Dear Arizona Residents: Vote For Jonathan Gelbart

AZ Central is reporting that of the five GOP candidates running for superintendent of schools, four of them support the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in public schools.  Ricardo Cano writes:

Jonathan Gelbart was the sole Republican candidate who opposed teaching students creationism and intelligent design. He is joined by Democrats Kathy Hoffman and David Schapira.

The four others — Bob Branch, Frank Riggs, Tracy Livingston and incumbent Diane Douglas — each said they believed students should be taught those topics in some capacity.

The state will likely decide on new science standards later this year.

Republican candidates were asked by moderator and Republic reporter Richard Ruelas whether they were in favor of teaching accepted science, including climate change and evolution.

The question morphed into a broader discussion over the teachings of creationism and intelligent design in Arizona public schools.

Gelbart, 29, a former director of charter development for BASIS.ed, touted that he is the only Republican candidate to say that he "absolutely (does) not support" including the teachings of creationism and intelligent design as part of the science standards they are required to learn.

"It's not science," Gelbart said.

Branch, 60, a professor and Maricopa County Parks and Recreation commissioner, is running on a pro-President Trump platform, emphasizing Christian conservative values.

His stance contrasted Gelbart's.

“I believe in intelligent design — I don’t believe it’s mutually exclusive from evolution," Branch said. "I believe that there is a science behind intelligent design, so where Mr. Gelbart said science should be left to science, I believe in the science of intelligent design.”

And therein lies the problem. You don't “believe” in any part of science. I doubt seriously that most of these GOP candidates, if asked what the basic tenets of biological evolution are, would be able to respond coherently.Other candidates speak of teaching "both sides" and "strengths and weaknesses" as though there are two sides.  In 150 years, no one has been able to promote a competing theory to biological evolution. All attempts to do so have failed and detractors are reduced to trying to find holes in the theory.  As I have written before, all candidates for school boards should have to pass a test in basic science literacy.  Rarely do I think that a federal solution is the answer but sometimes I wonder about this.   

Arizona: More Whack-a-Mole

Now, Arizona educators are considering watering down the definition of evolution in the state curriculum guidelines.  AP has the story:

The Arizona Department of Education is considering changes to school science standards, including instances when it may remove or alter references to evolution. The state’s superintendent of public instruction said the proposed changes reflect that parts of evolution are only theory.

The department has replaced some references to evolution with words like “biological diversity” or added qualifiers to the word, according to a draft of the proposed changes.

The standards focus on core science and engineering ideas that teachers then use to form curriculum for public school districts and charter schools, according to the department.

“Biological diversity” is not evolution. It is biological diversity. Evolution is descent with modification from a common ancestor. By redefining evolution this way the good folks at the Arizona Department of Education demonstrate that they have no idea what biological evolution actually is.  The article continues:

“What we know is true and what we believe might be true but is not proven and that’s the reality,” Douglas said. “Evolution has been an ongoing debate for almost 100 years now. There is science to back up parts of it, but not all of it.”

Which parts, exactly? If you cannot even define it correctly, why should we accept that you know which parts cannot be backed up?  More bureaucrats sticking their noses in where they don't belong.  Hopefully this will not come to pass. 

The Slander of “Darwinism”

Kenneth Miller has written yet another extraordinary essay, this one on the nature of the term “Darwinism” and how it is pejoratively used by those insistent on trashing evolutionary theory.  He writes:

He could have just said he didn’t believe in evolution, or that evolution had flaws. Or, he could have said that a book with a whole unit on evolution was just too much. But William Buckingham, of the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania, didn’t use the “E” word when he explained his objections to the biology textbook selected by the science teachers at Dover High School. Instead, he invoked a term that didn’t even appear in that textbook. Prentice Hall’s Biology: The Living Science, he claimed, “was laced with Darwinism from beginning to end.” Surely, he must have thought, “Darwinism” was a disqualifying slander that everyone could understand.

