Biology textbook hearings prompt science disputes [Texas]

FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) -
The long-running debate over the origins of mankind continues Wednesday before the Texas State Board of Education, and the result could change the way science is taught here and across the nation.

Local and out-of-state lobbying groups will try to convince the board that the next generation of biology books should contain new scientific evidence that reportedly pokes holes in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Many of those groups say that they are not pushing to place a divine creator back into science books, but to show that Darwin's theory is far from a perfect explanation of the origin of mankind.

"It has become a battle ground," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of theNational Center of Science Education, which is dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the classroom.

Almost 45 scientists, educators and special interest groups from across the state will testify at the state's first public hearing this year on the next generation of textbooks for the courses of biology, family and career studies and English as a Second Language.

Approved textbooks will be available for classrooms for the 2004-05 school year. And because Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the nation, the outcome could affect education nationwide.

The Texas Freedom Network and a handful of educators held a conference call last week to warn that conservative Christians and special interest organizations will try to twist textbook content to further their own views.

"We are seeing the wave of the future of religious right's attack on basic scientific principles," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the network, an anti-censorship group and opponent of the radical right.

Those named by the network disagree with the claim, including the Discovery Institute and its Science and Culture Center of Seattle.

"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.

"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."

The institute also is perhaps the nation's leading proponent of intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have occurred without the help of an unknown, intelligent being.

It pushed this view through grants to teachers and scientists, including Michael J. Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The Institute receives millions of dollars from philanthropists and foundations dedicated to discrediting Darwin's theory.

The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.

Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.

"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."

The executive director of Texas Citizens for Science, Steven Schafersman, calls the institute's information "pseudoscience nonsense." Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who, for more than two decades, taught biology, geology, paleontology and environmental science at a number of universities, including the University of Houston and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.

"It sounds plausible to people who are not scientifically informed," Schafersman said. "But they are fraudulently trying to deceive board members. They might succeed, but it will be over the public protests of scientists."

The last time Texas looked at biology books, in 1997, the State Board of Education considered replacing them all with new ones that did not mention evolution. The board voted down the proposal by a slim margin.

The state requires that evolution be in textbooks. But arguments against evolution have been successful over the last decade in other states. Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska made changes that, to varying degrees, challenge the pre-eminence of evolution in the scientific curriculum.

In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to wash the concepts of evolution from the state's science curricula. A new state board has since put evolution back in. Last year, the Cobb County school board in Georgia voted to include creationism in science classes.

Texas education requirements demand that textbooks include arguments for and against evolution, said Neal Frey, an analyst working with perhaps Texas' most famous textbook reviewers, Mel and Norma Gabler.

The Gablers, of Longview, have been reviewing Texas textbooks for almost four decades. They describe themselves as conservative Christians. Some of their priorities include making sure textbooks include scientific flaws in arguments for evolution.

"None of the texts truly conform to the state's requirements that the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories be presented to students," Frey said.

The Texas textbook proclamation of 2001, which is part of the standard for the state's curriculum, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, requires that biology textbooks instruct students so they may "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weakness using scientific evidence and information."

The state board is empowered to reject books only for factual errors or for not meeting the state's curriculum requirements. If speakers convince the state board that their evidence is scientifically sound, members may see little choice but to demand its presence in schoolbooks.

Proposed books already have been reviewed and approved by Texas Tech University. After a public hearing Wednesday and another Sept. 10, the state board is scheduled to adopt the new textbooks in November.

Satisfying the state board is only half the battle for textbook publishers. Individual school districts choose which books to use and are reimbursed by the state unless they buy texts rejected by the state board.

Districts can opt not to use books with passages they find objectionable. So when speakers at the public hearings criticize what they perceived as flaws in various books - such as failing to portray the United States or Christianity in a positive light - many publishers listen.

State Board member Terri Leo said the Discovery Institute works with esteemed scientists and that their evidence should be heard.

"You cannot teach students how to think if you don't present both sides of a scientific issue," Leo said. "Wouldn't you think that the body that has the responsibility of what's in the classroom would look at all scientific arguments?"

State board member Bob Craig said he had heard of the Intelligent Design theory.

"I'm going in with an open mind about everybody's presentation," Craig said. "I need to hear their presentation before I make any decisions or comments.

State board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wanted to hear from local scientists.

"If we are going to discuss scientific information in the textbooks, the discussion will have to remain scientific," Berlanga said. "I'd like to hear from some of our scientists in the field on the subject."

If he [Darwin] was [opposed to slavery],

If? If?

