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Bloggingheads and creationism
Carl Zimmer has a good post on why Bloggingheads has jumped the shark in the worst possible way. Lots to agree with, and unlike the Discovery Institute & Behe, he doesn’t mention Stalin(ism).
My standard for taking part in any forum about science is pretty simple. All the participants must rely on peer-reviewed science that has direct bearing on the subject at hand, not specious arguments that may sound fancy but are scientifically empty. I believe standards like this one are crucial if we are to have productive discussions about the state of science and its effects on our lives.
This is not Blogginghead’s standard, at least as I understand it now.
Having Nelson and Behe on was a mistake in the same way that legitimizing pseudoscience is a mistake. Removing the Behe lovefest conversation was also a mistake. Carl is correct, I feel, in his views regarding Bloggingheads (as is Sean Carroll over at Cosmic Variance). And that is all I will say on the matter.
Forthcoming paper in the Journal of Effective Teaching
I (along with a few co-authors) have a paper forthcoming in Journal of Effective Teaching that stemmed from the workshop we ran back in May. It’s titled “Preparing teachers to prepare students for post-secondary science: Thoughts from of a workshop about evolution in the classroom” and should appear online in the next month or so. Until then, here’s the abstract:
This paper summarizes the content and results of a workshop about the teaching of evolution presented to public middle school and high school science teachers by individuals involved both in university education and the professional development of teachers. The goals of the workshop were to: (1) provide teachers with knowledge and resources to more effectively teach evolutionary theory, (2) increase teacher awareness of legal and cognitive issues associated with the teaching and learning of evolution, (3) address teacher misconceptions about evolutionary theory, (4) assess teachers’ acceptance of evolutionary theory, and (5) make inferences about the preparedness of Arizona’s public school students for a rigorous university life science curriculum that includes evolutionary biology. Participating teachers created concept maps about evolutionary theory, completed the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) survey at the beginning and end of the workshop, and responded to a survey the week following the workshop. The results of these measures indicate that some Arizona science teachers have misconceptions about evolutionary theory that may be passed on to their students, and these misconceptions, if not corrected, must be addressed in introductory-level science courses at the university level. Based on feedback from the follow-up survey, different teachers with varying acceptance of evolution are all keen to learn from university educators and attend professional development workshops. Such workshops – and engagement between secondary and tertiary educators – can clearly have an effect on the conceptions of both teachers and students, and thus on the acceptance of evolution. We therefore strongly encourage the involvement of university educators in science education outreach that addresses evolutionary theory.
The paper is to appear in a special issue on teaching evolution in the classroom.
Reference: CM Schrein, JM Lynch, SK Brem, GE Marchant, K Schedler, MA Spencer, CJ Kazilek & MG Coulombe (2009) “Preparing teachers to prepare students for post-secondary science: Thoughts from of a workshop about evolution in the classroom” Journal of Effective Teaching 9(2)
Maybe it’s a false dichotomy
I’m currently enjoying Rick Perstein’s Nixonland . In it, Perlstein partially attributes Ronald Reagan’s 1966 victory over Pat Brown to the ability of the former to cast issues as “black and white” versus the grey that Brown saw. Reagan won by a landslide 15% margin because the voters preferred to be offered simplistic formulations and solutions, not because Reagan was “right” in an objective sense.
In my experience as an educator, I have come to see four things: (i) scientific knowledge is generally weak among the public, (ii) scientists are usually not good communicators of science to that public, (iii) educators – and not just science educators – do not seem to be succeeding in their goal of educating the public, and (iv) religion has too influential a place in American public life.
Physioprof has offered a rant regarding the whole “New Atheist” versus “Accomodationist” debate that has reignited following the publication of Mooney & Kirshenbaum’s new book Unscientific America. The claim is that there are two prevalent views concerning the reason why Americans (as a group) do not accept the scientific view of the history of life. The first view holds that scientists and science educators are responsible. If you hold this view, then you will tell these two groups that they need to improve their interaction with the public. The second view holds religion’s position within American culture responsible. If you hold this view exclusively you go after religious believers even if they support improving science education and a clear separation of church and state. (In the words of the original rant, “you implacably debunk patently absurd wackaloon religious bullshit everywhere you see it”). This often takes the form of claims about the “incoherence” of the views of religious supporters of science. The dichotomy offered in the original post is just that sort of simplistic formulation that Reagan used throughout his political career.