Buckingham, who was singled out for special re-probation by Judge Jones at the end of the trial, was at once ignorant and pejorative.  He was ignorant in that Darwin was not the only one to develop the idea of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace being the other one. He meant to be pejorative (in the same way that all of the Discovery Institute writers intend) because he knew that the term “Darwinism” carries with it the baggage of animus and atheism.As Miller notes, when an entire branch of science is referred to by its founder's name, then it takes on the air of an ideology, rather than a legitimate field of study.  The ideology can then be characterized as agenda-driven, attempting to tear out the heart of morality and decency.  None of this, of course, is true but the perception is rampant.  Miller also points out something of which I hadn't thought:

The overuse of Darwin’s own name facilitates another line of attack, by pretending that the field relies entirely on Darwin’s own work, fashioned in an age before the modern sciences of genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology emerged to confirm and expand his ideas. This allows the pretense that evolution is a stolid, unchanging field, with few new ideas that might refresh its 19th century heritage. Any scientist would scoff at this, of course, knowing the vigor that new discoveries constantly infuse into evolutionary biology. But to laypeople, unfamiliar with the rapid pace of scientific discovery, this can be a persuasive argument.

This would be no different from referring to modern physics as “Newtonism”  despite the vast advances that have been made since Newton's time.  Miller laments that these perceptions are hard to fight against because they appeal to emotions rather than empirical thought. Further, there are those of the atheist perspective who argue that, as humans, we are no better or special than any other species on the planet.   For this, though, he has an answer:

We are the children of evolution in every sense, part of Darwin’s fabled “tangled bank.” We must never forget that. But we must also remember that we are the only creatures to emerge from that thicket and make sense of it all. “Darwinism” does not diminish us. Rather, it puts the human experiment into a truly scientific perspective. We are not just hairless bipedal primates. We are creatures capable of the fugues of Bach, the verses of Yeats, the stories of Twain, the creations of Dalí and, for that matter, the mathematics of Gödel, Ramanujan and Turing.

In contemplating the lessons of evolution for our species and our culture, this is how we should overcome the mindless use of “Darwinism” as a slur. Some may feel demeaned by our evolutionary heritage, but I would argue that the more appropriate emotions are joy and delight. Joy that we are approaching a genuine understanding of the world in which we live, and delight at being the very first stirrings of true consciousness in the vastness of the cosmos. Far from diminishing us, knowing the details of Adam’s journey ennobles each of us as a carrier of something truly precious—the genetic, biological, and cultural heritage of life itself. Evolution describes not the death of Adam, but his triumph. That is the great truth of our story.

Masterful.

Kent Hovind is Baaaacccckkkkkk!

Hemant Mehta writes for Patheos that Kent Hovind is back in the news.  You kind of have to read through the vitriol a bit:

In 2009, the IRS took control of Dinosaur Adventure Land, Kent Hovind‘s Creationist theme park in Pensacola, Florida, so that they could sell it off and recover the money Hovind owed for committing tax fraud. (It was a sad day for, like, three people.) Hovind was sentenced to 10 years in prison and was eventually released in 2015.

While there were attempts by Hovind’s son to buy back the property, that never worked out and the park has officially been closed since 2009.

You know what that means.

Hoving [sic] has built another Dinosaur Adventure Land! This one is in Repton, Alabama, and the grand opening takes place this Saturday.

That is not really what got Mehta's attention, however. It was this:

In the bottom left hand corner  is an image of Jesus holding a velociraptor as if it were a cute, cuddly kitten.  In the video, he speaks of evolution as being dumb and evil and “if you fell for that lie, we are here to show you the truth.”  The accompanying video is difficult to watch, as it largely contains Hovind's peculiar interpretation of  the book of Revelation, which is even murky to scholars who have been studying it for centuries.  That doesn't stop Hovind. 

I was never sympathetic to the case that got him thrown in gaol for a few years, but it is clearly evident that prison has not dulled his enthusiasm or oddness. 

