Posted on 12/13/2007 7:06:55 PM PST by Stultis
The resignation of the [Texas] state's science curriculum director last month has signaled the beginning of what is shaping up to be a contentious and politically charged revision of the science curriculum, set to begin in earnest in January.
[snip]
Former science director Chris Comer says she resigned from the Texas Education Agency to avoid being fired after officials told her she had improperly endorsed evolution. She had forwarded an e-mail announcing a speech by a prominent scholar on evolution, which the state requires schools to teach.
[snip]
The [State Board of Education] must vote on any changes to the curriculum. Most board members, including the chairman, have said publicly they don't want to introduce intelligent design into the curriculum, and many of them also have said they want to keep the current language on evolution.
[...] Even small changes in the language could mean big changes in textbooks later on.
[snip]
Don McLeroy, a conservative board member on the losing side of the vote [adopting textbooks in '03] and a Sunday school teacher, later told a church group that he believed he could have persuaded more members to reject the books if he had challenged the assumption [of naturalism].
"How can the materialistic philosophic naturalistic base dependency of Darwinism be brought into the discussion and used for our benefit?" Dr. McLeroy asked, according to a recording of the speech. "We didn't use it. All we did was stay with evidence, and we got run over."
Dr. McLeroy is now chairman of the board. Gov. Rick Perry appointed the Bryan dentist to the post in July.
[snip]
Ten Republicans and five Democrats sit on the state board. Dr. McLeroy is part of a bloc of seven social conservatives who often vote together.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
She made the political move, and got fired for it. Really, advocating a lecture titled, "Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse," by Barbara Forrest, a well-known anti-Creationist. That's worse than "not neutral." The title of the lecture is blatantly political.
there's a difference between speech and advocacy on scientific controversies while working in a academic position
You've got to be kidding. First, are you suggesting that the Director of Science Curriculum for the Texas Education Agency is supposed to be "neutral" on the issue what is being taught as science curriculum? If so, what's the point of having a Director of Science Curriculum? Just put a "Director" sign on an empty chair and be done with it.
Second, are you suggesting that it is a firing offense if the Director of Science Curriculum has the audacity to advocate for the teaching of science in science classrooms?
Third, what scientific controversy are you talking about? Creationism isn't science, it's religion. And if you contend its not, then please, set out the Creationism curriculum for us -- you know, that niggling little thing that teachers are supposed to actually teach when they stand up in front of the class. Have at it. Nobody else seems to want to tackle that missing detail.
We all know how upfront and honest leftists are about their agenda.Like... Anthropogenic Global Warming is about saving the planet instead of forcing global socialism, wealth redistribution, and the destruction of capitalism.
Problem here is that including antievolution themes in textbooks and curricula, or softpedalling treatments of evolution, because of ideologically motivated political pressure on the part of antievolution activists, rather than because some nonevolutionary theory has EARNED scientific standing based on scientific research and testing -- will make it MORE difficult to keep ideologically motivated global warming diatribes and the like out of textbooks and curricula.
The best way to keep out the leftist crap, or remove it where it exists, is to insist on hard-nosed curricula and texts which objectively reflect the actual standing of ideas in the working sciences.
If you include antievolution views -- irrespective of their EARNING their place in curricula -- then you're legitimizing that political path to inclusion. In that case you're not really entitled to complain about leftists utilizing the same pathway to include their favored views in science curricula.
Yes, what does Bob Dole and Viagra have to do with Evolution? :-)
The real world is the “loose cannons.” I had them in school (”billions and billions of years ago”).
Huh? How are references to well established, extensively tested and universally accepted (aside solely from a subset of strict Biblical literalists) ages, such as the approximately 4.6 billion year age of the earth, examples of denying God and promoting atheism? Why would the subset of strict biblical literalists who reject such ages get to speak for all Christians, let alone all theists, such as that incidentally disagreeing with them is denying God?
If you have read the science blogs and journals
As noted previously blogs are irrelevant. And as to the later, I seriously doubt you can find a single example of a scientific research journal, particulary any important one, that any an remotely affirmative manner has used evolution in an antitheistic argument.
Please post some evidence for the statement that "we all descended from a most recent common ancestor pegged at 2000-5000 years ago."
And those flood sediments date from various times and places during the 4.5 billion year age of the earth. That just proves that there is water, not that there was one flood.
Noah's flood is placed very close to 4350 years ago by biblical scholars. You need to come up with a global flood at that date, not an ocean bottom 500 million years earlier and another one 750 million years earlier, etc.
And a flood at this date will come as a great surprise to the Egyptians (they failed to record a flood about then and just kept on building pyramids and the like).
And how do you explain genetic continuity from before to after that date in North America? A 10,000+ year old individual found in a cave in southern Alaska has living lineal descendants all along the west coasts of North and South America. No break in the mtDNA pattern and replacement by Noah's DNA.
The scientific evidence says there was no global flood at the appointed time, some 4350 years ago. Even the early creationist geologists finally gave up by about 1830.
