Texas Education Agency and Chris Comer, Part 38

The judge’s ruling in Chris Comer's case against the Texas Education Agency is on the NCSE website here. Judge Lee Yeakel’s decision has a fair amount of legal jargon, particularly at the start, but it’s reasonably understandable.

Comer’s lawyers argued that the Texas Education Agency (TEA), by having a “neutrality” policy on evolution, violated the first amendment of the U.S. constitution (the Establishment Clause) that separates Church and state. In particular, Comer’s lawyers used the “Lemon test” (named after a plaintiff, not the fruit) which has three “prongs” that are used to determine if an action violates that clause.

The TEA says they are neutral on all policies that the Texas State Board of Education might set. TEA don’t set the curriculum. And the judge agreed. Here’s a snippet from page 15.

Agency staff must remain neutral on contested curriculum issues, no only creationism and evolution. The policy is reasonable, given the elected body (Texas State Board of Education - ZF) the Agency supports. The Agency supports 15 elected Board members who often disagree among themselves regarding curriculum issues and who make final decisions regarding such disputed issues. Agency staff, by virtue of their job description, must avoid acting in ways that favor any particular Board member’s position.

This seems to be the legal crux of the decision. The decision also notes that religious ideas may benefit from TEA’s neutrality policy, but this is an incidental effect.

In light of the recent vote on Texas K-12 science standards, however, I find this bit in Judge Yeakel’s decision very interesting.

The State “readily agree[s] that if the Board chooses to consider including some kind of recognition of alternatives to evolutionary theory in the biology curriculum, it will be entering perilous waters,” but that is the Board’s voyage to weather.

We’ll see how rough the waters get in about two years, when textbook adoptions come up.

Buttonman

My design for the Open Laboratory 2009 submission buttons is being used this year. Go me!


Clickable now! So if you see something you like here, there, or anywhere, nominate it!

Comfort zones

What do you do to challenge yourself?

What do you do to expose yourself to views besides the ones you already have?

What do you do specifically because you don’t know how to do it very well and you want to get better?

These are not rhetorical questions; I’d really like to know.

For me, one small thing I do it to listen to The Current podcast. Because it’s a general news show, I’m often listening to some story, covered reasonably substantially, that I wouldn’t otherwise hear in the southern U.S.

But I wonder about whether I’m pushing myself enough to do something hard. And whether other people do.

Another day

P.Z. Myers writes:

You just can't trust anything posted to the web today.

In other words, it’s just like every other day.

Texas Education Agency and Chris Comer, Part 37

Christina Comer’s lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency has been dismissed, according to the Dallas News. There is no explanation of the judge’s rationale for the dismissal.

I’ve blogged about this story extensively if you need background information.

What are you analyzing?

The Open Laboratory anthology series successfully brought science blogging to a new audience and showed a growing level of maturity and writing skills and styles for the blogging medium.

It’s time to move on to the next stage of science communication. I’m pleased to announce the first annual compilation of the best science tweets...


Twit Lab 2009!

They said bloggers would never produce any decent writing about science without editors and peer review. Now is the time to show that the twitterati can produce good science writing working under a 140 character constraint.

Send your best science tweets to @DoctorZen on Twitter. If the “@DoctorZen” tag puts your tweet over your 140, email me the tweet and your feed to doctorzen@gmail.com.

Neurochemicals and Superman villains

Patsy Dickinson, I always like talking to you at meetings. But couldn’t you and your team have given the new peptide a name that a human being might actually have a prayer of remembering? Or, you know, pronouncing?

SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide?!

It’s the Mr. Mxyzptlk of neurochemicals.

I wonder what will happen if I say the name of the chemical backwards...

Reference

Dickinson PS, Wiwatpanit T, Gabranski ER, Ackerman RJ, Stevens JS, Cashman CR, Stemmler EA, Christie AE. 2009. Identification of SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide: a broadly conserved crustacean C-type allatostatin-like peptide with both neuromodulatory and cardioactive properties. The Journal of Experimental Biology 212: 1140-1152. doi: 10.1242/jeb.028621

In which claims are verified

Some time ago, I bemoaned that about one in three Americans don't know where food comes from. Recently, I found some photographic evidence of that fact.

Yes, even more Texas science standards voting aftermath

Christopher Hitchens writes about the new Texas K-12 science standards in Newsweek here. Hitchens has a talent for finding devastating turns of phrase and unusual angles of attack, and this isn't an exception.

