It’s a faint, it’s sputtering, but there may be the flame of some hope for Texas.
Some.
First, there are bills going through the process of creation (haha) in the Lone Star State that could strip the State Board of Education of its powers to warp the minds of children with creationism. Incredibly, too, the effort is bipartisan!
Also, I’m hearing rumors that the extremely awful BoE chair, avowed creationist Don McLeroy, is having some trouble at his confirmation hearing to be re-upped as the Board’s top Denier of Reality. Gee, that’s too bad. PZ comments on this, and the Texas Freedom Network has this priceless quote from the dentist-cum-evangelist:
My purpose has never been religious indoctrination.
Wow. Now we can add "liar" to his list of adjectives. I am loathe to use that word unless there is strong evidence, but that’s the biggest whopper I’ve heard in a long, long time. He has done nothing but try to wedge creationism into the state standards while weakening real science. So, in fact, religious indoctrination is precisely what his purpose is.
Texans: you may wish to contact call your legislators. In reality there’s probably little chance McLeroy will be tossed out — Texas politics generally have little enough to do with the voters — but this is as good a chance as you’re likely to get.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Gee, McLeroy, didn’t the Old Testament have something to say about bearing false witness? Didn’t Jesus talk about removing the beam from your own eye first?
Speaking as a Christian, and as a supporter of the separation of Church and State, I hope he gets tossed out on his keester.
MLK said that “Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.” If only that were true for most of the ‘religious’ people I know.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 am
Drat.. the RSS feed didn’t update to include this yet, but
Rep Joe Barton (R-maybe doomed?) asked Steven Chu a question about oil in the North then posted it on YouTube (watch?v=pgKepHebKRc&feature=player_embedded) [bypassing moderation here.. heh, heh].
J/P=?
h/t Salon for including the story.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 am
He may actually believe that. Judging from some of his comments, he seems to be one of those who thinks that the theory of evolution is a religious belief. So from his point of view, he’s actually trying to prevent religious indoctrination.
Doesn’t make him any less of an ignorant ass, though.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:03 am
Good.
We are gradually winning this battle, methinks.
Its a slow, long drawn out constant struggle but perhaps “against stupidity we do NOT contend in vain ..” to change the old Shakespearian quote used in Isaac Asimov’s ‘The Gods Themselves’ novel.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
John Paradox beat me to it.
The sweet thing? This dumb turd then twittered that he’d “stumped” Steven Chu. Assumedly because Chu didn’t admit that God put the oil in Alaska and instead prevaricated with some stuff about “continental drift”.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/moransincongress.jpg
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 am
Great to hear some good news coming from Texas for once.
BTW. BA are you going to post here on the recent news of the fourth and again very low mass (1.9 E?) planet of Gliese 581 – please do, I’m keen to hear your take on it.
Hmm .. 4 exoplanets for Gliese 581 now – its giving Rho-1 or 55 Cancris (5 exoplanets) a good run for its “most exoplanets known” title!
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 am
They mention a bill that would shift the authority for textbook selection from the board to the commissioner. I took a quick look, but did not come across anything that has a checks-and-balances approach to textbook selection, which means that instead of trying to get 3 or 4 creationists on the board, they’d just need to get one creationist into the commissioner’s seat.
I did like, however, that textbook review would be done by subject-matter experts from each region in the state.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Does anyone else think that God might be a bit disapointed that people seem intent on taking evoloutin awy from Him? I mean it can’t have been an easy sytem to come up with.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
Technically his purpose isn’t to do that, as he is the head of a board of education, his purpose is to educate.
That he’s not serving said purpose is the problem.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:54 am
/me moves ‘liar’ from his list of substantives to his list of adjectives
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 am
Not that I ever wish to see harm come to people, I do hope that Mr. McLeroy will be just plain unemployed (unemplyable?) soon. Now if only the remaining dyed in the wool YEC would get tossed out as well.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I don’t think “liar” is an adjective.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Peter:
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
The agents of reason are slowly winning the war in Texas. There’s a long way to go, and there will be more battles lost along the way, but the political landscape in Texas isn’t quite as right-wing is it often first appears.