Bite me, you heathen. Go blow a peppered moth out your a$$.
????????
I'm sure you win a lot of arguments with that line of reasoning.
To insist on evolution you need to be drugs; just like Bob because neither can stand on their own. --rimshot
The ”billions and billions of years ago” was a joke. Since you don’t seem to get it, it’s a play on a famous line attributed to Carl Sagan, implying that I’m very old, while also referring to the disconnect and need to translate that that those “Biblical literalists” and their children experience daily.
Now, you and I may firmly believe that the earth is very old. But, if we’re so smart that we can understand more than the “Biblical literalists,” we should be able to explain our facts without calling names such as “Creationism’s Trojan Horse.”
You may believe that the bloggers don’t repeat what they say on the ‘Net when they’re teaching. However, I’ve had my teachers tell me that there’s no need for a God to explain the origin of the species and I’ve read it even more often in letters to journals and in books by Dawkins and Sam Harris. These last two are quoted all over.
It’s difficult for me to agree with you that blogs are irrelevant. I’ve been involved in conversations just like this one with Dworkin, Myers, and (Lord rest his soul) Stephen Gould. Dawkins doesn’t respond to the responses he gets, but he posts his articles and has a forum similar to FR.
As for the scientific literature, take a look at the assumptions in the titles of articles (and the weak assumptions, at that, for anyone not exposed daily to the significance of the minutiae that support the conclusions that are made) in the free articles from Science News:
Where are you from, atlaw? Texas Eduction Agency employees do not set any sort of policy or curriculum - good or bad. Our elected officials do. We elect the Board of Education for a reason. We certainly don’t hire employees them to use our resources for their own agenda or to criticize the people we elect.
Texas is a “right to work” state. That’s one of those political “newspeak” terms. What it really means is a right to hire and fire on the part of the employers.
If a State employee wants to keep her job, she won’t publicly say her department doesn’t have any real leadership. She won’t complain about being told to relate official BOE policy rather than giving her own interpretation. She won’t make waves just after a new BOE chair and new director are named, just after the whole of the State is getting used to the new Legislative mandate for ethics statement, and - most importantly - just before a hearing that’s going to be controversial enough.
And she will know enough to understand that last sentence.
Remember Dover?
We might even end up with better scientists because of it.
The employment record of one woman who resigned after several years of criticizing her employers and then took her case to the New York Times is not something these people want to take to court of law. They'd rather continue to try it in the court of public opinion, like the NYT, the Austin American-Statesman, and email.
Then creationism and its illegitimate stepchild ID will not be a part of it, nor will staff and teachers be fired for criticizing either as being unrelated to science.
And the "dissent and scrutiny of weaknesses and perceived weaknesses" you cite -- there's plenty of legitimate scientific criticism already in the scientific journals. That is where science is done. Pushing one's religious belief, without any evidence, does not constitute either science or legitimate science criticism.
I’m not sure what you’re arguing. Have you heard of anyone being fired for criticizing either “creationism and its illegitimate stepchild ID . . . as being unrelated to science”?
Comer wasn’t fired. She was reprimanded for advertising a political program, “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse.” This evidently came after a history of criticizing her bosses and, most recently, complaining about the new ethics policy which was mandated by the Legislature in the spring.
She didn’t want to straighten up, so she quit, then went to the press to complain.
The Comer Cause has been taken up in a clear case of projection - seeing ideological motivation because of their own ideological motivation.
Houston, Texas. You?
Texas Eduction Agency employees do not set any sort of policy or curriculum - good or bad. Our elected officials do. We elect the Board of Education for a reason. We certainly don’t hire employees them to use our resources for their own agenda or to criticize the people we elect.
Well, right. But that leaves the necessary conclusion that it is the current policy of our elected Board members to permit (or perhaps encourage) the teaching of religion in science classrooms. I hadn't heard that before the firing of Comer, and now I want to know every jot and tittle about that policy.
Indeed, I'd like to know precisely what the state policy is, and where I can find it. But oddly enough, the only thing our elected officials will actually say is that Comer violated a policy of "neutrality." What in the heck does that mean?
Is it also state policy to be "neutral" on the teaching of astrology, a flat earth, a geocentric solar system, and Pat Robertson's god-directed hurricanes in public school science classes?
I think the citizens of this state have the right to see the actual policy -- in detail, and in writing. After all, it's that very policy that led to the canning of the Director of Science Curriculum for the offense of advocating the teaching of science in science classrooms.
Texas is a “right to work” state. That’s one of those political “newspeak” terms. What it really means is a right to hire and fire on the part of the employers.
So? Texas' right to work laws aren't as sweeping or universal as you make them out be, but political appointees aren't even affected by them in any event. Political appointees can be, and are, regularly canned for purely political reasons. But that's not the issue. The issue is the right of the citizens of this state to know what in the living daylights our elected officials are up to.