The Texas anti-Darwin stalwarts also might want to beware of what they wish for. The last times that evangelical Protestantism won cultural/ political victories – by banning the sale of alcohol, prohibiting the teaching of evolution and restricting immigration from Catholic countries – the triumphs all turned out to be Pyrrhic. There are some successes that are simply not survivable. ... There are days when I almost wish the fundamentalists could get their own way, just so that they would find out what would happen to them.

Also, an editorial from last week in the Dallas News that I missed.

There's also this comment from the Minneapolis Church and State Examiner.

Something there is about the Texas mentality that discounts the life of the mind.

Here’s a snippet of some quite good analysis in

Ars Technica:

(T)his focus on multiple theories makes frequent appearances when elected bodies, like school boards and state legislatures, attempt to modify science education. It suggests that, when faced with the fact that science has adopted a theory that the officials dislike, they assume there must be another, competing theory that is more amenable to their beliefs.

Popular Science (?!) and USA Today, the latter saying:

The issue is so complicated and controversial, however, that we thought we’d give you a flavor of the issue by showing you how various news organizations reported the final vote: [snip]

Newswise provides a quote one-liner to summarize:

NCSE’s Josh Rosenau summed up the frustration of scientists and educators alike: “This is a hell of a way to make education policy.”

Can Master’s degrees make a comeback?

The frequently asked questions regarding the National Science Foundation and the Recovery Act mentions a Science Masters program. Intriguing.

I’ve commented to NSF staffer multiple times about Master’s degrees. The NSF have lots of programs for undergraduate research (I run one), and how they have programs for doctoral research, but Master’s are almost completely ignored. For department like mine, which has a Master’s program but no doctoral program, this is a real issue.

The problem is that in many institutions with doctoral programs, Master’s degrees are viewed as a consolation prize. It’s lovely parting gift for those who can’t
hack it in the Ph.D. program. And that point of view seems to have permeated the funding agencies.

But in an institution like ours, a Master’s degree for our students, can be an important stepping stone to a doctoral program at another institution, or the key to a higher entry level in a job. It’s not an “also ran.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, Science magazine featured a policy forum on Master's degrees this week. The model it explores is something called a professional science Master’s degree. At a glance, it seems to be a degree for industry technicians (and, just to be clear, I am not disparaging that). Students take academic courses in their scientific discipline as well as in business.

The NSF will have $15 million to fund new professional science Master’s programs. My concern is that this doesn’t address – or justify – continuing to ignore the more traditional academic Master’s programs.

More aftermath roundup on Texas K-12 science standards

The image is from the Bad Astronomy blog, which comments (original emphasis):

Do I sound unhappy? Yeah, damn straight I am. These creationists are trying to destroy science in Texas. And they’re succeeding. They are imposing their narrow religious and ideological views on reality, and it’s the schoolchildren in the state who will suffer. ...

It seems incredible that here we are, in the 21st century, and a group of less than a dozen religious zealots has the kind of power to affect millions of children across the country, but there you have it. One problem with a democracy — and it’s a doozy — is that it’s possible to game the system, and give far too much power to people who are far too unqualified for it.

And it’s brought us here.

A warp-up on Thoughts From Kansas reminds us:

Texas has new science standards. Those standards are better than the old ones, but those old standards really did suck.

I referenced a New Scientist article before that described the standards as containing “loopoholes.” But I wanted to call out one point (emphasis added):

Experts suspect that strategically, the Discovery Institute actually wants teachers to be prosecuted in a Dover-style court case, and that they are using the proposed Texas academic freedom bill to lure teachers into a legal trap by encouraging them to bring religious ideas into the classroom. ...

“The Discovery Institute is pushing the legal envelope and inviting litigation because they have been shopping around for years for the right judicial district in which they could win this kind of case,” (Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University) told New Scientist. “They need a district where they can control the people on the ground, as they do in Texas. They want a ruling that conflicts with Dover in a different judicial district, because that would be the most likely scenario in which the Supreme Court would hear a case. That is exactly what they want.”

Elves and hidden people

One of the things I do to try to challenge myself and expose myself to things I would not normally encounter is to listen to the CBC podcast of The Current. Yesterday was another one of those time when I learned something new.

A majority of Icelanders believe in elves and hidden people. Companies pay real money to hire people with psychic powers to determine if their buildings and constructions would interfere with the domains of elves and hidden people – which live in another dimension. Apparently the Icelandic term for this is “Huldufólk.”

