Davis Young on Flood Geology

In 1995, Davis Young wrote a book titled The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence. He has adapted it to a somewhat lengthy but captivating essay titled History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth. Davis once upon a time wrote the truly excellent Christianity and the Age of the Earth, which tackled most of the young earth arguments. Here, he traces the history of the literal acceptance of the Genesis flood story and how that perspective was eventually dismissed by geologists of the nineteenth century only to be taken up again by non-geologists in the twentieth century.

It is often instructive to see how great minds wrestled with the demise of time-honored beliefs in the face of an avalanche of evidence to the contrary. This is what makes the current wave of flood geology all the more inexplicable. The evidence against a world-wide flood has just gotten better, not worse over time. As young notes:

The issue for flood geologists is not whether extrabiblical evidence is relevant to biblical interpretation but rather how to interpret that evidence. Having already employed, without benefit of external evidence, a hermeneutic that demands a literal interpretation of the Bible, flood geologists are prepared to do anything but accept the mainstream scientific evidence that flatly refutes their claims that the earth is geologically young and that a global deluge deposited the fossiliferous strata. They have thus been forced either to appeal to miracles or to construct elaborate theories that manipulate the extrabiblical data to fit their view of what must be true.

As Henry Morris wrote:"The only Bible-honoring conclusion is, of course, that Genesis 1-11 is actual historical truth, regardless of any scientific or chronological problems thereby entailed." [Henry Morris, Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth] This philosophy was also played out in the RATE project where the results were overseen to make sure they corresponded to a "scriptural" understanding of prehistory. He writes this in his conclusion:

Some Christians delight in contrasting the infallible Word of God (that is to say, the Word of God infallibly interpreted by them) with the fallible ideas of sinful human beings and on that basis reject scientific conclusions they do not like. Scripture does oppose purely human philosophies, human pride, and human sin. But does the Bible oppose everything human? Science is a human endeavor that requires the input of fallible humans, but that hardly means that it is anti-Christian, and it certainly does not prevent Christians from accepting and using the results of science. Even the most doctrinaire advocates of a literal reading of Genesis 1-11 are selective in their objections to the findings of the scientific community.

How many of them deny that the earth orbits the sun rather than the other way around, for example? How many object to the science that made high-tech electronics, manned missions to the moon, or modern drugs possible? When so many scientists of such a diverse array of worldviews are able to achieve a virtual consensus regarding a given body of evidence, we had better pay attention. When for the past two centuries thousands of geologists from around the world, including numerous Bible-believing Christians, insist from a lifetime of experience in looking at fossiliferous rocks that those rocks are extremely old and had nothing to do with a global deluge, then the church must listen. Commentators who dismiss or disparage that body of geological knowledge solely on the grounds of their commitment to a principle of interpretation might do well to question their commitment to truth in a larger sense. Is it likely that they will arrive at a sound understanding of what God is saying in the biblical text if they reject a sound understanding of what God is saying in the created order? The extrabiblical data pertaining to the flood have been pushing the evangelical church to develop a better approach to the flood story and indeed to all the early chapters of Genesis.

And yet they continue to peddle the same old myths. Read the whole thing.

Jerry Coyne Responds

University of Chicago's Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True has some things to say about the Texas controversy and the new standards. As is usual, he is a bit over the top but truthful, nonetheless:

What happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas. That state is a sizeable consumer of public school textbooks, and it's likely that if it waters down its science standards, textbook publishers all over the country will follow suit. This makes every American school hostage to the caprices of a few benighted Texas legislators.

What's next? Since there are many who deny the Holocaust, can we expect legislation requiring history classes to discuss the "strengths and weaknesses" of the idea that Nazis persecuted Jews? Should we teach our children astrology in their psychology classes as an alternative theory of human behaviour? And, given the number of shamans in the world, shouldn't their views be represented in medical schools?