Sure Democrats are having a very tough time getting elected to statewide office, but the Republicans only hold a two seat lead in the state’s House of Representatives, and that’s after Tom Delay’s illegal contributions and gerrymandering efforts back in 2003. If the trends hold steady, the Democrats should be in the majority again after the next election. And even though it’s unlikely there will be a Democratic Governor next year, the odds are that the wingnut-pandering Rick Perry will lose to Kay Bailey Hutchison who, even though she leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to environmental issues, at least has the advantage of being relatively sane when it comes to social and cultural issues.
And longer term the GOP of Texas will have to moderate it’s policy positions or risk becoming entirely irrelevant. The demographic shift caused by an increase in the Hispanic American population could see the Republican Party in the permanent minority by 2020 unless they can start winning over non-white voters. If they don’t then Texas will become a reliable Democratic state and that would be a generational catastrophe for the national party especially in terms of the presidency.
So, either the Texas GOP moderates their wingnut religious and political policies, or they become the minority party in state for at least a generation. I know which one I would prefer
but either way, there is a light at the end of the very long and dark tunnel.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Sorry, but it’s pretty ridiculous to say that lobbying to introduce kids to the concept of creationism is *equivalent* to religious indoctrination. Creationism is pretty bad science, but it’s not a religion, and even if it was, teaching it in schools alongside evolution is a faaaar cry from “indoctrination”. (Think of the fundamental Mormon cults, or Koresh and the Branch Davidians.)
And…. even if you think creationism is religion, McLeroy clearly *thinks* of it as science, so from *his* perspective he’s clearly not attempting religious indoctrination, but dissemination of (what he thinks as) science. So he’s definitely not lying… dumb/mistaken maybe, but not dishonest.
Intellectual integrity (from both sides of this issue) would be appreciated.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I thought I heard Texas Governor Rick Perry talk last week about Texas seceding (on CNN online), followed by Congressman Ron Paul saying “secession IS American” (check Cnn, 3-4 days ago). Rick Perry generally supports creationism and has supported legislation on “the strengths and weaknesses of creationism LOL.
What is NASA (a scientific organization, I think) doing in the midst of all this UN scientific thought you may ask? I don’t know.
You can put the NASA in Texas, but must force the Texas in NASA.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Hah! Don McLeroy hates the word “Liar.” At the November hearing last year a very agitated evolution supporter uttered the L-word in her testimony and McLeroy got visibly angry and told her “We don’t use that word in here.”
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
You are wrong. Religion is an integral part of creationism. You can’t teach creationism without religious indoctrination, unless you teach that it’s completely and utterly false,which I doubt is what the creationists are looking for!
Indoctrination is “to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view. We all go through some level of indoctrination as we are educated. It’’s different from “brainwashing” which is what I believe you are thinking of
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Pedantic note:
The quote is actually from Schiller, not Shakespeare. In the original, it read: “Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens.”
April 24th, 2009 at 2:53 am
>>>”Creationism is pretty bad science, but it’s not a religion”
AYS, Creationism isn’t good science, but it isn’t bad science either. In fact, there is NOTHING scientific about it at all. If Creationism isn’t religion, then what the heck is it? Even his on own website he clearly states that he is against “scientific naturalism”, because it doesn’t allow supernatural “explanations”. In short – you can’t say “Goddidit!”
If the man is not a liar, then he is STUPENDOUSLY stupid.
IMO, he’s both.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:11 am
“I am loathe to use that word unless there is strong evidence”
The pedant in me won’t let this pass; there are two words, loath and loathe. Loathe means to hate, to detest, to abhor; loath means reluctant or unwilling. The latter is what you required in this case.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Liar is a noun.
Teaching creationism in science class is nothing short of an attempt at religious indoctrination because creationism simply doesn’t meet any of the standards of science.
Even if evolution were somehow proved wrong tomorrow, it would not have been wrong to have taught it in science classes up to that point, because it is a theory arrived at through the scientific process and is therefore science.
Creationism, on the other hand, has no relation to science and is purely based on scripture plus a little bit of backs against the wall manipulation of sciency language.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:26 am
There is a very demonstrable historical thread through this particular sector of fundamentalism. (See for example the Dover material; this was one topic essential for establishing the grounds for the verdict.)
