Texas wades into evolution debate at textbook hearing

[Judi Lynn]

Source: UPI

Texas wades into evolution debate at textbook hearing
Published: Sept. 18, 2013 at 4:23 PM

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Scientists reviewing biology textbooks urged Texas education officials not to use books questioning evolution lest the state become a "national embarrassment."

Religious conservatives have pressed the state to approve texts that water down evolutionary science and include references to creationism.

Texas, the nation's single largest textbook purchaser, has significant influence over the content textbook publishers use across the country. The debate over whether to include references to creationism as a scientific -- rather than religious -- alternative in explaining how humans came into being drew sharp rebukes from a panel of experts board members tapped to review the 14 potential biology books the state could approve, the Dallas Morning News said Tuesday.

Southern Methodist University anthropology Professor Ronald Wetherington was one of the panelists who reviewed the books and said teaching creationism as a rational counter-argument to Darwin's bedrock theory of evolution would be teaching children junk science.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/09/18/Texas-wades-into-evolution-debate-at-textbook-hearing/UPI-82541379535814/#ixzz2fITeJ8DI

[SylviaD]

1. The evolution "debate"???!!!

What debate?! The fact that the issue is framed that way means the forces of reason have already lost.

They have already been dragged down into the fundie whackjobs' territory. A territory where creationism and evolution are engaged in any sort of "debate".

This is how the radical right wins. Every time. They frame the wording and phrasing in such a way that the entire argument lurches several steps to the right!!!

How can we stop this?? We need to stop calmly engaging them in "debate" over things like evolution. There is no debate. It ended decades ago.

[ybbor]

4. Exactly!

There is no debate when one of the opinions has NO scientific basis whatsoever. As a science teacher, it amazes me when students, and even some colleagues, try to have this discussion. A book whose earliest history is based on an oral tradition attempting to explain the unexplainable is not a reputable source.

[elleng]

9. Yup, and they've been 'framing' successfully for years.

AND miseducating.

[Beartracks]

20. How can such a miseducated state still be the largest purchaser...

... of educational textbooks? Where have all those books gone over the years?

====================

[elleng]

22. Gone to schools in large, miseducated state

AND to schools in other states, unfortunately.

How can it still be the largest purchaser? Don't know the origins of this, but may relate to monopoly and interests of school book publishers.

[Summer Hathaway]

27. They're the largest purchaser

because they have to keep buying new textbooks to replace the old.

Just two years ago, they had to replace all of the geography books, because their maps depicted a flat earth - a scientific "fact" that was finally abandoned in Texas in 2011 - although a few adherents are known to still exist.

[kentauros]

42. One thing we can do is to DEMAND that the media

stop lazily using the word "debate" when it should be "fight." Tell your local newspaper, even if they're just getting AP/Reuters/whatever newsfeeds to change the headlines to reflect that it's a fight and not a debate.

Change how the news is reported, even if only in the headlines, and we start to gain back what we lost.

[rurallib]

2. I can't imagine they teach that crap in their regents universities

If they did it would render a degree from one of them to the value of toilet paper.
So why would they push it at any level of education?

[iemitsu]

26. The K-12 curriculum is not designed to educate as much as indoctrinate.

The goal is to mold good, docile citizens.
Colleges and universities, on the other hand, are designed to train manager class people or those, who will become bosses, depending on which institution one attends (unless, of course, that school is a Bible College, where one does not get exposed to academic rigor).
Different information for those in different social classes.
The only ones who might notice are among the few, who actually experience upward social mobility, and they're so glad, not to be where they were, that they aren't telling anyone.

[Posteritatis]

3. Yargh. Didn't Kitzmiller v. Dover settle the crap out of this eight years ago? (nt)

[immoderate]

5. Actually, Darwin settled it a good deal earlier...

But fundies never learn.

--imm

[warrant46]

10. Time for another Scopes trial

[sakabatou]

29. Yes

But they don't care.

[elleng]

6. Try INTERnational embarrassment!

[lastlib]

7. If creationism is a competing theory, it competes only in the minor leagues

...with astrology, alchemy and flat-earth geography. That sh!t has NO place in schools. We don't teach comic-books as an alternative to Shakespeare in Literature, so why do these idjits have to trivialize science??!?

. .

[hunter]

14. Comic books are high science compared to Creationism.

I'd accept many comic books as excellent representations of literature and story-telling.

Teaching Creationism is child abuse, plain and simple, the exact equivalent of teaching Astrology in an Astronomy class.

School biology textbooks are bad enough, I've not seen one where I didn't have to hold my nose and work around the stinky parts, same as school "history" textbooks.

