Some people practice their own special brand of Christian tolerance.
In learning about Central Valley Cafe Scientifique, we stumbled upon a startling incident that may or may not reflect on the scientific climate in the Valley.
The cafe’s next speaker, Fresno State professor Dr. Ryan Earley, found his car tire punctured this week and with a nasty note on his windshield saying: “Fuck you Darwinist. Take your car to heaven.”
Which side in this argument believes in turning the other cheek again?
Our local evangelical radio station is about to dump a load of tripe on the Twin Cities. I’m going to be tied up in domestic duties for a while, but if anyone else wants to tune in to KKMS (short for Khristian Krap for Mendacious Scoundrels) in about a half hour, here’s the drivel you’ll get to hear:
5:00 Hour – “Understanding the Science of Creation”
Dick Fischer, Founder and President of the Genesis Proclaimed Association joins us to explain some of the scientific facts that support the creation story found in the book of Genesis.
I’m going to try to catch some of it, but 5-6 is family time today. It’s gotta be ripe, though.
Heh. I caught the first bit — this is turning out to be amusing. The guest started out by completely surrendering science to the scientists, saying that he had no problem with an old earth, and that he wasn’t going to argue with evolution. He’s still a loon, though: he claims that the book of Genesis is historically accurate in a literal sense. The DJs sound nonplussed, since he’s one of them, a biblical literalist, but he’s arguing for a different literal interpretation of the Bible.
You can practically hear the sizzle as their brains melt.
Apparently, a New York judge has upheld the injunction against the movie, so there will be no new showings, and DVD rights are in limbo.
The movie is dead anyway, so it doesn’t seem to be a significant decision. It’s not as if theater distributors are lined up clamoring for more copies of this stinker. Although, to be honest, I would like the rights cleared up, because the only way I’m ever going to see it is if I can rent the DVD from my local store.
Here’s the latest simple summary video from NCSE:
Here’s the most depressing thing I’ve seen all week (and I’m grading genetics exams): it’s the result of a national survey of high school biology teachers.
At least 16% of our high school teachers are young earth creationists. Furthermore, 12% our our teachers are using biology classes in public schools to teach creationism in a positive light. The majority are still pro-science, but even in the good cases, relatively little time is spent on teaching evolution.
The news isn’t all bad. One constructive discovery is that it is neither legal battles nor demanding state standards that determine how much effort is put into teaching evolution — it’s how much education the teachers have in the subject. The obvious lesson is that we ought to be encouraging more coursework for teachers; help educate the teachers, give them more material they can use in the classroom, and the students benefit.
Here’s the conclusion of the paper, which lays it all out very clearly.
Our survey of biology teachers is the first nationally representative, scientific sample survey to examine evolution and creationism in the classroom. Three different survey questions all suggest that between 12% and 16% of the nation’s biology teachers are creationist in orientation. Roughly one sixth of all teachers professed a “young earth” personal belief, and about one in eight reported that they teach creationism or intelligent design in a positive light. The number of hours devoted to these alternative theories is typically low–but this nevertheless must surely convey to students that these theories should be accorded respect as scientific perspectives.
The majority of teachers, however, see evolution as central and essential to high school biology courses. Yet the amount of time devoted to evolutionary biology varies substantially from teacher to teacher, and a majority either avoid human evolution altogether or devote only one or two class periods to the topic. We showed that some of these differences were due to personal beliefs about human origins. However, an equally important factor is the science education the teacher received while in college. Additional variance is likely to be rooted in pressures–subtle or otherwise–emerging from parents and community leaders in each school’s community, in combination with teachers’ confidence in their ability to deal with such pressures given their knowledge of evolution, as well as their personal beliefs.
These findings strongly suggest that victory in the courts is not enough for the scientific community to ensure that evolution is included in high school science courses. Nor is success in persuading states to adopt rigorous content standards consistent with recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations. Scientists concerned about the quality of evolution instruction might have a bigger impact in the classroom by focusing on the certification standards for high school biology teachers. Our study suggests that requiring all teachers to complete a course in evolutionary biology would have a substantial impact on the emphasis on evolution and its centrality in high school biology courses. In the long run, the impact of such a change could have a more far reaching effect than the victories in courts and in state governments.