Part of the ploy is, of course, to deny that it is a scam. [And as noted, it is very easy to demonstrate that there isn't any science in it at all, in any of its forms.]
We can’t afford to let science denialists get away with any lies on science, actual factual knowledge is hard won as it is. And the “creationism isn’t religion (it is science)” is as big a falsehood as they get.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
tacitus –>>> “You can’t teach creationism without religious indoctrination, unless you teach that it’s completely and utterly false,which I doubt is what the creationists are looking for!”
–>>> “Indoctrination is ‘to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.’ We all go through some level of indoctrination as we are educated.”
I still have to disagree that teaching creationism is equivalent to religious indoctrination…. According to wikipedia (that infallible source of knowledge…), indoctrination is “distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.” In every case that I’ve ever heard of, the most that is proposed is that creationism be taught alongside evolution, sometimes just in the form of a 60-second disclaimer. It is clearly held up as an alternative to evolution, to be critically examined and considered. Thus, NOT indoctrination. In fact, evolution taught as the sole possible perspective, without potential to be questioned, *does* fit the definition of indoctrination…
Remember, all I’m saying is that this isn’t religious indoctrination, so McLeroy isn’t a liar.
I should point out that I myself think evolution is very well proven, that creationism is baloney (especially as a subject in a science course), BUT that Intelligent Design proponents makes some very interesting points/arguments.
Bradley Monton is an atheist philosopher who nevertheless sees value in discussing issues like ID in science classes…. I think he makes some very good points on his blog:
http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/positive-feedback-from-atheists/
http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/hitchens-on-teaching-intelligent-design/
April 24th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
@A.Y.S.
So uh, how exactly does one “indoctrinate” people into the um, “doctrine” of evolution? What are the “doctrines” of evolution? Keep in mind that this is a well established scientific theory which (like all other scientific theories) is neutral on the existence (or not) of (a) god. Is the teaching of the current theory of Gravity to be called “indoctrination” too? It too doesn’t really have much competition in the way of “alternate theories”. But what about “Intelligent Falling” theory? Hey, if we don’t teach that in science classes, then we are INDOCTRINATING students into the Theory of Gravity! OH NOES!
Keep in mind, that Creationism is EXPLICITLY linked to religion, and the ONLY “alternative explanation” to evolution is precisely THIS:
“Evolution couldn’a dunnit, so therefore GODDIDIT!”
Your opinions of IDCreationism are irrelevant. The scientific community disagrees with you. The ID “arguments” are nothing more than rehashed Creationist ones, dressed up in sciencey-sounding language. The courts also disagree with you, they also consider ID to be Creationism, and think Creationism to be a violation of church and state separation. Science already deals with critical thinking, that’s how it works. So the language the creo’s are using like “critical examination” and “alternative explanations” would be superfluous – IF they were being honest. But the IDC movement has a looooong history of dishonesty. They want to use the language as an excuse to teach things like “Irreducible Complexity”, “the Earth is 6,000 years old”, and “Goddidit!”
If evolution is well proven and creationism is nonsense as you claim, WHY would you support the inclusion of Creationism in any way? Do you have a better “scientific alternative” to evolution, just to make things “fair”? The ONLY use teaching IDC in schools would be to show students how NOT to do science (but I doubt many fundie parents would appreciate it).
Right now, you seem to be on the same level as Don McLeroy. And to be blunt, I’m not buying your “fair play” schtick.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
the most that is proposed is that creationism be taught alongside evolution, sometimes just in the form of a 60-second disclaimer. It is clearly held up as an alternative to evolution, to be critically examined and considered.
Why not hold up the theory that hyperdimensional beings who happen to look like white mice created the earth and all life upon it as part of a complex computer simulation to find the answer to the ultimate question?
I mean, it’s no less “less true” than creationism, right? Why should the preposterously wrong “theory” of creationism being given any time at all? If it’s about teaching critical thinking, have students critically analyze evolution. I suspect that’s what good science teachers have them do already.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
No, no, kuhnigget, it was to find the ultimate question to the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. The answer was 42. I think the Vogons are the interstellar equivalent of cdesign proponentsists, but with better poetry.