Methinks that this is not quite the problem that he sees, but it would be interesting to see if some teacher taught holocaust denial as a legitimate position and then defended it as "critical evaluation of a theory." That would certainly cause a rethink of the standards, although probably not the ones involving science. He is correct about the pervasive nature of the Texas textbook scene, which means that we should take his warnings perhaps more seriously than I am.

Don McLeroy Speaks Out

Don McLeroy wrote an editorial for the Austin American-Statesman that appeared on March 25 and which I missed when it came out. It is clear that he continues to attempt to understand little about evolution. For example, he writes:

Stephen Jay Gould stated: "The great majority of species do not show any appreciable evolutionary change at all. [This is called 'stasis.'] These species appear ... without obvious ancestors in the underlying beds, are stable once established and disappear higher up without leaving any descendants."

"...but stasis is data...

Once we have our observations, we can make a hypothesis. The controversial evolution hypothesis is that all life is descended from a common ancestor by unguided natural processes. How well does this hypothesis explain the data? A new curriculum standard asks Texas students to look into this question. It states: "The student is expected to analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record." It should not raise any objections from those who say evolution has no weaknesses; they claim it is unquestionably true.

And the standard is not religious but does raise a problem for the evolution hypothesis in that stasis is the opposite of evolution, and "stasis is data."

Gould's actual quote is this:

"The paleontological literature, particularly in the 'summing up' articles of dedicated specialists, abounds in testimony for predominant stasis, often viewed as surprising, anomalous, or even a bit embarrassing, because such experts had been trained to expect gradualism, particularly as the reward of diligent study. To choose some examples in just three prominent fossil groups representing the full span of conventional 'complexity' in the invertebrate record, most microorganisms seem to show predominant stasis - despite the excellent documentation of a few 'best cases' of gradualism in Cenozoic planktonic Foraminifera (see pp. 803-810). For example, MacGillavry (1968, p. 70) wrote from long practical experience: "During my work as an oil paleontologist, I had the opportunity to study sections meeting these rigid requirements [of continuous sedimentation and sufficient span of time]. As an ardent student of evolution, moreover, I was continually on the watch for evidence of evolutionary change ... The great majority of species do not show any appreciable evolutionary change at all. These species appear in the section (first occurrence) without obvious ancestors in underlying beds, are stable once established, and disappear higher up without leaving any descendants."

Aside from the fact that McLeroy completely misquotes Gould, stasis in the evolutionary record simply records the fact that the species was optimally adapted to its surroundings and selection was neither directional nor selective with regard to its traits. Stasis is not the opposite of evolution, as McLeroy states. Such a statement betrays a complete lack of understanding of the theory that he so roundly opposes. Statements that we are betraying our students by teaching them evolution ring hollow when the average student probably knows more about it than McLeroy does.

Did the Texas SBOE Trick Itself?

That seems to be what the Discovery Institute is saying. From the Discovery Blog, Bruce Chapmen writes:

The New York Times got the preview story wrong, and the Washington Post editorial writer probably was too rushed to question the charges of "creationism" coming from the National Center for Science Education, the Darwin-only lobby. So this week's important decisions by the Texas Board of Education (TBOE) on how to teach evolution were predicated in the media by the big question of whether teachers should provide both "strengths and weaknesses" of Darwin's theory. Those words might sound benign, readers were told, but they really are "code words" (take the press' word for it) for creationism and religion.

Boy, it sure would be nice if he had provided the links to those editorials. You know, like most people do in blogs. So...I have to go get them myself. The NYT headline was "Defeat and Some Success for Texas Evolution Foes" while the WaPo's headline read: "Texas education board approves science standards", which is closer to the mark but not quite correct. It is possible that the "critical evaluation" language might allow for some creationism in the schools but the reverse is equally true—that teachers will simply say that, under critical evaluation, the theories of modern science hold up and that, under critical evaluation, the tenets of ID and creationism, do not. I am, perhaps being overly optimistic in this approach but, like Kenneth Miller, think that students ought to critically examine all scientific theories. Creationism tends to creep in when teachers and students DON'T critically examine all theories. Then Chapman writes this:

Once again the NCSE was too-smart-by-half. It ran blogs making fun of religion, while organizing public speakers who gave fulsome testimony to their Christian faith and how compatible it is with "evolution" (meaning Darwinian evolution). To the purists like Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers it probably makes them look like toadies.