New Post by Dennis Venema on Biological Information

Dennis Venema has a new post on the testing of an hypothesis by supporters of ID:

In previous posts in this series, we’ve explored the claim made by the Intelligent Design (ID) movement that evolutionary mechanisms are not capable of generating the information-rich sequences in genes. One example that we have explored is nylonase – an enzyme that allows the bacteria that have it to digest the human-made chemical nylon, and use it as a food source. As we have seen, nylonase is a good example of a de novo gene – a gene that arose suddenly and came under natural selection because of its new and advantageous function. Since nylonase is a folded protein with a demonstrable function, it should be beyond the ability of evolution to produce, according to ID.

It goes downhill from there for ID.Experiments routinely show that new proteins that appear can, very often, have functions and be incorporated into the genome. Further, this, apparently, happens at all stages of gene replication, transcription and translation.  As Venema notes at the end:

The importance of these results for ID arguments is clear. By direct experimental test, new biological functions have been shown to be common, not rare, within random sequences - and that these functions may be found in either RNA transcripts or de novo protein products. By Gauger’s own measure, ID advocates have been shown to be wrong. Since this particular ID claim undergirds a large proportion of the ID argument that biological information cannot have arisen through evolution, the consequences for ID are significant.

Stephen Meyer and Douglas Axe have, in the words of the Discovery Institute: “made this strong claim:”

[T]he neo-Darwinian mechanism — with its reliance on a random mutational search to generate novel gene sequences — is not an adequate mechanism to produce the information necessary for even a single new protein fold, let alone a novel animal form, in available evolutionary deep time.

From these experiments, we now know this to be completely wrong.

Texas...Again!

This is a follow-up post to another one on March 21.  Hot on the heels of the Texas State Board of Education striking language in the state science standards that would require teachers to “evaluate” scientific theories as they teach them, comes another bill that is an attempt to allow teachers to do exactly that. The Texas Observer has this to say:

Representative Valoree Swanson, R-Spring [natch!], is making a case for why her bill protecting the “academic freedom” of public school teachers wouldn’t amount to an unconstitutional teaching of religion in classrooms.

House Bill 1485 would “free our teachers to where they don’t live in fear of frivolous accusations” and give teachers the ability to criticize scientific theories, she told members of the House Public Education Committee Tuesday evening. Among the theories that teachers would be able to question in elementary, middle school and high school classrooms? Climate change.

Of course she doesn't stop at climate change:

But under Swanson’s bill, public schools are encouraged to create an environment where students can consider “differences of opinion about scientific subjects” and “assist” teachers in teaching subjects that may cause controversy. The bill lists climate change, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life and human cloning as examples of such controversial subjects.

The bill also prohibits school administrators and the State Board of Education from blocking teachers who are helping students “understand, analyze, critique and review” the “scientific strengths and weaknesses” of science subjects.

How is that climate change, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life and human cloning are always the “examples?”  How do you create this kind of environment with “differences of opinion about scientific subjects” without evaluating them?   My experience is that most high school teachers are not equipped to evaluate these subjects because they do not work in these fields.  That is why the language to do so was stripped from the original wording.  The study of the biochemical origins of life is extremely technical, with a  considerable amount of mathematics and, as with all of these subjects, requires considerable time and education to master. 

Nothing good can come from this.  

Petition: Mike Pence Should Ban the Teaching of Evolution

Patheos is pointing to a petition that is being circulated to have incoming vice-President Mike Pence make the teaching of evolution illegal.  Here is part of the petition:

We the undersigned note that, when you were a member of the U.S House of Representatives, you spoke out on the subject of science education and for presenting students with all available information. Recently, we have seen the passage of academic freedom bills in Louisiana and Tennessee which have allowed for critical evaluation in the classroom and improved educational standards. However, whilst an important development, they were only enacted owing to the need to protect students from indoctrination. We object to the teaching of the very controversial theory of evolution as part of the K-12 science curriculum which we regard to be unnecessary and unhelpful.