I, like you, am a voter in this state, and when I see the Director of Science Curriculum canned by elected Board members for advocating the teaching of science in science classrooms, I have every right to question it, to complain about it, to advocate my position that it is the purest nonsense, and to adjust my vote accordingly.
You're not suggesting, are you, that citizens of this state must also be "neutral" on whether state funded public school science classes should teach a narrow and exclusive religious doctrine or teach science?
If a State employee wants to keep her job, she won’t publicly say her department doesn’t have any real leadership.
Probably right in most cases, although occasionally the "leadership" pays attention and shapes up. That said, I admire someone who puts sane policy ahead of exclusive self-interest in "keeping their job."
She won’t complain about being told to relate official BOE policy rather than giving her own interpretation.
She certainly will if the policy is hogwash and she has any integrity at all. The job be damned.
You seem to think this whole thing is just about whether the Board had a "right" to can Comer. Of course they did. But their ridiculous reason for doing so shouldn't go unreported or unnoticed by the citizenry, and Comer can't (and shouldn't) be told to just shut up about it. It was a bad decision, and the citizens of this state have every right to hear all about it and question the living daylights out of the idiocy of our elected officials in doing it and condoning it.
She won’t make waves just after a new BOE chair and new director are named, just after the whole of the State is getting used to the new Legislative mandate for ethics statement, and - most importantly - just before a hearing that’s going to be controversial enough.
And like a good horse on a lead, she will go silently along as a ridiculous policy leads the state into yet another losing litigation showdown over teaching the Bible in science classes.
To the contrary. She made waves, and I'm glad she did. I want to know what my elected officials are up to in the back room, and I now have a pretty good clue.
As an aside, do you have suggestions about that "creationism" curriculum I mentioned in my last post?
No. She was presented with an e-mail by Lizzette Reynolds stating that her action (forwarding of an e-mail regarding a lecture entitled “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse”) was grounds for termination. Pressured to resign. Forced out. Fired. I don't really care. Like I said before, this little tempest is indicative of a backroom policy that I want to know more about.
And why is another, unelected official (Lizzette Reyonlds) effectively setting policy? Isn't that precisely what you say unelected officials aren't supposed to do?
Your suggestion that Comer was inappropriately advancing a "political" agenda is disingenuous at best. After all, Comer forwarded an e-mail about a lecture that focused on the political manipulations of creationists who are attempting to get their religious viewpoints inserted into public school science classrooms. Sure, that's a political issue. Its a political issue about whether religion or science is going to be taught in public school science classrooms -- which seems like a political issue that a political appointee with the title of "Director of Science Curriculum" ought to darn well have an opinion about.
She didn’t want to straighten up
Straighten up, my eye. She didn't want to carry water for a bogus backroom policy pushing for creationism in public schools. And now that that backroom policy has seen the light of day, isn't it interesting how our elected officials are dancing, juking, and jiving all over the place?
And if she files a wrongful termination lawsuit, it should be very interesting to see what will come out in depositions and discovery. (Dover II?)
Well, like I said above in post 55, I don't think she has grounds for a wrongful termination suit. She works at the whim of the political powers that be.
But then, I haven't heard that she's even interested in such a suit. She's seems to be just airing out the idiocy, and I, for one, am grateful that she is. Who knows, maybe the Texas Board will be so mortified at this public display of their undergarments that they'll re-appoint her.
Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, is chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. Following is the transcript of a presentation he delivered in 2005 at Grace Bible Church in Bryan, Texas, on the debate over teaching evolution and "intelligent design."
http://www.tfn.org/publiceducation/textbooks/mcleroy/index.php
One pertinent quote (out of many):
Now I would like to talk a little bit about the big tent. Why is intelligent design the big tent? It’s because we’re all lined up against the fact that naturalism, that nature is all there is. Whether you’re a progressive creationist, recent creationist, young earth, old earth, it’s all in the tent of intelligent design. And intelligent design here at Grace Bible Church actually is a smaller, uh, tent than you would have in the intelligent design movement as a whole. Because we are all Biblical literalists, we all believe the Bible to be inerrant, and it’s good to remember, though, that the entire intelligent design movement as a whole is a bigger tent.
Science? Right!
He'll do great on the witness stand. (Dover II)
Bless you, your post number 56 is such a perfect example of projection that I've underlined the best part (which is the answer to your earlier question about "scientific controversies") and I'm saving it for reference in the future:
Your suggestion that Comer was inappropriately advancing a "political" agenda is disingenuous at best. After all, Comer forwarded an e-mail about a lecture that focused on the political manipulations of creationists who are attempting to get their religious viewpoints inserted into public school science classrooms. Sure, that's a political issue. Its a political issue about whether religion or science is going to be taught in public school science classrooms -- which seems like a political issue that a political appointee with the title of "Director of Science Curriculum" ought to darn well have an opinion about.
and,
Straighten up, my eye. She didn't want to carry water for a bogus backroom policy pushing for creationism in public schools. And now that that backroom policy has seen the light of day, isn't it interesting how our elected officials are dancing, juking, and jiving all over the place?
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