Not quite. The NCSE's Josh Rosenau live-blogged the meetings from his own site. In fact, from the NCSE page, you find this:

Detailed, candid, and often uninhibited running commentary on the proceedings is available on a number of blogs: Texas Citizens for Science's Steven Schafersman is blogging and posting photographs on the Houston Chronicle's Evo.Sphere blog, the Texas Freedom Network is blogging on its TFN Insider blog, and NCSE's Joshua Rosenau is blogging on his personal blog, Thoughts from Kansas (hosted by ScienceBlogs). For those wanting to get their information from the horse's mouth, minutes and audio recordings of the board meeting will be available on the Texas Education Agency's website. NCSE's previous reports on events in Texas are available on-line, and of course NCSE will continue to monitor the situation as well as to assist those defending the teaching of evolution in the Lone Star State.

The NCSE didn't run a blog about the meetings. Even Josh Rosenau's blog is hosted by someone else. That some of the writers of these blogs do not support religion has nothing to do with the NCSE. Eugenie Scott's testimony was perfectly appropriate at the hearings, as was Josh Rosenau's.

Additionally, Chapman throws a nasty, veiled insult about Christians that support evolution that is mean-spirited and offensive. Once again, the DI bloviates and, once again, doesn't get it quite right. And they want us to take them seriously?

Steven Schafersman on the Texas Vote, Casey Luskin and the Future

Steve Schafersman, who live-blogged the Texas hearings for the three days that they were held has these parting words:

What is the bottom line? Did we win or lose? Neither. We got rid of the worst language, but a great deal of qualifying language remains. I am not going to claim either victory or defeat. I realize that Casey Luskin of Discovery Institute will declare complete, unqualified victory, but it is not that for them. Neither is it for us. The standards adopted were generally good, but there are several that are flawed, fortunately most in minor ways that textbook authors and publishers can deal with. I think we can work around the few flawed standards. But the point is that there shouldn't be ANY flawed standards. The science standards as submitted by the science writing teams were excellent and flaw-free. All the flaws were added by politically unscrupulous SBOE members with an extreme right-wing religious agenda to support Creationism.

I would like to think the best of my fellow Christians. The problem is that there are incidents like this here in Texas and what happened at dover, in 2005. On reflection of that trial, Judge Jones said the following about the witnesses for the defense (in this case the school board, aided by the Discovery Institute):

In the realm of the lay witnesses, if you will, some of the school board witnesses were dreadful witnesses and hence the description “breathtaking inanity” and “mendacity.” In my view, they clearly lied under oath. They made a very poor account of themselves. They could not explain why they did what they did. They really didn't even know what intelligent design was. It was quite clear to me that they viewed intelligent design as a method to get creationism into the public school classroom. They were unfortunate and troublesome witnesses. Simply remarkable, in that sense.

The word"mendacious" should never appear in a paragraph describing the witness of a Christian. We are all fallen creatures, but God asks us to live life with integrity and honesty and that when dealing with all people out in the wide world, "the end justifies the means" is not a philosophy by which to live.

Texas Science Standards: Luskin Declares Victory

On the Discovery Institute's site today, an article appeared devoted to the Texas Science Standards hearings. The DI writes:

Today, the Texas Board of Education chose science over dogma and adopted science standards improving on the old "strengths and weaknesses" language by requiring students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence.” In addition, the Board—for the first time— specifically required high school students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations.

The new science standards mark a significant victory for scientists and educators in favor of teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution.