It is obvious to us that Evolutionism-Darwinism is an anti-Christian atheistic dogma masquerading as science. According to renown philosopher of science, Professor Michael Ruse, himself an ardent evolutionist, there is no doubt that the theory of evolution represents a philosophical worldview: “Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity.”

Aside from the fact that when examined, it turns out that Dr. Ruse has an extraordinarily peculiar view of Christianity and the relationship between what Jesus taught and what Paul taught, there is no sound basis for the idea that evolution is a religion.  If it were, organizations like BioLogos would not exist.   BioLogos seeks to understand the workings of the natural world within the context of a God-created universe.  Ruse is projecting his atheism onto his understanding of evolution.  Because some evolutionary biologists are not Christians does not make it impossible (or improbable) for a Christian to be one.

Onward.  The writers of the petition use three examples of recent research to attempt to bolster their case.  The first one is The Demise of the Genetic Blueprint.  They write:

Two researchers, Monteiro and Podlaha, admit that,“the genetic origin of new and complex traits is probably still one of the most pertinent and fundamental unanswered questions in evolution today.” Harvard professor, Peter Park, goes even further to proclaim that,“it's become very clear that DNA sequences are just a building block. They don’t explain higher-order complexity.” Obviously, if organisms are more than just the epiphenomena of their genes, then the gene-centric Neo-Darwinian paradigm cannot at all explain the diversity of form and so fails utterly.

The problem with the first quote is that it is used entirely out of context. Here is an un-quoted part of the abstract:

In the last two decades we have learned that novel traits appear to be built using old genes wired in novel ways [5], but it is still a mystery whether these novel traits evolve when genes are rewired de novo, one at a time, into new developmental networks, or whether clusters of pre-wired genes are co-opted into the development of the new trait. The speed of evolution of novel complex traits is likely to depend greatly on which of these two mechanisms underlies their origin. It is important, thus, to understand how novel complex traits evolve.

These writers have, in no way, undermined the theory of evolution, they have simply highlighted some areas in which our understanding of the processes are unclear.  This is classic young-earth creationist quote-mining.  The Nature paper, of which Dr. Park is an author, is highly technical and deals with how genomic sequences are regulated.  It does, in no way, cast a negative light on evolution as a process, however.  Once again, the question is simply by which path do complex traits evolve, whether by means of accumulated change or in larger steps (no I am not invoking Goldschmidt).

Example number one shot down.  The second one is The Demise of Cumulative Selectionism.  The petitioners write:

The core premise of Darwin's theory of evolution is that biological features have been produced by the cumulative selection of innumerable slight successive modifications. But as renown biologist Dr. Michael Denton has noted, the theory of evolution has been in crisis for the past 30 years because of the abject failure to show that there is a functional continuum in biology that allows for a gradual change leading to complex new features. In his view,“Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth.”

Here the authors have reached way into the past to grab a book that was written in 1986—an eternity in scientific terms—as their go-to source. Interestingly Denton updated the book much more recently, and retitled it Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis.  Sy Garte reviewed this book and writes this:

Denton describes his own worldview throughout the book as “structuralism”, which is all about the form that matter (including biological matter) takes. This contrasts with “functionalism” (the basis of Darwinism), which is about how things work, including adaptation. His hero is Richard Owen, a pre-Darwin naturalist who wrote extensively on the concept of natural law as the basis for biological forms. Denton takes the pre-Darwinian 19th-century concept of Types—clades, such as vertebrates and mammals—as his central theme. According to Denton (and Owen), Types are the manifestation of built-in biological laws; and what distinguishes them are structural homologs that cannot be explained by either slow, progressive steps (the gradualism of classical Darwinism) or purely adaptationist natural selection. This philosophical view fits well with the standard anti-evolution paradigm of Intelligent Design.

This approach is almost diametrically opposed to the modern practice of systematics, in which the focus of evolutionary development is on traits, not whole organisms.Using Owen's blueprint, transitional forms are, indeed, rare and macroevolutionary changes cannot be readily explained.  Once the focus is shifted to traits, however, then one can see how certain traits emerge, change and disappear in the fossil record and taxonomic relationships can much more easily be delineated.

