I’ve been pointing out for months now that President Bush and his Administration have been waging a planned, protracted, and devious attack on science in almost every field across the board. I’ve been taken to task by some commenters on this, saying I am being unfair (implying I simply hate Bush and will disagree with everything he does — never mind that the more likely scenario for most folks is the other way around).

For those of you who think I am being unfair, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman would like a word with you.

Waxman is the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They have been studying Bush and his stance on global warming, and have just released their findings. Surprise! Bush is waging a planned, protracted, and devious attack on science. Check it (emphasis mine):

For the past 16 months, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating allegations of political interference with government climate change science under the Bush Administration. During the course of this investigation, the Committee obtained over 27,000 pages of documents from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department, held two investigative hearings, and deposed or interviewed key officials. Much of the information made available to the Committee has never been publicly disclosed.

This report presents the findings of the Committee’s investigation. The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.

Yeah, shocker. And if only this were the only front on which Bush and crew were engaging in criminal stupidity. There is also health, sex education, religious freedom, the CDC, the FDA, the EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Administration, and and and.

Oh yeah, and NASA, too.

I wonder if anyone (besides Keith Olbermann) in the mainstream media will pick up on this?

Read Waxman’s report. It’s not terribly long, but it’s certainly damning.

Hat tip to C&L.

One thing most creationist promoters really abhor is publicity. Not all of them hate it, of course; the Discovery Institute craves it like an addict, but the irony is that when they get it, their lies, machinations, and political sleaziness get exposed.

Other creationist organizations want to avoid publicity for that very reason. So the Texans involved with forcing Chris Comer out of her job are probably taking blood pressure medicine at this point. Not only has their utter contempt for reality and decency been exposed, but the exposure is gaining momentum.

The group Texas Citizens for Science (go team!) has posted a very public evisceration of the Texas Education Agency. This essay really pounds home just how evil these people are:

The real reason she was forced to resign is because the top TEA administrators and some SBOE members wanted her out of the picture before the state science standards–the science TEKS–were reviewed, revised, and rewritten next year. Plans are underway by some SBOE members and TEA administrators to diminish the requirement to teach about evolutionary biology in the Biology TEKS and to require instead that biology instructors “Teach the Controversy” about the “weaknesses” of evolution, that is, teach the Creationist-inspired and -created bogus controversy about evolution that doesn’t exist within legitimate science. There are no scientific weaknesses with biological evolution as the natural process is understood by scientists. At the level at which it is taught in high school, evolutionary biology has no weaknesses, gaps, or problems. Therefore, it is duplicitous to pretend such “weaknesses” and “controversy” exist.

This is not an opinion being expressed here. It’s a fact. The Texas State Board of Education is trying to change the way they review and edit the science standards in the state; the basic ideas students get taught in class. Get this: they want to have a single person (called without any conscious irony on their part a facilitator) who will have the final say on how the standards get written. Sure, there will be a panel of experts and all that, but if the panel says evolution needs to be a standard, and the facilitator disagrees, then evolution won’t be a standard. It’s that simple.

And what are the odds the facilitator will be someone who can be trusted on these point? I’d say a big fat zero.

This violates the very nature of education on nearly all levels. Without any expert input whatsoever, a single person (chosen by a Board of Education with decidedly creationist leanings) gets to decide not only what is science and what isn’t, but also decide this for all the public school students in the state.

How doomed can one state be? The answer is none. None more doomed. Unless people rise up and do something about this. If you are an educator, scientist, parent, or student in the state of Texas, and you’re as angry as I am, contact the Texas Citizens for Science and do something. Make your voice heard!

Tip o’ the ten gallon hat to PZ.

Heh. I found this post buried in my list of drafts. For some reason I didn’t post it when I wrote it months ago. It seems appropriate now given what happened in Texas, so enjoy.

A woman in Ohio has stopped drinking Starbucks (registration for that link may be required) because her takeout cup had a quotation on it that expressed a vague notion of possible agnosticism:

Printed on the cup was: “Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.”

It is attributed to Bill Schell, a Starbucks customer from London, Ontario, and was included on the cup as part of an effort by the company to collect different viewpoints and spur discussion.

“As someone who loves God, I was so offended by that. I don’t think there needs to be religious dialogue on it. I just want coffee,” said Incanno, a married mother of three who is Catholic.

That’s her right, of course, but I wonder out loud that her faith is so shaky that it is disturbed by a paper coffee cup. Be that as it may, where was she when Starbucks had this on a coffee cup?