This is only a victory if you redefine things. The stripping of the "strengths and weaknesses" language was a blow because it related directly to evolution. Inclusion of the language to critique and evaluate "all sides of scientific evidence" is almost meaningless because that is what scientists do every day. What the article states later on is particularly two-faced though:

“Texas now has the most progressive science standards on evolution in the entire nation,” said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute. “Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes ‘creationism’ or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Like the boy who cried ‘Wolf,’ the Darwin only lobby [sic] always screams ‘creationism!’ anytime educators or policymakers try to ensure a fair presentation of the scientific evidence both for and against evolution. Let’s be absolutely clear: Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period.”

The Discovery Institute was heavily involved in these hearings, just as they were heavily involved in the Dover trial in Pennsylvania in 2005, when they tried to bring in the blatantly creationist book Of Pandas and People. Can anybody say "cdesign proponentsists?" Amazing.

ABC Covers the Texas Hearings

This appeared in ABC's web edition at the start of the hearings. The story, by April Castro assesses the atmosphere thus:

Activists on Wednesday took advantage of the last opportunity to testify on the proposed standards, which would drop a 20-year-old rule that requires both "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories be taught. Critics say the requirement is used to undermine the theory of evolution in favor of religious teachings.

The standards adopted by the board will be in place for a decade and will dictate how textbook publishers cover the topic.

Protesters and activists gathered nearby, fervently arguing their sides of the debate.

"My grandfather was not a monkey!" one woman shouted at a crowd before the meeting began.

I am sure it was an interesting three days.

It Seems Only Fair...

I have added the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture to the list of Science and Faith links on the left hand side of the blog.

Texas Board Keeps Evolution in Curriculum

The Texas State Board of Education voted in favor of stripping the "strengths and weaknesses" language from the science curriculum standards, passing a set of standards that largely leaves the teaching of evolution intact. According to a story in the Houston Chronicle by Gary Sharrer:

The new standards, debated for weeks and watched closely across the country, will influence what Texas public school children learn about biology and other sciences and what is published in new science textbooks for the next 10 years, starting in the 2010-11 school year.

Board Chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, and six other social conservatives lost several key votes designed to cast specific doubt on evolution.

The new standards no longer contain a provision allowing educators to teach the “weaknesses” of evolutionary theory, part of the current standards.

By an 8-7 vote, the board removed specific references to insufficiencies of evidence for common ancestry and natural selection and to “the arguments for and against universal common descent in light of fossil evidence.” All are key parts of evolutionary theory.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Largely, the right things were kept in. It was not a total victory for sound science, though:

The board’s final action brought mixed reactions.

“The requirement that students ‘analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations’ and examine all sides of scientific evidence is the strongest critical thinking standard in any state science standards,” said Casey Luskin, a lawyer for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which challenges evolution theory.

Texas Citizens for Science President Steven Schafersman said scientists did not achieve complete victory but got enough.

“I think the science standards will be OK. Frankly, the publishers and the authors of the textbooks will be able to use this standard and write good textbooks,” Schafersman said. “They won’t be forced to do anything really bad.”

Make no mistake: this was a loss for Luskin and the DI, and his response is, in a sense, disingenuous. He is correct that all students should analyze and critically evaluate scientific theories. It is just that he doesn't care about any theory except evolution, which he has fought to keep out of public education.

Overall, a victory for the home team.

Don McLeroy's Evolution "Quotes"

The mover and shaker behind the Texas anti-evolution push against the science standards is the head of the Texas School Board, Don McLeroy. One of the sections of the standards he has proposed is 7B, which reads:

...describe the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden
appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record;

He supported this clause with evidence at the tail end of the document. The complete document is here. The vast majority of the quotes involve mainstream scientists writing about evolution. The problem is that McLeroy has selectively used sentences here and there to bolster his opinions. This is classic creationist misquoting. Stand Up For Real Science has examined the quotes and discovered how badly he has misquoted the scientists involved. Here is one example. McLeroy has on his list of quotes:

"Once established an average species of animal or plant will not change enough to be regarded as a new species, even after surviving for something like a hundred thousand, or a million, or even ten million generations … Something tends to prevent the wholesale restructuring of a species, once it has become well established on earth." Steven. M. Stanley, Johns Hopkins Magazine, Page 6, June, 1982 [Stasis]

Here is what Stanley actually said:

"When studying fossil data, we may at times fail to distinguish between closely similar species within genera, but errors of this sort have no bearing on the question at hand. Even if evolution does occasionally occur by a tiny step, such a small change cannot help explain the major shifts seen elsewhere. If two or more species are nearly identical, then collectively they encompass very little evolutionary change. In short, to explain large-scale evolution, we need to look at large-scale evolution!

Large volumes of fossil data now permit us to make the following generalization: Once established, an average species of animal or plant will not change enough to be regarded as a new species, even after surviving for something like a hundred thousand, or a million, or even ten million generations

There is a paradox here, for using generations as units of time brings us into the realm of population genetics, and the simple fact is that workers in this field have never envisioned the remarkable evolutionary stability that we can now document. Artificial selection favoring certain heritable features has indeed produced substantial restructuring of laboratory fruit flies in only tens or hundreds of generations, and experimental geneticists have always assumed that their fruit fly experiments in principle mimic events in nature. Theoretically, it has seemed a very small percentage of selective deaths in each generation should, over myriads of generations, amount to a total biological remodeling of any species in nature. But the fossil record suggests otherwise: Something tends to prevent the wholesale restructuring of a species, once it has become well established on Earth.

Go to the page to see how examples like this abound. It is my suspicion that McLeroy did not get these quotes himself, but rather got them from another source. It is, however, clear that he didn't do his homework. Read the whole thing. Oh, and by the way, 7B got shot down yesterday.

The Universe is How Old?

More from Texas. State Rep. Barbara Cargill, the one who wouldn't reply to my letter has introduced an amendment. As Discovery Blog reports it:

Texas Board of Education creationist Barbara Cargill today proposed an amendment to the science standards saying that teachers have to tell their students there are different estimates for the age of the Universe. This is not even a veiled attempt to attack the Big Bang model of the Universe, which clearly, and through multiple lines of evidence, indicates the Universe is 13.7 +/- 0.12 billion years old.

So Ms. Cargill is right, if she means that "different estimates" range from 13.58 to 13.82 (given one standard deviation) billion years old.

But she doesn’t mean that at all, does she? If you read her website, you’ll see she’s an out-and-out creationist. She has a large number of, um, factual errors on her site that are clearly right out of the Creationist Obscurational Handbook.

Anyway, her antiscience amendment passed 11 - 3.

That it passed by that large a margin means that the general level of science education on the board must be pretty limited or creationist sympathies must run high.

Oh, and by the way, my letter to Barbara Cargill has never gone answered.

Letter to the Texas State Board of Education

"Dear Texas State Board of Education,
Please do not include the “strengths and weaknesses” language in the science standards for the state of Texas. Where Texas goes, so goes much of the nation with regard to standards and textbooks. It would be a serious mistake to include language in the standards that would allow for substandard science to be taught in the schools. I have practiced palaeontology for over twenty years and please believe me when I tell you there is no controversy within the scientific community over the theory of biological evolution. It is one of the soundest theoretical constructs that exists in science. Adherents to evolutionary theory do not accept it because of some anti-religious “belief.” For them, it is the best scientific way to explain current and past biological diversity on the planet earth. Please do not confuse good science with bad. Please vote against inclusion of the “strengths and weaknesses” language in the Texas Science standards. Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

James Kidder, Ph.D."

It is not too late to write yours!

Ken Mercer Speaks

Ken Mercer, a conservative member of the Texas State Board of Education has written an editorial for the San Antonio Express News. He writes:

The conservative SBOE members support 99 percent of the Science TEKS proposed by the educators who have served on the science writing team. The only point of contention seems to revolve around the concepts of “microevolution” and “macroevolution.”

