom the Gods Destroy They First Make Mad Dept.

More silly, stupid or dishonest bovine excrement from the Christian right, History Revisionism Division:

In cosmology, we had to wait decades for the theism-friendly big bang theory to beat out atheism-friendly theories like the eternal universe model, the steady-state model, the oscillating model, etc. Piles of taxpayer money wasted trying to prove atheistic flights of fancy. But in the end, the evidence for the big bang was too much for the atheistic theories, and we beat them out.

I hadn’t realized Christians championed Big Bang against atheists.  Wait until the creationists learn about this.

McLeroy nomination – still dead?

Molly Ivins’ untimely passing becomes acutely painful when the Texas Lege comes down to the last days of a session.  Who can make sense of it without Molly?

We thought a couple weeks ago that Gov. Rick Perry’s nomination of creationist wedge politician Don McLeroy was dead, when the Senate Nominations Committee took testimony and failed to report the nomination, to chair the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).

Then last week, in one of those surprise moves that even the Texas legislators responsible often cannot explain, the nomination rose from the dead and stumbled, zombie-like, to the Senate floor for a vote this week — maybe as soon as today, Tuesday, May 26.

The Houston Chronicle reports that all 12 Senate Democrats will vote against the nomination, dooming it (according to The Lonesome Mongoose, via Pharyngula).

The Bryan dentist has presided over a contentious 15-member State Board of Education that fought over curriculum standards for science earlier this year and English language arts and reading last year. Critics faulted McLeroy for applying his strong religious beliefs in shaping new science standards. McLeroy believes in creationism and that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.

“This particular State Board of Education under the leadership of Dr. McLeroy has been divisive. It’s been dysfunctional, and it has been embarrassing to the point of having commentary on this in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

McLeroy’s leadership, she said, had made Texas “the laughing stock of the nation.”

It takes 11 votes to block a gubernatorial nomination. Van de Putte said all 12 Senate Democrats plan to vote against McLeroy

Don’t count your dead nominations before the silver stakes are driven.  Stay tuned.  Maybe you should call your Texas senator again on Tuesday. Pray, cross your fingers, hope, and pass the ammunition.

If the nomination fails, it is still foggy as Donora, Pennsylvania on its worst days as to who will head the group.  The chairman must come from one of the 15 elected members.  Most people who might win Rick Perry’s selection are creationists.  If Perry is wise, he’ll try to choose someone who is a capable administrator, wise chairman of hearings, and who lacks the desire to annoy key players in education, like administrators, teachers, parents, Texas college presidents and professors, and state legislators.  Alas for Texas, Winston Churchill is not a member of the SBOE, nor is Mitt Romney.

The Senate rarely blocks a governor’s appointment.

There is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education Agency that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead the board. Like McLeroy, Dunbar also holds strong Christian beliefs and recently authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square.

“We believe that Texans deserve better than divisive, destructive, extreme leadership,” Shapleigh said. “If the governor chooses to appoint someone more extreme and more divisive, we’ll have to deal with that at the appropriate time.”

McLeroy’s tenure as chairman of SBOE is one of those waves we were warned about in 1983 lin the Excellence in Education Report, which warned of a “rising tide of mediocrity.”  The divisions and crude politics, heavy-handed destruction of statutory and regulatory procedures, at best distracts from the drive for better education, but more often leans toward the worst, sabatoging the work of students, teachers, parents, administrators and legislatures.

Do you pray?  Pray that Texas education be delivered safely and intact from this time of trial.  Whether you pray or not, call your Texas legislator and tell her or him to straighten out the SBOE.

Resources:

• Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy, “This guy runs your school board?”
• Thoughts from Kansas, and Seed article on Texas SBOE
• Perry to everybody, “Drop Dead!”
• McLeroy declares war on science
• McLeroy’s war on English students
• Houston Chronicle opinion pages:  “Be very afraid” of Texas SBOE
• “McLeroy Confirmation Alert,” Texas Freedom Network Insider
• “McLeroy backs fringe social studies ‘expert,’” TFN Insider
• “Victory for the Texas Taliban,” Leiter Reports

Man the ramparts: Texans, call your legislators!

Texans, the information on finding your state representative and state senator are below — call them, today.

In a surprise move, the Senate has moved the nomination of Don McLeroy to the floor for an up-and-down vote.

McLeroy has ushered in a new era of bitter, partisan and divisive politics to the State Board of Education.  In the past year he has insulted English teachers, citizens of Hispanic descent, unnecessarily gutted a good mathematics text from the approved list (just to show he can do it), and done his best to butcher science education standards for Texas.  He suspended work on new social studies curricula because, in part, he doesn’t like the term “capitalism,” insisting on “free enterprise” instead, contrary to almost all scholarly writing on the topic.

The man is a menace to education.  He uses wedge political issues to divide educators from parents, parents from schools, schools from the community, students from teachers, and education from propaganda.

I quote the entirety of the post from Texas Freedom Network’s Insider blog, below, to explain:

UPDATE: Click here to see video of the committee vote.

In a surprise meeting on the Senate floor, the Senate Nominations Committee in Austin has just approved the appointment of Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. It appears that McLeroy’s supporters plan to bring his confirmation to the full Senate early next week. Confirmation will require a two-thirds vote.

Committee Chairman Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, had said he would not bring up McLeroy’s confirmation for a vote in committee unless he thought there were enough votes to get it in the full Senate. We don’t know at this point whether opposition from nearly all Democrats and some Republicans has softened, but the signs are alarming.