With regards to this petition, however, damningly, Denton clearly writes that evolution has happened and that there is universal common ancestry for all life forms.  According to Garte, he mentions Intelligent design exactly once in the book.

Example number two shot down.  On to number three.  This one is the Demise of the Last Universal Common Ancestor:

The Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) is the hypothetical organism, that lived 4 billion years ago, for which there is no actual physical evidence of at all. It is only inferred because all life shares essentially the same genetic code. Recent scientific research indicates there is no reason to believe that it ever existed. As Professor Ford Doolittle states, “We do doubt that there ever was a single universal common ancestor.” Indeed, the idea that all living organisms are descended from a single ancestor is as preposterous as the discredited hypothesis that all human languages are descended from a prototypical tongue.

Once again, the writers of the petition have not done even the most rudimentary research into the position of the paper that they quote. Lets look at the abstract of the paper:

If the tree of life (TOL) was the thesis and the web of life (WOL) its antithesis, then we are now in the period of disciplinary synthesis. A more realistic (less idealistic and dogmatic) microbial systematics and evolutionary theory will inevitably emerge. WOL advocates (WOLers) will be unable to claim total victory, however, and TOLers will be tempted to redefine what it was they were defending in order to avoid the appearance of defeat (e.g. Galtier & Daubin 2008). Preferable to this, epistemologically and ontologically, would be the adoption of a pluralist perspective, from which this controversy can be seen as but a stage in the development of a more powerful and general reading of Darwin's theory.

A more powerful and general reading of Darwin's theory. That does not sound like anti-evolutionary writing to me. Doolitle, further, writes: “I will propose a more general and relaxed evolutionary theory and point out why anti-evolutionists should take no comfort from disproof of the TOL hypothesis.”

Example number three shot down.  So what we have here is a petition to have the theory of evolution banned by an organization that uses examples from the literature in which the theory of evolution is universally supported.  This does not sound like a winning strategy to me. The salient feature of all of the quoted articles is that the theory of evolution is remarkably strong, explains a great amount of diversity in past and present life but that it is having growing pains and that new ideas are emerging that need to be examined in light of the traditional evolutionary synthesis.

This petition needs to be pitched into the circular file as yet another example of how  anti-evolutionists cannot even take the time to do basic research into what it is that they wish to ban.  No wonder nobody in the scientific world takes these people seriously.

Lawrence Krauss, Creationism and Child Abuse

Back from extended vacation.

Controversy has been swirling around physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was quoted as saying that teaching creationism to children is tantamount to child abuse.  Here is what he actually said:

“If you think about that, somehow saying that, well, anything goes, we shouldn’t offend religious beliefs by requiring kids to know – to understand reality; that’s child abuse,” he said. “And if you think about it, teaching kids – or allowing the notion that the earth is 6,000 years old to be promulgated in schools is like teaching kids that the distance across the United States is 17 feet. That’s how big an error it is.”

That was back in 2013. He has now defended that position, again.  Here is what he is saying today:

“Yeah, exactly, but it got some attention,” Krauss replied, “cus if I hadn’t [used that description] you wouldn’t have read the line.”

“But it’s true. I mean, there are different levels of child abuse,” Krauss added. “It’s like not allowing your children to have medicine, not allowing you children to be vaccinated, for example, is child abuse, because you are doing them harm.”

“In some sense, if you withhold information from your children because you would rather them not know what reality is really like, for fear that it is going to affect their beliefs, then you are doing them harm.”

The interview with Pickering ended with Krauss warning viewers that the universe was often counterintuitive.

“What science has taught us is that things that make sense to us may not be right. The universe doesn’t care what makes sense to you. That’s what’s wonderful. In fact, it causes us to open our eyes and change what we think is sensible.”