Darwinism’s impact on traditional social values has not been as benign as its advocates would like us to believe. Despite the efforts of its modern defenders to distance themselves from its baleful social consequences, Darwinism’s connection with eugenics, abortion and racism is a matter of historical record, and the record is not pretty.” From Dr. Jonathan Wells, biologist and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

Yup, that Wells, a shill for The Discovery Institute who never gets within a glancing blow of reality. Starbucks says they put these quotations on cups just to air out various points of view. That’s fine, I suppose, up to the point where they spread sheer nonsense like that garbage from Wells (you need not imagine what PZ had to say when that cup came out). Even then, of course, that’s their right, but in today’s climate of public ignorance about science, publicizing quotations from the DI — which is populated with people who will lie outrageously and without hesitation to promote their religion — I wish they had a little more info on the cup.

And again, that woman from Ohio is free to buy or not buy whatever product she wants for whatever reason, just as Starbucks is free to print whatever it wants to on its cups. If Catholics boycott because of an atheist quotation, or atheists boycott because of a religious one, that’s the power of the pocketbook, and it’s a good one.

But everyone should be aware that Starbucks is, indeed, printing opposing views, so in that sense what they are doing is legit. I’ll note that not too long ago, a Starbucks cup featuring a quotation by Armistead Maupin about homophobia caused an uproar in Texas (well, Baylor University), too. I’ve seen both progressive and conservative quotations on Starbucks cups, though I’ll wait with bated breath for them to post an opinion from, say, David Duke or Charles Manson.

I’m sure glad I have my own pulpit here to talk about it. I’m not a huge fan of Starbucks — I drink it when I’m out of beans or in too big a hurry to make a cuppa joe myself — but something like this is hardly enough to make me avoid the place, or let it get me upset. Some folks really just need to switch to decaf.

After writing this, I found a long thread about it on Fark.com. In general, many Farkers are rude and immature — it’s a selling point! — but the respondents in this case have some interesting good things to say. And need I add? NSFW.

Update: Welcome, readers of Crooks and Liars! You may want to read the next blog post in this series when you finish the one below. This story gets better and better.

What the heck is wrong with Texas?

First, they get a creationist governor. Then their creationist governor appoints a creationist to head the State Board of Education.

And now, when Chris Comer, the Texas Education Agency’s director of science curriculum, sends out an email announcing a talk by anti_creationism advocate Barbara Forrest, the TEA forces her to resign.

Why? Hold on to your seats here, folks, because you won’t believe this:

[Texas Education] Agency officials cited the e-mail in a memo recommending her termination. They said forwarding the e-mail not only violated a directive for her not to communicate in writing or otherwise with anyone outside the agency regarding an upcoming science curriculum review, “it directly conflicts with her responsibilities as the Director of Science.”

The memo adds, “Ms. Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker’s position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.”

That’s right, the Texas Education Agency must remain neutral when it comes to science versus antiscience!

If a speaker came advocating astronomy over astrology, would that cause problems for TEA? How about an HIV denier? Could they speak out against such a person?

Funny. I would think that it would one of TEA’s biggest goals to promote science over antiscience, and to actually teach people the difference between reality and fantasy.

So Ms. Comer has been forced to resign, and she claims that it is political in nature, and that she is being railroaded. I am of the very strong opinion that she is absolutely correct. It’s very clear that at most she might have deserved to be reprimanded for sending out the email, even if the TEA policy about neutrality is really stupid. But if you read the whole article you’ll see that petty politics and pro-creationist administrators are behind this.

As noted anti-creationist Genie Scott commented in the article,

“This just underscores the politicization of science education in Texas,” Scott said. “In most states, the department of education takes a leadership role in fostering sound science education. Apparently TEA employees are supposed to be kept in the closet and only let out to do the bidding of the board.”

As you might expect, PZ has some things to say about this as well. So does Josh. In fact, expect to see this news hitting the science blogosphere like a bomb.

The fight against antiscience, the fight against theocracy, the fight against nonsense will never stop, because their minions are always lurking somewhere. Keep fighting, people. We must never tire. Because if we do:

Texas:

Man, I hate being forced to insult someone. But he brings it on himself: Glenn Beck is an idiot.

He is a right-wing blowhard who talks endlessly about stuff he doesn’t have a clue about. A web search on him will yield endless idiotic rants where he is precisely wrong (his penultimate latest was claiming that people who hate America — meaning progressives — were getting their houses burnt in California. That dope doesn’t even know how conservative San Diego county is, let alone understand just how truly offensive such a statement is on its own merits).