I proved (in #2686, addressed to you) that Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery, so much so that, in a letter to the American botanist Asa Gray in the early months of The Civil War (still before 1st Bull Run) he "wish[ed] to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against Slavery." And continued:

In the long run, a million horrid deaths would be amply repaid in the cause of humanity. What wonderful times we live in. Massachusetts seems to show noble enthusiasm. Great God how I should like to see the greatest curse on Earth Slavery abolished.

There is much more evidence that could be adduced of Darwin's opposition to slavery, for it was a strong and life-long passion on his part; but in this message I'm going to stick to evidence already posted within this thread, in order to more starkly demonstrate to the lurkers your execrable obstinancy, deep dishonesty and extreme bigotry.

I should also add that similar evidence has been put before you many times in the past. There is no historical basis -- not a single shred -- for any doubt whatsoever about Darwin's views on slavery. Yet you continue lie about them.

he never said so in his public writings which is what matters.

False, and also previously so demonstrated in this very thread. In #830 (addressed to goodseedhomeschool) I quoted from one of Darwin's public writings, The Voyage of the Beagle. After recounting some of the horrors of slavery, the section I excerpted concludes:

It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter;—what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children—those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own—being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder!
And these deeds are done and palliated by men who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that His Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty; but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin.

BTW, not only was Darwin more than willing to express his views on slavery publicly, he was also willing to oppose even his close friend and mentor. Although he did not name him, the passage above was angrily added by Darwin to a 1845 edition of Voyage in response to Charles Lyell's just published Travels In North America, which Darwin felt was soft on slavery. (Adrian Desmond & James Moore, Darwin, pp 328-29.) It was his own friend that he excoriated among those who "palliated" the evils of slavery.

In those [Darwin's public writings] he spread racial hatred.

False.

Yes, as I have previously conceeded, Darwin held some views that are racist by today's standards; but he never, by any standard, devolved to racialist "hatred". I defy you to supply even one example.

Well, actually, that's not quite true, I must admit on further consideration. But, most interestingly, the only examples I know of in Darwin were racial comments take on a bilious tone were in connection with his hatred of slavery, and were directed against European slaveholders. E.g. his comment about Portuguese slaveholders in Brazil, which I quoted in #2715. Note here that, while there are indeed stereotypes about negroes, Darwin's attitude toward them is positive and affectionate:

"I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England, if she is the first European nation which utterly abolish is it. I was told before leaving England, that after living in slave countries: all my options would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the Negros character. It is impossible to see a negro & not feel kindly toward him; such cheerful, open honest expressions & such fine muscular bodies; I never saw any of the diminutive Portuguese with their murderous countenances, without almost wishing for Brazil to follow the example of Haiti [where the slaves successfully revolted and gained their freedom]; & considering the enormous healthy looking black population, it will be wonderful if at some future day it does not take place." -- Charles Darwin to Catherine Darwin (May 22 - July 14 1833) The Correspondence of Charles Darwin Vol. 1 1821-1836 (1985), pp. 312-313

In addition he also, in his private correspondence to others went so far as advocating the extermination of inferior races.

No, he did not.

Darwin sailed around the world on The Beagle from 1831 to 1836. He actually witnessed native peoples being slaughtered. For instance the Tasmanians had been almost literally wiped out to the last man, and woman (under a Governor who was an outspoken Christian, btw) only a few years before Darwin visited Australia. Ditto with indians in South America, except that Darwin actually saw some of the genocidal wars in progress there.

It is hardly surprising that Darwin would have concluded, from what he saw, that native populations were likely to be doomed in their encounter with Europeans; but communicating observations and extrapolating from them is not the same as approving of the process observed. You have provided no evidence at all that Darwin approved of this process, but only quotes where he describes the unfortunate fate of native populations and predicts more of the same.

Again I have already given evidence in this thread, in #2715, that Darwin did NOT approve. Here he discussing the slaughter of indians in South America. (I quote Darwin's description of the attrocities at greater length in the original message.) Note that there is no question here that Darwin is horrified and disapproves, and note this is from his "public writings":

This is a dark picture; but how much more shocking is the unquestionable fact, that all the women who appear above twenty years old are massacred in cold blood! When I exclaimed that this appeared rather inhuman. he answered, "Why, what can be done? they breed so!"
Every one here is fully convinced that this is the most just war, because it is against barbarians. Who would believe in this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian civilized country?" -- Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle (1839), Chapter V

If I wasn't confining myself to material already posted in the thread, I would quote from the strong, passionate and public defense that Darwin made of the Missionary Movement subsequent to The Beagle voyage, specifically citing the facts that missionaries both protected native people, and mitigated or opposed the violence toward them practiced by some of the colonials.

The man was a lying hypocrite

Pot, kettle, black!

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