Of course, I’m one to talk.

Aftermath roundup on Texas science standards

There will probably be more articles early next week reacting to the votes on the Texas science standards. For today...

This Salon article described how excited the Discovery Institute is over the new standards. And provides yet more quotes by Don McLeroy that make me wonder why what he says isn’t being criticized by more scientists.

“Scientific consensus means nothing,” he tells Salon. “All it takes is one fact to overthrow consensus. Evolution has a status that it simply doesn’t deserve. People say it’s vital to understanding biology. But it’s genetics that’s the foundation for biology. A biologist once said that nothing in biology makes sense without evolution. Well, that’s not true. You go into the top biology labs, and it makes no difference if evolution is true or false to what they’re doing and studying. It makes no difference."

I’d love to know what “top biology lab” McLeroy has ever gone into.

Why Evolution is True has a good summary about the two worst additions to the standards. The good news, such as it is, is that the wording specifically says “scientific explanations,” which should cut out the worst possible offenders.

The Houston Chronicle features an AP wire story. They have another story here.

The Austin American-Statesman, naturally, had is own reporters there for this article. And what I read makes me proud of the representative whose district our university sits in, Mary Helen Berlanga:

Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, was one of two board members who consistently voted against the rewrites proposed by members critical of evolution today. She also voted against accepting the document in its entirety.

New Scientist has an article here.

Pharygula also has some analysis, including a comment on one of the Chronicle stories:

(T)he Houston Chronicle blandly reports that "Scientists from throughout Texas helped shape the new science curriculum standards." What they don't bother to mention is that these insertions into the standards were generated in opposition to the input of scientists, in defiance of what the scientific position would propose.

And, lest I leave you thinking that only biologists are targets of contempt, the Marshall News Messenger notes that the new standards also attack climate science. In particular, it is official educational policy to cast doubt on global warming.

Language that instructed students to “analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming,” which had been offered as an amendment and was adopted unanimously in an initial vote Thursday, led to outrage among environmental groups.

Texas has been oil country for a long time. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Additional: ScienceInsider policy blog calls it a win for creationists.

See you in two years for the textbook fight

Damning with faint praise: “It could have been so much worse.”

The final votes on Texas K-12 science standards are done. “Strengths and weaknesses” didn’t make it in (yesterday), and neither did a lot of other non-scientific amendments. But things got watered down.

I must remember to write an email to Rick Agosto, the Republican who voted against arguably the most non-scientific language and who must have received incredible pressure not to do so. Interestingly, he represents the northern half of the county our university is in, although the university resides in Mary Helen Berlanga’s district.

• Evo.Sphere live blog
• Texas Freedom Network live blog (missed this one previously, sorry)
• Thoughts From Kansas live blog (broken into several pieces; this is the first)

And here, perhaps, is a good summary of the entire anti-intellectual, unprofessional, disrespectful nature of these events... Don McLeroy, quoted on the Texas Freedom Network and Thoughts From Kansas blog:

I disagree with all these experts. Somebody has to stand up to these experts.

...wow.

A man charged with an important supervisory role of a massive education system says he doesn’t value expertise. Experts are the enemy.

Isn’t one of the points of education to create experts?

How can we make expertise and skills and professionalism respected again?

Textbook adoption in two years. But it looks like there won't be too many more posts with the “Texas science standards” label in the near future.

Festiba!

Our university has an arts festival called Festiba. This year, a group of students, who taking two courses that have been joined at the hip – one on evolution and one on linguistics – put together several displays relating to evolution in some way, but with an artistic bent. This is not all of the coolness that was there on Thursday, but some pictures came out better than others for blogging purposes. And several have to be seen close up to really be appreciated.









Very cool.

Photos by Deborah Cole (but with a camera supplied by yours truly!).

Roundup of Texas science standards articles

• New Scientist correctly say the vote “may” go to the wire


• Ars Technica summarizes the political plays


• Fox News redistributes a National Science Teachers Association press release without comment


• Associated Press wire story; second one in this list to use the word “tensions”


• YouTube has Eugenie Scott’s (National Center for Science Education) testimony


• NCSE lists over 50 scientific societies asking the original standards be adopted as written

Am I a far left academic or a secular elite opinion maker?

On the first day that the final hearings on the Texas K-12 science standards begin in Austin (covered in blog form at Evo.Sphere and Thoughts from Kansas; the link goes to the first in a series of posts), Don McLeroy offers an insulting essay in the Austin American-Statesman.

