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."

(to Aric2000) Seems to me that at the same time that Darwin was spewing his racist rants in the US

Which he wasn't, as previously noted...

more than half a million WHITE MEN were dying to free blacks from oppression.

Which action Darwin TOTALLY supported (emphasis added):

"But I suppose you are all too overwhelmed with the public affairs to are for science. I never knew the newspapers so profoundly interesting. N. America does not do England Justice: I have not seen or heard of a soul who is not with the North. Some few, & I am one, even and wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against Slavery. 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. " -- Charles Darwin to Asa Gray (June 5, 1861) The Correspondence of Charles Darwin Vol. 9 1861 (1994), p.163

Oh yes, as I remember, another half million Americans died in WWII to stop the mass murders incited by your buddy Darwin.

In gore-world, maybe. In the real world, insofar as can be inferred from the example of the Civil War, and from other examples -- Darwin's sickened reaction to genocidal campaigns against indians in South America, his strong advocacy for the prosecution of Governor Eyre (who turned to mass murder in putting down a revolt of former slaves in Jamaica), etc. -- we can easily infer that Darwin would have been firmly on the side of England and America against Nazism.

Btw, Adrian Desmond & James Moore's Darwin has the following tibit concerning contemporary reaction to evolutionists supporting the prosecution of Eyre (pp 540-541):

"Darwinian emotions flared, fanned by the Pall Mall Gazette's nasty jibe that Huxley and Lyell's views on the 'development of species' had 'influenced them in bestowing on the negro that sympathetic recognition which they are willing to extend even to the ape as "a man and a brother".'"

Shame that you weren't around to set things straight, gore. The Victorians seem to have had it all backwards, thinking that evolution underminined racism!

Interesting, I am impressed that you went that far back, but the main threads that had actual evidence etc, your boy ALS got pulled, oh, and hopefully you read the posts that showed on this board and not some other board where it's mirrored, because I would be almost afraid of the cut and paste hack job that would be.

Yes, Alamo Girl has my greatest respect, she does NOT go for guilt by association tactics, she does NOT twist words, she does NOT do cut and paste hack jobs on things other people that disagree with her say.

She is respectful, and deserves the EXACT same thing in return.

She actually posts literate, understandable and coherent posts, she is polite, almost defferential, but she has made EXCELLENT points, and we agree, far more then we disagree, but then again, she does not believe that if you understand evolution, then you are automatically an atheist either.

I have started and posted some rather interesting info, but when some of your buds in here get involved in a thread, it is NOT worth the effort, because they do NOT read the posts, they read what they want into the posts. So might as well just post with the assumption that what I know, is not wanted to be known.

Newland, if you want to have a civil debate, we can have one, but as soon as your boy ALS and others get involved, it turns into a pissing match, not a debate.

So, you want to debate with evidence etc, then call off your dogs, and we can have a reasonable, adult conversation, I am REALLY into those, but when the thread gets filled up with crap, it kinda goes downhill from there. And oh my goodness, it goes fine until ALS and posse show up to tear it to pieces.

Try it, you will be VERY surprised at how civil these threads can be, Bondserv, AndrewC, Alamo-girl, and there are a few others that we have EXCELLENT discussions with, but when the colume gets too high, the real coherent posts will be no where to be found through all the noise.

And speaking of credibility, guilt by association is something that Andrew and I were discussing earlier.

Do you like to be asociated with....

To: ThinkPlease

"They"

pay attention or better yet, think please

2,504 posted on 07/14/2003 6:50 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's finest . contact me to add yours!)
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Attack

To: longshadow

u run with purses u say?

2,509 posted on 07/14/2003 6:56 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's finest . contact me to add yours!)
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ATTACK

To: balrog666

you guys share a purse or fight over it?

does someone usually win or do you take turns??

2,513 posted on 07/14/2003 7:09 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's finest . contact me to add yours!)
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ATTACK

To: JesseShurun

i think we got another groupie!

move over patty

2,521 posted on 07/14/2003 7:16 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's finest . contact me to add yours!)
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Another Attack

To: Aric2000

defending darwood the racist sexist, eh?

2,552 posted on 07/14/2003 8:38 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's finest . contact me to add yours!)
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Guilt by association atack

To: Doctor Stochastic

The context is darwood was a racist and a sexist and inspired the likes of Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Margaret Sanger and other noted knuckledragging murderers of the world.

behold thy grail

it must be as fun to defend darwood as the libs had defending slick

2,563 posted on 07/14/2003 9:02 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's finest . contact me to add yours!)
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Another Guilt by association attack

To: Stultis

Hitler and gang were "only human" too, eh?

Sanger was born Margaret Higgins in Corning, N.Y., on Sept. 14, 1883. She took her nurse's training at the White Plains Hospital and the Manhattan Eye and Ear Clinic. She married William Sanger in 1900. Her lurid sexual past experimentation and preoccupation with lesbianism and pansexuality outpaced that of her husband and they were divorced shortly. She kept the last name by which she had become well known, even after she remarried in 1922 to a man whose political views were similar to hers and those of a young Corporal she had met in late 1917, Adolf Hitler.

Sanger said that she believed in a woman's right to plan the size of her family, but in actuality used the excuse to attempt the institutionalization of the ideals of Darwin (eugenisis and the eradication of disfavourable races), Mme. Helena Blavatsky (the ideals of Eastern Mysticism and establishment of Aryanism), and her melding of minds with Hitler.
http://www.inaxis.org.uk/biographies/sanger.html

At least everyone gets to see how you clowns think

2,573 posted on 07/14/2003 9:16 PM PDT by ALS (http://designeduniverse.com Featuring original works by FR's finest . contact me to add yours!)
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And another guilt by association post

Yep, these are fact filled posts Alright.

Attacks and guilt by association.

Evolutionists are Nazis, atheists, socialists, abortionists, etc etc, ad nauseum.

What fact filled posts are you talking about again?

What post have I seen that did NOT have something in it for him to use to attack us with? And have the same old assumptions that we have argued over again and again.

Notice that I did NOT say discuss, I said attack.

You are going to defend him, then your credibility is just as much in question as my own.

If you believe that his posts are somehow above board, and should indeed be standard fair from Creationists, I believe that you have a big problem.

You want to have an actual debate, that would be grand, you would like to have an evidence filled, polite, respectful thread, that would be great.

But guess what? You start!!

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