I don't think for a minute that teaching children creationism is child abuse, as much as simply misguided for two reasons. First, it does, in fact, teach them a false picture of the universe that is not backed up by any scientific knowledge that we have and, second, it leaves them woefully unprepared scientifically and spiritually for later in life when it is pointed out to them that they have been taught a cardboard version of the universe and of scripture.

More than one person has told me that they felt betrayed when they discovered that there was no support for what they had been taught.  The now-agnostic daughter of one of my friends pointedly told her mother, “I wish you had told me more about evolution.” The example of Glenn Morton should also be kept in mind.

But beyond this, Krauss' comments are irresponsible.  Neil Carter of Patheos points out why:

These are very poor analogies. In each of those parallel scenarios a parent possesses what the child needs (or at least knowingly has access to it) but chooses to withhold it from them for whatever reasons. That isn’t the case with teaching creationism because the parents who do that aren’t really aware that alternative explanations of the origins of the universe are legitimate. Surely Dr. Krauss knows these parents aren’t merely pretending to believe the stuff they’re teaching their kids. They really believe this stuff, as illogical as it sounds...Second, Krauss butchers the word “abuse” by diluting its meaning and applying it to situations which are nowhere near as traumatic or extreme as that word denotes. When a parent beats a child, giving her cuts and bruises, that’s physical abuse. When a parent screams at her child, calling her names and tearing her down psychologically, that’s emotional abuse. When parents withhold material provisions their children need like food, water, or shelter, or they put them in physical danger, that’s child abuse.

This is similar to the arguments made by Richard Dawkins that got him in hot water a few years back. Krauss is fueled by his hatred for creationism and what he does not seem to understand is that the effect  he will have on people who do accept creationism is that they will think him to (rightly) be judgmental and condescending and they will simply dig in their heels. After all, that is how I react when I hear people say that Christianity is a fairy tale believed by idiots.

Krauss has not done the scientific world any favors.

Is Science Class the Best Place to Expose Creationism?

In a follow-up editorial to the goings on involving Arroyo Grande Technical School's Brandon Pettenger and his attempts to inject at least some degree of young earth creationism into the science curriculum, Joe Tarica opines that, perhaps, science class is the best place to bring up young earth creationism:

We can examine the bones of dinosaurs and early human ancestors to prove the two never walked the Earth together, despite what the Creation Museum claims.

We could explore just why it would be obviously impossible for Noah to get two of every creature into an ark to avoid the great flood. He was in the Middle East, for crying out loud. How would he get his hands on polar bears, penguins and all the many other species of animals that live in unique habitats half a world away?

We can study astronomy, light and matter to understand the formation of the universe, which most certainly did not occur a mere 6,000 years ago.

A huge assumption is being made here: that the science teachers that bring up creationism will actually honestly address the science. As we have seen in a number of instances all over the country, not all science teachers do this. In fact, the reason this ruckus started in the first place is that there is evidence that Pettenger didn't. if Pettenger favorably brought up a blog like Answers in Genesis (none of the stories mention which blogs he asked his students to summarize) then the train has already left the tracks.  Further, he wouldn't be alone.

A poll that was done some years back revealed that 29% of special science teachers in England who were polled approved of the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.  A similar poll done in the United States, in 2011, showed that 13% of high school biology teachers who responded “explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending at least one hour of class time presenting it in a positive light” and that only 28% of high school biology teachers actually followed NRC guidelines on teaching of evolution because it is so controversial.  If you opened the door to the examination of creationism in science class, how would you control for these things?  I think it would be very hard to do so.

Ars Technica Pulls The Mask Off the "Teach the Controversy" Bills

I have written this many times in this blog: the “Teach the Controversy” legislation being promoted in different statehouses across the country is really a decidedly concerted effort to keep evolution from being successfully taught. The Discovery Institute has continued to maintain that they have no wish to intrude upon the teaching of evolution in the public schools, but that is only partly true. They are quite interested in making sure that it is not the only view taught.  Some years back, the Discovery Institute started a website, academicfreedompetiton.org that gave an example/model of what an academic freedom bill should look like. It reads in part:

Existing law does not expressly provide a right nor does it expressly protect tenure and employment for a public school teacher or teacher at an institution of higher education for presenting scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution. In addition, students are not expressly provided a right to positions on views regarding biological and chemical evolution.

