Posted on 07/09/2003 12:08:32 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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.
New books will be distributed next summer.
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."
This is an untruth. We have repeated several times 'science is what scientists do, professionally'. We have also given you demarcation criteria by which you can distinguish science from non-science.
It makes my wonder why there is such a thing as "philosophy of science" when evos do not ackowledge it exists.
This is another untruth. Not only have we acknowledged it exists, we have drawn your attention to one very famous philosopher of science, who has directly addressed the questions you asked.
One word too long.
The world isn't rational so how do you live and function in it?
Why must it be rational?
How do you go about your day without an ordered world?
Why must it be ordered?
And what presuppositions are you embedding in your questions?
A 'damn, I wish I'd written that' placemarker. :-)
The values impressed on the minds of children by government schooling are not the same as the ones this nation was founded on, and everyone is forced to pay for it regardless of whether they agree with those values or not. If these two reasons aren't good enough to end government involvement in school, then probably nothing is.
Public schooling fails this test, though (pun not intended), because it is contradictory to those foundational values. When the government refuses to teach the basic values that it was founded on and replaces them with materialism, it ends up trying to repair its credibility by instilling a belief in authoritarianism.
(Also, I wasn't arguing that a person shouldn't pay their taxes, if that's what you were thinking.)
Now we are getting down to the nitty gritty. In admitting here that there is a philosophy of science, you are essentially admitting that there are philosophical presuppositions behind all science, which sort of muddies the picture, don't ya think? Philosophy (e.g. materialism, naturalism, empiricism) comes before science (neodarwinistic theory). How do you prove scientifically that your philosophy is true? You can't. It's subjective and is predicated upon worldivew. What are the implications of that do you think? Have you thought them out?
Gosh, next thing you know, you'll be reading the stuff that was posted to you that answers these questions. Everybody else has.
I'm admitting nothing of the sort. The philosophy of science came after science, not before it.
Is that right? If God CREATED all there is in existence, including laws, constants, all matter, all life, do you suppose that God has something to do with science? You can't separate the two if you are true theist. Argue with that chief. I don't know what your beliefs are and I don't care, but next time, BEFORE you get on your high horse and talk down to me, you should know what you're talking about. Let me clue you in on a little secret: God may be OUTSIDE science to YOU or a naturalistic EMPIRICIST, but not to me. Let me clue you in on another little secret: There is no way to empirically prove that knowledge comes ONLY from empirical observation, so you have no scientific basis for saying that God is outside the bounds of science! So much for your shallow assertion! And that's my last post to you.
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