Robert Bakker is one of the good guys, a paleontologist who really does an excellent job of communicating enthusiasm for science. I saw him talk at St John’s University a few years ago, and he clearly inspired the kids in attendance — I greatly enjoyed the talk too, even though one of his hooks was to incessantly emphasize the religious backgrounds of famous dinosaur hunters. It’s a strategy, all right? If he can get more kids to follow through on science, more power to him.
However, he also illustrates another unfortunate phenomenon: religion turns even good scientists’ brains to mush. In a recent interview on Laelaps, he said some awesomely stupid things.
I knew this would happen: creationists are pleased with the media coverage of the platypus genome, since it reinforces their misconceptions. The Seattle Times published a couple of letters from local creationists. Need I say that they are ridiculous?
You’ve got another of those wretched “academic (non)-freedom” bills in your state. They’re like lice, crawling out everywhere.
Senate Bill 1386, introduced in the South Carolina Senate on May 15, 2008, and referred to the Senate Committee on Education, is the newest so-called “academic freedom” bill aimed at undermining the teaching of evolution, joining similar bills currently under consideration in Louisiana, Michigan, and Missouri. Similar bills in Florida and Alabama died when the legislative session in those states ended. The South Carolina bill contends that “[t]he teaching of biological and chemical evolution can cause controversy, and some teachers may be uncertain of administrative expectations concerning the presentation of material on these scientific topics” and that “public school educators must be supported in finding effective ways to present controversial science curriculum and must be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review the scientific strengths and weaknesses of theories of biological and chemical evolution in an objective manner.”
Today is this semester’s last final exam, and this is the last big push of the semester, so I’m going to be mired in work for most of the day…but once I level the administrative mountain, I’ve got some new squid science to share. Until then, you’ll just have to chew over some of the usual American lunacy for a while.
Obama is gearing up to drape himself with Christian trappings. This will not make me happy. I’m planning to vote for him, but if he turns into yet another Christianist airhead, I will not be campaigning for him.
The reason Obama can’t lose my vote but can lose my enthusiasm is that the Republicans are just plain evil. Rumsfeld was saying the country needed another terrorist attack to keep the Democrats out of office? What a monster.
David Brooks thinks “science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other”, and that the future belongs to a fusion of science and Buddhism. David Brooks knows nothing of science. How did this twit get a gig at the NY Times?
UC Berkeley is going to court this week over their Understanding Evolution web site (that’s an excellent resource, by the way, especially if you’re just trying to get up to speed on the science). At issue is the fact that the site dares to point out that some religions contradict the evidence, and other religions try to avoid conflict with science; that is interpreted to be a sectarian endorsement of certain religions over others. This is where separation of church and state becomes insane: when you are not allowed to point out obvious idiocies because they are protected religious beliefs. Here’s the offending section: I think it’s pretty namby-pamby and bends over backwards to give deference to superstitious nonsense, but some people are apparently irate over a simple, accurate truth statement: “some religious beliefs explicitly contradict science”. They do, but a university isn’t allowed to say so?
Now I unplug myself from the intertubes for a few hours and focus, focus, focus on a pile of stuff most of you will never see.
Remember Sally Kern, the Oklahoma legislator who loves God and hates homosexuals? She had earlier sponsored something called the Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act, a ghastly piece of legislation that would require teachers to pass any old crap a student turned in, as long as the student said it was his religious belief — it prioritized belief over evidence. That bill died in a senate committee, fortunately.
But now it has been resurrected! The language from the earlier bill has been inserted into Oklahoma House Bill 2633.
A controversial provision in House Bill 2633 states that “students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.”
That is simply insane. It’s a declaration that religion trumps everything, and gives students an escape hatch from learning — biology class would become an exercise in futility, in which lazy, stupid, or religiously indoctrinated students would simply parrot the book of genesis at their instructors, and expect to be given a good grade.
Sally Kern knows this.
“We are a very conservative state — a very religious state,” Kern said.
And working hard to become a very stupid state, too.
Oklahomans, be afraid.