Here's the catch: there is no “full range of scientific views” about evolution. That is like asking to teach the full range of views about gravity. Evolutionary theory is so robust that there are no competitors. Catastrophism, inheritance of acquired characteristics, blending, all have gone into the dustbin of science.  Evolution has only become a stronger theory over time.  As creationist Todd Wood once wrote:

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.

That has not stopped the Discovery Institute. And now Scott Johnson of Ars Technica realizes that. He writes:

If you knew absolutely nothing about the bitter public debates over certain scientific issues in the US, the “teach the controversy” bills that keep surfacing would probably sound reasonable and unremarkable. These state bills, which are mostly identical, encourage science teachers to discuss the scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories. Duh, right?

But why are these bills mainly focused on protecting said science teachers from being shut down by their superiors? Why would that happen?

To understand, you need to see that this is just the latest in a very long line of attempts to undermine the teaching of certain scientific topics that the legislators don’t like, especially evolution and climate change. The aim of these bills is to provide cover for teachers who want to teach their students that evolution isn’t a scientific fact and that creationism (possibly stealthed within the supposedly non-sectarian label of “intelligent design”) is a viable scientific alternative.

The Discovery Institute, as the source for the modelers of these bills is way out in front of your average state legislator, who probably couldn't spot evolution on a map but is absolutely sure that it is “evil, wicked, mean and nasty.”As long as they have people of good faith who will carry their water, in the name of scientific integrity, then they can sit back and watch.  This strategy has only worked out in some cases.  Most of the bills of this nature get bogged down in committee or voted down.  As he points out, only Tennessee's bill has passed.  I am quite sure another strategy is on the horizon.  There are a number of different paths this can take.  I am also quite sure that the Discovery Institute will continue its subterfuge.  It has a long history of that. 

Response to The Ignorance of Blind Faith

A.J. Castellitto wrote a piece for the site American Clarion called The Ignorance of Blind Faith, in which he (she?) writes (in the best David Klinghoffer or Cornelius Hunter fashion) the following critique of “evolutionism”:

Ultimately, the overall problem with blind evolution both in process and acceptance is the non-skeptical adherence to a contrived, ideologically-based foundation. Especially since a sinless, godless form of evolution is arguably a building block of communism, apathy and moral decay.

For many, evolution is a cherished and heavily defended concept that resembles religious dogma. The main exception is that most of the radical aspects of evolution proposed by man preclude God. On the contrary, the consideration and inclusion of Intelligent Design theories provide healthy skepticism and rational thought beside the explanatory limits of unguided materialism.

True science should leave no lasting place for unsupported assumptions, unfounded speculations and insurmountable barriers. Not surprisingly, long ago evolution entered the realm of ‘scientism.’ This is why the funding continues to follow the agenda.

Here is how I responded on the site:

The concept of biological evolution is a lot like the concept of atomic energy. When it became possible to use atomic energy to develop nuclear power plants, with their attendant cheap power and radioactive waste, many people decried its use, claiming that it would poison the environment, lead to meltdowns that would jeopardize the health of millions and so on. When it became possible to create the nuclear-based weapons of mass destruction, people decried their existence and use as an existential threat and lobbied to get their use eradicated and to have them destroyed. These were no less than globally moral issues. Underneath it all, uncaring, disinterested, sat the reality of nuclear power. It existed. It was there. It wasn't going to go away.