(T)he greatest difficulty in writing these standards is the culture war over evolution.

The controversy exists because evolutionists, led by academia’s far-left, along with the secular elite opinion-makers, have decreed that questioning of evolution is not allowed, that it is only an attempt to inject religion or creationism into the classroom.

Having already hit the gutter, McLeroy somehow manages to actually go downhill from there.

He redefines science.

He distorts the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould.

I want to fisk it, but I’m really too angry to do it now.

What am I going to write about after this?

The final debate among the Texas State Board of Education about the K-12 science standards starts today.

I’ve been thinking over the last couple of weeks: “What am I going to write about after this?” I’ve been blogging about the Texas science standards so much over the last year, and it’s been such a rich vein to mine... After this week, the science standards won’t be reviewed again for years.

I’m going to have to work harder to come up with more substantive blog posts.

While I’m here, I might as well mine the vein a little longer and point out an editorial in the Washington Post on the subject:

It’s disturbing enough that the Texas board of education might seek to impose its religious views on public school students in that sizable state. It’s even more alarming that the Lone Star State's textbook market is so large that many publishers write books to meet its standards and then sell them across the country.

Explanation and evangelism

I was reading a review of Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True in the new issue of Current Biology. Reviewer Tom Tregenza writes:

Like many biologists, I occasionally panic that if the appeal of religious dogma can prevail over such a well-supported and rigorously tested theory as Darwin’s, then it can only be a matter of weeks before we’re all wearing sandals and the next breakthrough in oncology is expected to come from making offerings to a parsnip with a resemblance to the Virgin Mary. At such times, I vow that I will drag myself out of my ivory tower and try to explain what I do to the (surely fairly rational?) man in the street. Similarly, reading the manifestos of those seeking election to offices of the European and American Evolution Societies, there is universal agreement that evolutionary biologists need to do more to explain their work to the public. The fact is, however, that we’re still not very good at delivering on these good intentions.

This reveals a lot about why good intentions don’t deliver. People think the problem is that people outside of science don’t know. That’s not the problem. The problem is that they don’t care.

To use a wacky Zen metaphor...

I enjoy Australian Rules Football, for a lot of reasons. Those around me... don’t.

I might think that this is just due to their lack of information about the game. So I should go around and explain to them the rules and how it’s played. Then they will automatically become more interested, right?

Not necessarily. They may understand the game on an intellectual level, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to start bugging me to set up a footy tipping competition, start checking the AFL website on weekends, adopt a team and learn the club song. In short, they won’t care.

Getting someone to care is complicated. Marketers spend all day and all night trying to work it out. It isn’t just about explanation. It requires evangelism – not in the religious sense, but in the general sense that Guy Kawasaki talks about is always talking about. The sort of evangelism that sales and marketing people talk about. Going out there and connecting with people and demonstrating passion, solving peoples’ problems, engaging with them.

A lot of scientists are out there explaining Aussie rules football and wondering why people don’t show up for the games. The people who don’t show up for the game are not necessarily ignorant or uneducated about how the game is played. It takes more than explanation to create a fan.

We might be better off if we ditched phrases like “public outreach” and thought about “building a fan base.” We should create science fans.

(I’ll bet this post didn’t head in the direction you thought it would from reading the title.)

This is the week for Texas science standards

The final vote on the Texas K-12 science standards is this week. It’s going to be... intense.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

All members of the board have come under enormous pressure in recent months, especially three Republicans who support teaching evolution without references to “weaknesses.” The state Republican Party passed a resolution urging the three to back Dr. McLeroy’s preferred curriculum. A conservative activist group put out a news release suggesting all three were in the pocket of “militant Darwinists.”

It’s time to put the word “militant” away and save it for people who actually carry guns and bombs.

Meanwhile, the Evo.Sphere blog is collecting letters from national scientific agencies who have written letters to the Texas State Board of Education that more or less ask them to adopt the standards the experts originally submitted, and take out some of the amendments that McLeroy and other got in. The big one is the letter from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who got signatures from an impressive number of big university mucky-mucks, including the chancellor of the University of Texas system to which my institution belongs.

I feel sad for those State Board of Education members who are generally characterized as “swing voters.” I don’t even want to think about what kind of politicking they must be getting subjected to.

Prediction: I’m betting that all of this won’t change much. I think there will be a lot of 8-7 votes. I think they’ll be in favour of the original expert recommendations, but I’m not counting on it.