If you haven’t done so already, it’s critical that you contact your senator and tell him or her that you oppose McLeroy’s confirmation. You can find the name and contact information for your senator here.

Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller has released the following statement:

“If the Texas Senate genuinely cares about quality public education, they will reject as state board chairman a man who apparently agrees that parents who want to teach their kids about evolution are monsters. And we’ll see whether senators really want a chairman who presides over a board that is so focused on ‘culture war’ battles that it has made Texas look like an educational backwater to the rest of the country.”

Gov. Perry appointed McLeroy board chairman in July 2007. Since then, the board has turned debates over language arts and science curriculum standards in “culture war” battlegrounds. Chairman McLeroy has also endorsed a book that says parents who want to teach children about evolution are “monsters” and calls clergy who see no conflict between faith and science “morons.” This spring McLeroy led other creationists on the state board in adopting new science curriculum standards that call the scientific consensus on evolution into question and no longer include references to scientific estimates of the age of the universe.

Evolution 2009, in Kearney, Nebraska

Evolution 2009 kicks off Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at the University of Nebraska atKearney.

In honor of Darwin’s birth bicentennial and the sesquicentennial of his most famous work, the program is dedicated to evolution in different fields of biology.

High school instructors can get in for $75.  World class scientists like Jack Horner, Brad Davidson, Shannon Williamson and Randy Moore will present — along with world class evolution and legal evidence expert, Nick Matzke.

The main hotel will be the Ramada Inn in Kearney, where I spent a cold, snowy night in November 1979 after a kindly truck driver from Consolidated Freightways rescued me from certain hypothermia a few miles out of town, where my car had spun into nearly six feet of snow.

Now, can I find some excuse to get to the conference?

I predict:  For the 21st consecutive year since the field of intelligent design was proposed, there will be no new research supporting intelligent design, even in the poster sessions.  This is a science conference, and intelligent design supporters will quietly boycott the entire affair.

A different view of the California creationism in the classroom decision

Wired takes a different view of the California case in which an AP history teacher was found to have violated a student’s rights with comments about creationists — at least, different from the view I’ve articulated here.  It’s worth a look — and it shows that this case needs to be evaluated more carefully and closely.  Alexis Madrigal wrote at Wired’s website:

The teacher got into hot water because the creationism statement came outside the context of his AP European History class. In making the statement during a discussion of another teacher’s views on evolution, the court could not find any “legitimate secular purpose in [the] statement.”

However, Judge Selna found a second statement that Corbett made about creationism did not violate the student’s First Amendment rights, although it’s an equally pointed critique.

“Contrast that with creationists,” Corbett told his class. “They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”

That statement was OK because it came in the context of a discussion of the history of ideas and religion. Thus, its primary purpose wasn’t just to express “affirmative disapproval” of religion, but rather to make the point that “generally accepted scientific principles do not logically lead to the theory of creationism.” One might expect that if creationism came up in the context of evolutionary biology, it would be similarly OK to say, “Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”

The nuanced decision prompted the judge to append an afterword. Selna explains his thinking a basic right is at issue, namely, “to be free of a government that directly expresses approval of religion.” Just as the government shouldn’t promote religion, he writes, the government shouldn’t actively disapprove of religion either.

It seems to me, still, that the instructor was well within legal bounds.  For example, we would not ask a biology instructor to pay deference to the Christian Science view that disease is caused by falling away from God (sin), and not by germs, and consequently that prayer is effective therapy.  As a pragmatic matter, Christian Scientists don’t demand that everybody else bow to their view; but in a legal suit, the evidence of Pasteur’s work and subsequent work on how microbes cause disease would trump any claim that Pasteur was “not religiously neutral.”

We still await word on whether the district and teacher will appeal the decision.

California federal judge throws pie in face of the First Amendment

I’ve gotta think about this case some more, but it’s not a good decision.

1. From my view as an Advanced Placement teacher, and as a teacher of history, the judge is contradicting Settle v. Dickson in saying, essentially, the student may claim religious exemption to get out of doing the hard work of thinking.
2. The judge’s ruling might fairly be said to call into question the entire issue of giving harder-studying high school kids college-level classes, if the serious issues in those classes may not be discussed.
3. Claiming that creationism is the root of Christianity is rather dictating Christian beliefs to Christians, and in this case, offensive and incorrect beliefs (most Christian sects do not favor creationism, and only a minority of Christians hold such views, generally contrary to their sect’s theology).  Can judges order people to believe something?  Can a judge dictate to the many sects of Christianity one false and crazy thing they all must include in their creeds?

The case is C.F. vs. Capistrano United School District et. al. [Dr. James C. Corbett]. The Orange County Register has a story and links to the case decision, with the headline “High School Teacher found guilty of insulting Christians.”

The headline is troubling because it was a civil suit — no “guilty” verdict could be rendered under the law.  But with a wacky decision like this, the reporter and copy desk must have been quite discombobulated, enough to let such a bizarre headline sneak by.

Will students flock to our AP classes now, hoping to be able to get out of the work by saying history offends their religion?  Ooooh, we could hope!

It’s a very, very strange decision, insulting to scholars, academicians, historians and Christians.  Go read it — what do you think?

Other resources:

• Hey, it’s an Orange County, California, newspaper — if you want high entertainment, check out the comments to the article (low information-to-rant quotient, though)
• Earlier articles from The Orange County Register, here, here, here, here, and here
• At Pharyngula, Dr. Myers notes the silliness of the decision, and dares the plaintiff to sue him
• View from The Sandwalk
• A lawyer’s take at Thoughts in a Haystack