Evolution is, objectively, one of the most well-documented, supported scientific theories in existence. It just is. I have studied biological evolution for over thirty years. Over 99% of the naturalists out there that actually study the data are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that it explains the present and past biodiversity of the planet. You might debate how it is used by those who would perpetrate abuse of their fellow humans. You might debate how it has affected the spiritual walks of the people who encounter it. You might debate how it has affected the globally moral questions we ask. But that won't make biological evolution go away. As humans, we need to ask how to answer those questions in light of evolution. Does it change them? If so, how?

An open question.

The Pope Has Spoken (and He Sounds Like the Last Couple of Popes)

Pope Francis has, according to CNN, taken a stand against creationism. Heidi Schlumpf writes:

Liberal American Catholics greet almost anything uttered by Pope Francis with glee, but his latest pronouncement has them scratching their heads. Headlines proclaiming "Pope says evolution, Big Bang are real" could have been written in 1950.

That's when Pope Pius XII announced that Catholic doctrine and evolution could be compatible, an attitude endorsed--and even expanded upon--by Pope John Paul II, who said evolution is "more than a hypothesis" and "effectively proven fact." Pope Francis is just following in those footsteps.

"God is not a divine being or a magician, but the creator who brought everything to life," the Pope said Monday in an address to a gathering on "Evolving Concepts of Nature," hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. "Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of things that evolve."

As Schlumpf notes, Benedict appeared to waffle some on evolution initially before concluding that, yes, it was a good, sound theory.  Not so with Francis.  While this is, not necessarily new news, that Francis is getting the position out into the open is a good thing and a needed counter to organizations like AiG.  

Missouri's ID Bill or keping misooree stupit

Here is the text of the Missouri Standard Science Act,  which was linked from a Missouri blog called Show Me Progress, who posted it under the title “keping misooree stupit.” As ID bills go, it is quite a bit more blatant than most. None of this “academic freedom” or “truths and weaknesses” nonsense. It gets right to the point:

(2) "Biological evolution", a theory of the origin of life and its ascent by naturalistic means. The first simple life was developed from basic elements and simple molecules through the mechanisms of random combinations, naturally occurring molecular structures, other naturalistic means, and millions of years. From the first simple life, all subsequent species developed through the mechanisms of random variation, mutation, natural selection, adaptation, segregation, other naturalistic means, and millions of years. The theory is illustrated by the evolutionary phylogenic tree. Theory philosophically demands only naturalistic causes and denies the operation of any intelligence, supernatural event, God or theistic figure in the initial or subsequent development of life;
(3) "Biological intelligent design", a hypothesis that the complex form and function observed in biological structures are the result of intelligence and, by inference, that the origin of biological life and the diversity of all original species on earth are the result of intelligence. Since the inception of each original species, genetic material has been lost, inherited, exchanged, mutated, and recombined to result in limited variation. Naturalistic mechanisms do not provide a means for making life from simple molecules or making sufficient new genetic material to cause ascent from microscopic organisms to large life forms. The hypothesis does not address the time or sequence of life's appearance on earth, time or formation of the fossil record, and time or method of species extinction. The hypothesis does not require the identity of intelligence responsible for earth's biology but requires any proposed identity of that intelligence to be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation. Concepts inherent within the hypothesis include:

(a) The origin of life on earth is inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no plausible mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic origin of the first independent living organism;

(b) All original species on earth are inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no significant mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic development of earth's species from microscopic organisms;

If you read between the lines, however, you can see the standard language in the whole ‘evolution cannot lead to increased information’ language. Credit the bill's organizers for reading their Dembski.  It is clear that the writers don't know the first thing about evolutionary theory but most of the organizers of bills like these aren't interested in learning about it in the first place.

The bill also reflects the usual bogus dichotomy between evolution and belief in God by defining evolution a priori as denying the role of God completely, as if, somehow, the backers know this. In one fell swoop, they also deny the validity of the evolutionary creation model, which makes one wonder if there are young earth creationist sympathies at work. 

It is difficult to see how this is going to fly in the legislature or if it does, how it would survive a constitutional challenge. It is almost as if the bill's promoters have never heard of Dover, Pennsylvania.  I would expect this to die in committee.