And some ignorant shits-for-brains want to make them worse???

[lastlib]

18. I wholeheartedly agree.

This sh!t needs to be stopped, and these people need to be put down!

[iemitsu]

28. Yet, our government is requiring that we adopt "common core" standards

that will tie teaching more closely to the textbooks.
The methodology expected is much more about measuring teacher performance than about teaching kids.
I really expected Obama to dump the NCLB legislation of Bush but rather than dump it he has made it worse.

[dflprincess]

8. BECOME?

a "national embarrassment."

[blkmusclmachine]

11. Drip, drip, drip...

TX has been moving to the hard-right on school curriculum for a while now. But the theocrats won't be satisfied until the only "science" book is the King James Buy-bull.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. Yup, they're writing Labor movement out of existence, as well as climate change & some slavery. nt

[BlueJazz]

12. The idea that this topic is being discussed is an embarrassment in itself.

Religious Conservatives are like the extreme right-wing brother-in-law that you hope stays in his room when company comes.

[LongTomH]

13. There are sane people in Texas! Here are some of them:

There are from Zack Kopplin's Facebook page





Zack started his page for his fight against creationism in his native Louisiana. He continues the good fight!

[Beartracks]

21. Wait - why is there a Ninja Turtle there?

Is that his bodyguard?

========================

[Rain Mcloud]

15. Time for them to bring in the big guns

Kirk Cameron and Banana Man Ray Comfort!
Yo! Where is my Crocoduck,Kirk? More like a Crock O' Shit!

[Beartracks]

47. I always thought that banana thing was not thought out.

Sure, it could be argued that the banana was made to fit a human's hand. But if that's the case, I would expect every fruit and vegetable to be shaped the same way in order to facilitate its being eaten.



====================

[Rain Mcloud]

48. It just has to sound true

but the truth is that it fits a Chimpanzee hand better.
Truly the Chimp hand is a huge achievement of Evolution,our line of Primate benefited from larger brains and pelvic saddles to pass our wondrous noggins at birth.
A bonus left over from walking upright,the better to carry treats in hand for wooing potential sex partners.
Funny old world,isn't it?

[Vinnie From Indy]

16. So, will the Flintstones be part of the creationist teachings?

I weep for the children of Texas!

Cheers!

[LibertyLover]

39. "The Flintstones" is considered

to be a documentary in certain parts of the US.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

17. Huh.

Somewhere along the line, much of our culture seems to have become detached from reality. There is an actual real world out there, which doesn't vary somehow according to what our beliefs or stances may be. Science is not a body of beliefs, to compete with religion for adherents. Science is a process, a methodology, a toolkit for testing the world around us to determine what is real, or at least what actually works. Those facts and figures we learned in the classroom didn't derive their value from tradition or because they were handed to us as received wisdom by some authority figure. The value of the body of scientific knowledge is that it is the information which has been tested via the methods of science and has found to be as valid, as accurately descriptive of the real world, as our tests could make it.

I don't understand why that point is so rarely raised in coverage of the topic of creationism in science classrooms. Science is a process. Creationists can call it whatever they want, but their models to the explain our world have no scientific value until and unless they follow the methods of science. The whole topic should only ever be in science class as an example of why an idea simply isn't scientific. They don't have a competing theory. There is no science there. We become an "international embarrassment" and a "historical embarrassment" if we let morons like this pass off their nonsense as science.

Grumble. Dr. Neil degrasse Tyson has some worthwhile things to say about this. He's much smarter and more level-headed than I am, and he expresses it much better.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

32. Separation of

(on edit: typing out text for search engines and visually impaired, emphasis added)



"People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson, 2006.

[beerandjesus]

44. +1

AWESOME quote!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

46. The good thing about science ...

"The good thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it." Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[another_liberal]

19. God did it . . .

It's going to be one rather short science text book if it only contains the one sentence: "God did it."

[Skittles]

23. Texas is so f***ing embarassing

[ErikJ]

24. Creationism magic beard man.

[DallasNE]

25. If A Republican Says It, It Is Junk

Another way of saying if a Republican's lips are moving, he is lying.

"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun". Shooters first victim apparently was at the Navy Yard security station where the armed guard was killed and the shooter took the guards pistol, meaning that having an armed guard only increased the weapons the shooter had at his disposal to kill innocent victims.

Predictable and predicted.

And you have to stand up to these idiots no matter how loudly they shout. Junk is junk.

[sakabatou]

30. I wonder if Aron Ra will speak

[callous taoboy]

33. Texas teacher here. I will double down on my efforts

to educate my students about this cornerstone of biology called evolution, even if the creationists don't get their way.

