Re: Ohio

John W Burgeson wrote:
>
> I just rec'd the following email from one of my "religious" right
> contacts.
>
> Comments?
> ----------------------
> From: Cathie Adams and Texas Eagle Forum
> Date: March 23, 2004
>
> Ohio lesson plan pleases conservatives, irks apostles of Darwin
> Phyllis Schlafly
>
> March 22, 2004
>
> "Why is it important for scientists to critically analyze evolution?"
>
> That's the first question in the "student reflection" portion of a
> controversial 22-page section called "Critical Analysis of Evolution,"
> which is now part of Ohio's 547-page public school science curriculum.
>
> How could anybody object to such an innocuous question? Newspapers report
> a
> steady stream of news that scientists are questioning such dogmas as good
>
> cholesterol vs. bad cholesterol, vaccine links to autism, the causes of
> breast cancer, even fluoridation for children's teeth. Isn't the nature
> of
> science to question assertions and seek the proof from evidence?
>
> On Feb. 10, the Ohio State Board of Education approved the new curriculum
>
> by a vote of 13-5 after being persuaded by 22 Ohio scientists that the
> lesson plan promotes academic freedom and that it is good for students in
>
> 10th grade to have an inquiring mind about evolution.
>
> "Are we about teaching students how to think, or what to think?" asked
> one
> parent supporter of the lesson plan.
>
> And it's optional; no teacher will be required to teach criticisms of
> evolution, and no students will be tested on the criticisms. So what's
> the
> big deal?
>
> To some people, it's a very big deal. The American Civil Liberties Union
> is
> threatening a lawsuit.
>
> Case Western Reserve University lecturer Patricia Princehouse - whose
> academic position is philosophy, not science - led the opposition to the
> new lesson. "It's sad day for science in Ohio," she said.
>
> Another nonscientist, Florida State University law professor Steven Gey,
> flew in to warn Ohio residents that the lesson is unconstitutional and
> would almost certainly be struck down if it reached the U.S. Supreme
> Court.
> Maybe he is seeking an activist judge to rule that the Constitution
> prohibits allowing students to question anything in science class.
>
> Gey's notions of constitutionality are unusual. He thinks that "moral
> relativism" is a "constitutional command," that the Pledge of Allegiance
> is
> unconstitutional, and that nude sunbathing should be given
> "constitutional
> protection."
>
> There is nothing religious about creationism, or even about intelligent
> design, in the new Ohio standards. What is controversial is giving
> students
> the opportunity to question evolution; it's the inquiry-and-debate aspect
>
> that some people find so threatening.
>
> The new lesson encourages students to consider both supporting and
> "challenging" evidence for evolution. The challenges to the theory are
> understated and are backed up with facts.
>
> For example, the lesson says that the fossil record supports evolution
> with
> its increasing complexity of living forms. But the lesson also observes
> that "transitional fossils are rare in the fossil record" and "a growing
> number of scientists now question that ... transitional fossils really
> are
> transitional forms." The lesson notes that some changes in species occur
> quickly in the fossil record relative to longer stretches that manifest
> no
> change.
>
> The new lesson plan presents the overused English peppered moth story
> found
> in most textbooks, which teaches that black moths survived because they
> rested on trees blackened by soot, while white moths were eaten by the
> birds. The lesson points out that "peppered moths do not actually rest on
>
> tree trunks," and that "no new species emerged" as evolutionists have
> long
> implied was the result of the soot.
>
> The new lesson plan invites students to take a fresh look at evolutionary
>
> claims of common ancestry. The lesson observes that different genes and
> development have created similar anatomical structures, suggesting
> different ancestries.
>
> Can it be that this kind of balanced information is so dangerous for high
>
> school students to hear that it must be censored from textbooks? Or that
> it
> rises to the level of a Supreme Court case where judges might declare it
> unconstitutional?
>
> Diehard evolutionists have enjoyed censorship of any criticism of their
> beliefs for 100 years, and they won't willingly give up their academic
> turf. Their censorship demands became so irrational that Rich Baker, the
> Ohio board's vice president, called them "a bunch of paranoid,
> egotistical
> scientists afraid of people finding out (they) don't know anything."
>
> Ohio has become the cutting edge in the long-running evolution debate.
> Georgia, New Mexico, Minnesota, West Virginia and Kansas have all
> wrestled
> with science standards and curricula on evolution in recent years.
>
> The Alabama Senate Education Committee last week approved the "Academic
> Freedom Act," which says that no teacher or professor in public schools
> or
> universities may be fired, denied tenure or otherwise discriminated
> against
> for presenting "alternative theories" to evolution. The bill would also
> prohibit any student from being penalized because he held "a particular
> position on biological or physical origins" so long as the student
> demonstrated "acceptable understanding of course materials," which
> include
> evolution.

        As you may guess from the source, this is highly misleading. It gives the
impression that scientists - all 22 of them - favored the plan that was adopted and the
only people opposing it were philosophers & lawyers. Of course we don't do science by
voting, but if things like that are cited it should be noted that the science faculties
of a number of Ohio universities went on record opposing the kind of thing that was
approved, and that a lot of scientists (including myself) testified against it. More to
the point is the fact that the vast majority of scientists whose expertise is germane
to evolution opposed it.

        I said that "Of course we don't do science by voting" but that apparently isn't
the view of one of the prominent proponents of the plan on the board, a lawyer, who said
afterwards in justification of the vote that there were scientists on both sides of the
issue. Another prominent pusher of ID on the board who declared that the lesson plan
was "good science" is a marketing prof.

        All the talk about promoting critical analysis thinking is disingenuous in the
extreme, as is most obvious from the fact that evolution is the only aspect of science
picked out for critical analysis. The real weakness of the lesson plan is IMO not so
much that it presentes thinly veiled ID (though it does) but that it seems designed to
tell students that the arguments against evolution are about as good as those for it.
Thus if they've been taught previously in church or home that evolution is wrong, they
can continue to believe that without worrying much about it.

        I think it's most unfortunate that this is now going to be challenged in the
courts on 1st Amendment grounds. Church-state separation is not the basis of my
objection to this plan (which is not to say that there is no legitimate concern there).
 It is misleading about the state of the relevant science & promotes science. That's
what the debate is about. But since the anti-evolutionists have gotten it approved in
the political areana by the votes of lawyers and marketing profs it will have to be
dealt with in that arena.

                                                        Shalom,
                                                        George
        
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Thu Mar 25 12:33:13 2004