No one on the SBOE is challenging microevolution, those small changes we see every day that are already part of the genetic code. We brush our teeth, wash our hands, and put a Band-Aid on an open wound because we fully comprehend the verifiable evidence of microevolution.

It is macroevolution (i.e., the theory of large changes such as the hypothesized common primate ancestor becoming today’s chimps and humans) that is very weak and deserves critical questioning and thought.

The macroevolution lobby is on public record as stating that high school students are “unqualified to ask questions.” We conservative SBOE members do not concur because we believe that the opportunity to ask questions is fundamental to good science.

There is a bit of honesty and revelation here. The "strengths and weaknesses" language of the standards were supposedly applied to all scientific disciplines and yet, here we have a SBOE member suggesting exactly what most people already have figured out: it is aimed at evolution. Further, from behind the wall of an editorial, he makes unfounded claims that nobody can ask him to back up. How is the case for the common ancestry of humans and chimpanzees weak? Does he even know what the evidence for this is? He also writes:

Editorial boards have erroneously reported that scientists are near complete agreement about macroevolution. However, in actuality, over 700 fully credentialed scientists are on public record as saying they believe evolution warrants much discussion of both the strengths and weaknesses of this scientific theory.

What he doesn't say (and may not even know) is that there is one lone palaeontologist on that list who has published four papers in the last eighteen years. He paints the debate as one of the academic freedom to ask questions. That is a smokescreen. What is really at issue here is the right to teach ideas that have no scientific validity as if they did.

Texas SBOE Hearings, Day 2

Josh Rosenau is blogging the Texas State Board of Education hearing here. He also testified. Here is a brief section:

The National Center for Science Education and these [54] many scientific societies urge the Board to delay or reject outright any further amendments which have not been reviewed by your writing committees and the community of Texas scientists and educators. Do not be distracted by discredited creationist claims such as that microbes are irreducibly complex or that the Cambrian Explosion is inexplicable. Do not single out evolution or related concepts in geoscience for scrutiny beyond that given to every other scientific topic.

Texas students _deserve_ a world-class education, and this revision process could move them toward that goal, … or hold them back. Please, listen to the voices of scientists and educators, listen to the writing committees you chose, and restore and protect honest science in the TEKS.

At what point can one reasonably argue that people like Casey Luskin of the DI are lying?

The Texas School Board Vote

The Texas State Board of Education controversy got picked up on CNN's radar. In a story titled: Science standards challenging evolution debated in Texas, the author writes:

The board -- considering amendments passed in January -- will hear from the public on Wednesday. It will then take votes -- an initial one Thursday and the final vote Friday.

"This specific attack on well-established science ignores mountains of evidence and years of research done by experts in a variety of fields," said Steven Newton, project director at the Oakland California-based National Center for Science Education, a proponent of evolution.

What has become painfully clear is that most people who do not accept the theory of evolution are quite content to listen to those who claim it has holes, the ICR, AIG and others. As I noted in an earlier post, if some of these people would actually pick up a biology textbook, much of this would go away. But that is not the point: they think that evolution is evil. It simply cannot have scientific support. Mind you, this is what a good many people thought about atomic energy in the 1960s and 1970s—that it was evil and its use would only lead to sorrow. As Robert Oppenheimer read from the Bhagavad Gita at the Trinity site: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." What got lost in the shuffle was that atomic energy existed regardless of what people thought. As Shel Silverstein wrote: "It's all the same to the clam."

The vote will happen some time in the next two days.