[kentauros]

40. Thank you!

Fellow Texan here, and I still can't figure out how these people keep getting elected, or worse, how people can think they make the best candidates. I was brought up in Texas schools, and Creationism was never in the textbooks. So much has changed since the 1970s (thanks to Ronnie Raygun, unfortunately.)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

34. Think of the kids!

Caption reads "I don't understand evolution and I have to protect my kids from understanding it".

[Enthusiast]

35. Someone on DU posted this the other day.

I thought it was well done.

[Sunlei]

36. The States education funds are stolen from children and used to fund endless 'text book hearings'

Federal funds for education should not be allowed to be used in this way.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

37. The Dominionists and others of the religious right have politicized basic education. nt

[Sunlei]

38. yes. and no Federal or State taxpayer education funds should be used. let the RW groups fund all.

The religious right wants to 'fight to change text books'...they should pay for everything.

[gtar100]

41. Religious conservatives are a national embarrassment.

And they have made Texas a national embarrassment. Such is the fruit of their labor. But to be fair to Texas, they have that effect wherever they're found.

[Beacool]

43. Why should textbook publishers have to cater to a wacko group?

I went to a Catholic school and have worshiped in Catholic churches as well as now attending a Lutheran church. I have also been to services in various churches of other denominations. I have never heard mainstream churches denying the theory of evolution.

Why are these publishers even listening to religious extremists?

[happyslug]

45. Even in the Scopes Trial, this position was NOT taken

In fact the book in question TAUGHT evolution and had Darwin's photo on its front cover. The Issue in the Scopes trial was teaching of Human Evolution and that ban came about do to the push for Social Darwinism among our Social Elite, that most Americans at that time opposed (Americans opposed the concept that the poor should die out so the more fit rich can survive).

http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/tennesse.html

Teaching of evolution was permitted under the Statute (The Actual Statute in question in the Scope's Trial):

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, [u}to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/tenness4.html

I know it is a technical difference, but it shows that even Bryan accepted the theory of Evolution (Bryan had problems with it, but he understood it for he had read Darwin's book on it and had written comments on the book and the Theory). Bryan's objections was if the teaching of evolution was extended to humans in the Public Schools, it would be advocating the concept of Social Darwinism, and it was Social Darwinism that Bryan opposed much more then Evolution.

William Jennings Bryan was a well read man, he was familiar with the theory of evolution (and willing to leave it be taught as theory, and may be the only theory taught, but NOT as fact for under the rules of logic it can NOT be called a fact, which is the case involving most scientific theories). Bryan even mention the Theory of Relativity when he was testifying (a reference that seems to have gone over Darrow's head when it was made for it upset the line of questioning Darrow was doing).

My point is this hard attitude to the teaching of evolution is relatively recent. No one had a real objections to Evolution till the 1970s (Some people did, but they were rare till the 1970s, most objections to teaching evolution died when Eugenics was rejected at the end of WWII for Eugenics was one of the Justification the Nazis used for the Holocaust). In the 1960s the US Supreme Court ruled law like the Butler act involved in were unconstitutional

Side note: The US Supreme Court Court had to go through some loops to get to the issue of ruling the Butler Act and similar Acts unconstitutional. Had these acts said no teaching of evolution, that would have been easy, that would have been a clear violation of the First Amendment. The Act instead says No one, whose pay is from tax dollars, can teach evolution of man as part of their job paid with state funds (They could teach it in their own, on their own property, but not on state funded property or during the time period they were being paid by the State). That was a hurtle, and why it took till the 1960s for the court to strike down these laws.

The Wording of these laws go to the issue of who pays for what. Under our system of Government the power of the purse is reserved to the Legislative branch of Government. Thus if that branch does NOT want to fund something, how can the Court rule it must? i.e. if a State Legislature says no state funds will go to paving of roads, how can the court order the STATE to pay for such paving?

The same with the teaching evolution, how can a court ORDER the State to pay for teaching something the State does not want taught? Notice the issue then is NOT evolution but separation of powers AND the power of the purse. When it comes to the power of the Purse, The Court has a hard problem, the power of the purse is in the exclusive hands of the Legislative branch of Government NOT the Courts. People get upset when the Court rules on this concept i.e. this is a power of the purse and thus the how the money is spent is up to the legislative branch. The Court will sometime violate this principal and rule a spending (or lack of spending) is unconstitutional, but in such cases the court is more comfortable forbidding spending then requiring spending.

Just a heads up on how the Courts can rule on this issue. They may just rule this is a legislative area of government activity and thus the courts have no say in how the state spends its money.