So now he is pontificating on global warming and the SoCal fires. And what does this brain trust have to say?

BECK: We’ll tell you the truth. We’ll tell you the things that are politically incorrect. I’ll go on and I’ll tell you the fires have very little to do with global warming, if anything. The globe was the hottest in 19 — was it 1934, Stu [executive producer Steve "Stu" Burguiere], or ’37? — ’34, 1934 was the hottest year. A stat, by the way, that was, I believe, intentionally distorted by the guy the left holds up as the scientist on global warming. America’s temperature peaked in 1934. Since 1934, the hottest year on record was 1998. It has not gotten warmer since 1998. That’s a fact.

Now, why are these fires burning out of control? Al Gore and everybody else will have you believe that it is all about global warming. Well, really? A one-degree temperature change that happened at the first part of the century, not in the last part of the century, at least most of it, and a temperature change that hasn’t changed since 1998 is causing superfires in California and only California? Only America? It’s in the American borders. How is that possible?

His first statement is wrong, right off the bat: it’s nowhere near the truth.

First, 1934 was the hottest year in the US, not globally. Second, as I discussed extensively on this very blog, 1934 was just barely hotter than 1998, the second hottest year on record (again, in the US, not in the world). The difference is so miniscule that they can be considered to be tied.

Third, that stat was not intentionally distorted by James Hansen (the scientist he mentions obliquely). There was some recalibration done on the temperatures, and the numbers get shuffled around a bit. Not terribly much, in fact, and the overall conclusions on global warming don’t change.

Fourth, the fluctuations in temperature year-to-year are large, so you can’t simply state that it hasn’t gotten hotter since 1998. That’s meaningless. You need to look at longer trends.

Fifth, while the one degree rise in Fahrenheit has been going on for the past century, in fact the temperature has spiked upward since about 1980. That’s obvious from this graph (x-axis is years since 1880):

So in fact, Beck is wrong again: the majority of the rise in temperatures in the US has been over the past few decades.

Sixth, no real scientist is saying that global warming is causing these fires. What it’s doing is setting up conditions where things like this are more likely. Global warming affects global weather patterns, and it’s the Santa Ana winds that turned these fires from a nuisance into a killer. I’m not saying that GW is the trigger here; I’m saying that things will get wonkier from here on out. Count on it.

Glenn Beck has an astonishing record of saying astonishingly stupid things. He said this particular garbage on his radio show. I’m not surprised; AM radio is loaded with talk shows that spew nothing but hate, lies, distortions, and intolerance (I am only intolerant of willful ignorance and willful distortion of reality). But he also has an hour-long program on CNN every day! Why the heck does CNN give him any air at all?

I don’t like to call people names, but Beck is given a national audience, and his intellectual capacity is clearly such that he shouldn’t even be allowed to rant in public parks to passing squirrels. I’ve had enough of such idiocy, especially on matters of what is in fact and in deed life and death.

The South Carolina (motto: "First to Secede!") governing body is maybe not so much the bastion of science and reality-based thinking. But now, as reported in The Charleston Post & Courier, they join Texas in what I can only think of as utter stupidity:

State lawmakers shot down a request for extra financial help for low-income students who will attend South Carolina’s public colleges and universities next year.

Meanwhile, they approved $2.5 million to help low-income students attend Bob Jones University, a private school in Greenville.

Yes, that BJU, where it is was^* school policy to forbid interracial dating (I guess Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t be allowed to attend), and where, more to the point, they teach creationism instead of, y’know, reality.

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Monday, the Boston Globe ran an editorial that I found very irritating. The writer, Jeff Jacoby, points out that perhaps the greatest scientific mind of all time, Isaac Newton, was not only very religious, but was a young-Earth creationist. For Jacoby, this shows that science and religion can work hand in hand:

For Newton, it was axiomatic that religious inquiry and scientific investigation complemented each other. There were truths to be found in both of the “books” authored by God, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature — or as Francis Bacon called them, the “book of God’s word” and the “book of God’s works.” To study the world empirically did not mean abandoning religious faith. On the contrary: The more deeply the workings of Creation were understood, the closer one might come to the Creator. In the language of the 19th Psalm, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

Jacoby also has some fun with the idea that Newton today would never get a position at a University, let alone Cambridge, and in fact Jacoby spends much of his editorial on that subject:

When Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning,” [Newton] determined, it means 3988 BC.

Not many modern universities are prepared to employ a science professor who espouses not merely “intelligent design” but out-and-out divine creation.

I call shenanigans.

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