Don McLeroy and Sowing Atheism

Don McLeroy has gone on record as recommending the book Sowing Atheism: The Natonal Academy Of Science' Sinister Scheme To Teach Our Children They're Descended from Reptiles.
The Texas Freedom Network has a post on the Don McLeroy/Sowing Atheism connexion, arguing that some of the viewpoints in his book recommendation are hair-raising. The book, by Robert Johnson Jr. is a free download from here. It is couched as a response to the NAS book Science, Evolution and Creationism. Here is a three-page example of the "scholarship" in the book. The passage is from Sowing Atheism, pages 65-67. Bold text is the NAS text to which he responds:

You two, however, have convinced thousands of pastors, and in turn, many members of their flocks, that human evolution from reptiles
is light. Jesus said, “If, then, the light that is in you is darkness, how
dense is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). May God grant you repentance
to sober up out of the trap of the Adversary.

We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.

We’ve seen that the evolution of all life from a single cell from two
billion years ago allegedly consists of genetic copying mistakes
operated upon in some undefined way by the figure of speech known as
natural selection. In Chapter 3, we saw that there is no evidence for
this. There is nothing rigorous at all about speculation, and that’s what
it is. And Mr. X, your many factual, logical, and contextual errors show
that your own letter does not stand up to slapdash scrutiny, much less
“rigorous scrutiny.” You are obviously not a “rigorous scrutiny” kind
of guy, so how would you know what standards of fact and accuracy
molecules-to-man evolution meets or does not meet? Who told you
evolution stands up to rigorous scrutiny? Zimmerman?
Darwin and his theory of evolution do nothing but obscure
knowledge and take false credit for achievements in real science.

Complete this sentence: If it weren’t for Darwin’s theory of moleculesto-
man evolution, mankind wouldn’t . . .

To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to
deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance
to our children.

You exalt evolution above all. Has believing in it become the new
greatest commandment, displacing the foremost precept as expressed
by Christ in Mark 12:30?

You shall be loving the Lord your God out of your whole heart and
out of your whole soul, and out of your whole comprehension, and out of
your whole strength. This is the foremost precept.
You can offer no evidence for your premise that evolution is valid
and true, so you try to bring into disrepute the character of those who
disagree. According to the two of you (an atheist and an apostate), by
believing and upholding the Word of God, I and many others are
“deliberately” transmitting ignorance to our children. Once again, you
have it backwards. What kind of monster parents teach their children
that they’re descended from rodents and reptiles?

We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of
critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a
rejection of the will of our Creator.

Let’s make a bet. I’ll give you a million dollars for every passage
of Scripture you find that states or infers that God desires that we exalt
our flesh-minds and/or our wisdom over Him and His Word. You give
me just $100 every time I produce a passage from Scripture that says
the wisdom of God is supreme to the thinking and “wisdom” of men.
Which of us do you think will have a million dollars first?
I draw your attention to this Scripture:
. . . the disposition of the flesh is enmity to God, for it is not subject to the
law of God, for neither is it able. Now those who are in flesh are not able
to please God (Romans 8:7-8).
Your Clergy Letter reads as if this may be found in the Bible:
Thus saith the Lord, “I give unto thee critical thought, so that ye may
criticize my word, and ye may usurp the authority of the apostle Paul, but
yeah and verily, thou shalt not criticize evolution for it is the ultimate
theory-fact, and not merely one among many.”

The Scriptures admonish us over and over to have no confidence in
the flesh. You and your apostate letter-signers urge putting all
confidence in the flesh. Again, you have it just backwards. Feasting
upon human reason leads away from truth, not toward it.
If you accept molecules-to-man evolution, you’ve got to believe
you came into being by chance. What’s “the will of our Creator” doing
as a phrase in your letter? Where did He come from?

To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes
the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to
limit God, an act of hubris.

