An earlier post here includes a video with this line from Ben Stein (whose movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which purports to “document” a truth-and-evidence-defying regime of “neo-Darwinist orthodoxy” dogmatically supressing an abundance of evidence against evolution, was cited to that end by creationist members of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) in their [...]
Category Archives: Intelligent Design
fair, or “balanced”?
November 23, 2008 – 2:54 pm
Some observers have commented that nothing new or noteworthy emerged from the November 19, 2008 session of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).
Well, maybe this isn’t new, but I think it deserves notice:
Despite the overwhelming imbalance of testimony favoring standards that would support the teaching of real science in Texas, newspaper stories have managed [...]
“strengths & weaknesses” — harmless in Texas?
November 22, 2008 – 2:26 pm
On the website of the Texas Freedom Network, “africangenesis” comments:
Ed Darrell, I doubt you can trace the failure of Texas schools to the “strengths and weaknesses” language which has been around a couple of decades.
Jonathan Saenz (identified by TFN as “director of legislative affairs for Plano-based Free Market Foundation, the Texas affiliate of James Dobson’s [...]
fruit flies, & Creationist Palin’s science ignorance
October 26, 2008 – 9:52 am
Palin’s non-understanding of science was dramatically displayed in her first policy speech of the campaighn Friday, Oct. 24. Her subject was federal policy to provide for children with special needs, for which she pledged:
ID debate: Meyer & Gilder versus Shermer & Bailey
August 21, 2008 – 6:52 pm
A debate that was held Saturday July 12 at FreedomFest 08 in Las Vegas will be aired on BookTV (CSpan-2) on Sunday August 24 from about 6:15 am to 7:30 am EDT. The program is described here at booktv.org. The page title says: “Debate on Intelligent Design with George Gilder, Stephen Meyer, Michael Shermer, and [...]
Louisiana anti-science law: 3 questions, 1 suggestion
August 17, 2008 – 10:48 pm
The Sensuous Curmudgeon has been providing yoeman service keeping us all posted on developments in Louisiana with the immanent implementation of Louisiana’s new “science education” law. From him we learn, for example, about the scheduled meeting Tuesday, August 19, of the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).
I have a suggestion (below) for [...]
“Behold: the atheist’s nightmare” (a banana) [ video ]
July 28, 2008 – 7:15 pm
Before I say anything about it, just watch this video first:
Momentous TX education hearing
July 16, 2008 – 3:59 pm
A truly momentous and impressive public hearing by the Texas House Public Education Committee has just wrapped up in Austin (July 16, 2008).
I did not hear all of it. I heard State Board chairman McLeroy’s presentation and some of the questioning. Hours later I heard the witness before Steven Schafersman (Texas Citizens for Science) through [...]
TX House Committe testimony by Texas Citizens for Science
July 15, 2008 – 11:19 am
Testimony by Steven D. Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, is now posted at the TCS website. Here’s an overview of their recoomendations:
I urge you to take even more powers away from the SBOE. Specifically, I urge you to revise the law so that textbooks in Texas are adopted by each [...]
Wed 7/16 program in Austin on protecting science education
July 13, 2008 – 8:41 pm
Here’s a press release for a public program on the UT campus in Austin, Texas this coming Wednesday titled ‘Science Education in Texas: Keeping It Religion-free’
From a curriculum standpoint, I think that’s a mistaken emphasis. The point should be to preserve the integrity and authenticity of science curriculum. The courts can act to stop unconstitutional [...]
teaching evolution controversy debate on CNN
July 8, 2008 – 12:59 pm
Here’s a five-minute debate:
I don’t have time to comment now, so I’ll just post the clip for now.
Texas Supreme Court immunizes exorcism
July 6, 2008 – 1:05 pm
I hesitated before posting this, since it’s almost off-topic for this blog on curriculum.
Regrettably, however, exorcism is not so irrelevant to public education as we might hope, given the signing of the anti-science education law by the Louisiana Governor Jindal who also, by the way, has written a published article retelling his participation in an [...]
John West: U.S. evolution education is “dumbed down”
July 4, 2008 – 11:50 am
Here’s a video clip from CNN on the “Academic Freedom” bills being supported in states around the U.S. by the Discovery Institute (DI), the major proponents of Intelligent Design. The clip is seven minutes long, with a reasonable 3-minute overview followed by a 4-minute interview with Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for evolution: how [...]
AAAS resources & video on ID vs. evolution
June 30, 2008 – 6:05 pm
AAAS has a page of resources and news items on the conflicts over teaching evolution. The page now includes this five-minute video:
Exorcist Governor defends anti-science law on TV (video)
June 30, 2008 – 4:42 pm
Here’s Louisiana’s exorcist Governor on CBS Face the Nation, defending the anti-science legislation that he has signed into law.
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Here’s the transcript:
Anti-science law signed by Louisiana’s exorcist Governor
June 29, 2008 – 1:21 pm
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As suggested in a previous post here, there was some speculation that Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal might veto the new anti-science education law since, having studied Biology at Brown University, he could be expected to know the difference between what is, and what is not, the natural science that is practiced, taught, and studied as [...]
Louisiana Science Education Act - final text
June 28, 2008 – 2:18 pm
The LA site with the pdf file of the law wasn’t working when I created this post with the text pasted in below. Now it is working so now here’s a link to the official PDF version. See also the NCSE, and sources linked from my earlier post here.
Here’s the text, as posted by John [...]