I’m self-taught in the ancient literature field, so it surprises me that
with your liberal academic background, Zimmerman, you don’t
understand what hubris is, because it originated as an ancient Greek
concept. Hubris is self-pride and overbearing arrogance, an abject lack
of humility. Proverbs 16:18 sums up the ancient and modern
understanding of hubris: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty
spirit before a fall.” You have it just backwards again. You are
maintaining that hubris is the failure to exalt oneself and the reasonings
of one’s mind over God.
Hubris was considered the greatest sin in the ancient Greek world.
Achilles’ treatment of Hector’s corpse, dragging it around the walls of
Troy, is a classic example of it. The words of the Bible claim to be
“Spirit and Life.” By denying the Bible’s inspiration, you kill it, and
like Achilles, you drag its deadened content before men, pumping your
fists and proclaiming from your chariot of reason the superiority of the
mind of man over the Word of God.
To reason means to lay facts in relation to one another so as to be
the basis of opinion. The Word of God claims to be absolute truth, and
in no way mere opinion.

The rest of the book has this general tone, which amounts to nothing more than calling people who accept evolution names and questioning their ancestry. The money quote is the one where he equates those who teach evolutionary theory to their children as "monsters." Now, to be fair, Richard Dawkins said something similar going the other way so the vitriol is certainly not one-sided. TFN puts their finger on the real crux of the problem, though:

As bizzarre and abrasive as some of these ideas may be, clearly any yahoo with a half-baked idea can write and self-publish a book. That is not the important point here. The real issue is the inability of the chair of the Texas State Board of Education to distinguish between legitimate, mainstream science - as represented by the National Academy of Sciences - and a lone crackpot with an openly religious agenda.

More evidence of his lack of qualifications for the post that he holds.

High Court Smacks Down Anti-Evolution Suit

The U.S. Supreme Court denied without hearing a suit brought against the University of California by a woman who claims that their official position that evolution ("Darwinism") and religion can be compatible constitutes a religious position and is unconstitutional. Yup, you read that right. The report on the NCSE website notes:

Caldwell filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in 2005. But her suit was dismissed in 2006 because she failed to allege that she had federal taxpayer standing, failed to sufficiently allege state taxpayer standing, and failed to establish that she suffered a concrete "injury in fact." When she appealed the decision, the appellate court's decision concluded, "Accordingly, we believe there is too slight a connection between Caldwell’s generalized grievance, and the government conduct about which she complains, to sustain her standing to proceed." Reacting to the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case, a lawyer for the University of California told the Chronicle, "We believe the lower court rulings were correct, and we're glad this ends the matter."

I am sure that most state universities and colleges have official positions on the general and special theories of gravity, plate tectonics and quantum mechanics. Maybe we should file suits demanding that those not be taught. Incredible. Hat tip to LGF.

New Mexico "Academic Freedom" Bill Dies in Committee

The DI-sponsored "Academic Freedom" bill in New Mexico did not make it out of committee. Panda's Thumb reports that:

Similar legislation was put forth in New Mexico in 2007, but did not get out of committee. (See this Panda’s Thumb report for the details). That year, similar bills were carried by “Dub” Williams in the NM House, and Steve Komadina in the NM Senate. After hearing from several scientists and teachers opposed to the bill at the 2007 hearings, Rep. Williams graciously tabled his version of the bill. Sen. Komadina might have sponsored the bill again this year, but lost his 2008 re-election bid. The local Intelligent Design/Creationist community found a new supporter in Sen. Kent Cravens, who introduced the bill, “USE OF SCIENCE IN TEACHING BIOLOGICAL ORIGINS,” on Feb. 2nd, 2009. With the session ending soon, Sen. Cravens apparently asked that it be heard by the Senate Education committee on Monday, March 16th. But, by the time the hearing was supposed to start, word came that it had been cancelled.

Included in the post is a comparison of the New Mexico bill and the original DI bill from which it was cobbled. It is instructive.

Where Sussex County Goes, So Goes Hampshire County

According to a story in the Daily Echo, another UK county has drawn a line in the sand:

SOUTHAMPTON councillors have agreed that God should be kept out of the science classroom. They backed a motion demanding science and religion should continue to be taught separately. It comes as 70 Hampshire secondary schools have been issued advice on how to teach 11 to 14-year-olds creationism alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution.

A growing pushback?