Obviously, one could also claim that these two views are non-exclusive and offering such a simplistic dichotomy will not achieve anything beyond scoring rhetorical points. In this view, scientists, educators and the privileged position of religion are at fault. and one has to work on all three of these issues (often with religious believers who decry the influence of belief on public life) to improve the situation. This claim will, no doubt, be seen as “mushy accomodationism” and may thus be safely ignored by some.
Solely removing religion from the public life is not going to miraculously improve science education in this country. Solely improving scientists’ ability to communicate or improving educational practices isn’t going to lead to improvement either. To offer a false dichotomy that neatly divides the apes from the angels is not to offer a workable solution.
Scientists and the public
There is a new Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey out on science and scientists. Not surprisingly, there are differences between scientists and the public in a number of issues/
Some of the other findings are interesting. Apparently 70% of the public feel that scientists “contribute ‘a lot’ to society’s well-being.” This contrasts with 40% for clergy, 23% for lawyers and 21% for business executives.
You can also take their “science knowledge quiz” online and see the overall distribution of scores. I managed to get 100%. As Larry Moran notes, the questions are factual rather then conceptual and thus probably aren’t telling us very much interesting.
Bad news before I go …
From a report released by BIO: The Biotechnology Industry Organization:
- On average, only 28% of the high school students taking the ACT , which is a national standardized test for college admission , reached a score indicating college readiness for biology and no state reached even 50%.
- Only 52% of 12th graders are at or above a basic level of achievement in the sciences, and for 8th graders only 57% are at a basic level of achievement.
- Average scores for 12th graders in the sciences have actually declined from 1996 to 2005 and shown no improvement for 8th graders both on overall and the life science component.
- A significant gap exists in science achievement for low-income middle-school students, although the gap is slowly narrowing.
Read more here.
Teaching Evolution One Icon At A Time
I spent this morning at a workshop for K-12 biology teachers. The workshop was organized by the School of Life Sciences here at ASU and gave some 20 students to interact with faculty regarding teaching evolution. My presentation was titled “Teaching Evolution One Icon At A Time” and aimed to educate the teachers regarding the Discovery Institute’s “teach the strengths and weaknesses of evolution” approach post-Kitzmiller. Slides are here.
DI Proxies Defeated in Florida
Yet another defeat for the anti-evolutionists. NCSE is reporting that Florida’s Senate Bill 2396 has died in committee. To recap:
- Mississippi – dead in committee
- Oklahoma – dead in committee
- Iowa – dead in committee
- New Mexico – dead in committee
- Florida – dead in committee
- Alabama – in committee
- Missouri – in committee
- Texas – in committee
I can’t imagine the Discovery Institute is too happy. It has failed miserably in developing “a new science for a new century” and, having given science up, has failed at legislative action. Time for Plan 9, I think.
History of Science and Science Education
In the past I have argued that historians of science probably need to get more involved with the fight for good science education. Michael Barton has brought my attention to historian Abigail Lustig giving testimony before the Texas Board of Education.
Arizona K-12 system dying the death of 4500 cuts
The Arizona Education Association is reporting that nearly 4,500 K-12 teachers and other personnel have been pink-slipped for the next school year. What is truly worrying about this is that it is based on reports from only 36 of the 220 districts statewide and more layoffs are inevitable. You may remember that Republican lawmakers called for drastic cuts instead of raising taxes (which haven’t been raised state-wide in 20 years). I hope they are happy.
For some context, you need to remember that Arizona before the cuts spent less than almost every state in the Union on education while being fourth largest in spending on corrections.
SkeptiCamp Phoenix 2009
SkeptiCamp Phoenix 2009 went off wonderfully yesterday. Big thanks to Jim Lippard for doing such a wonderful organizational job.
The picture above is me beginning my 20 minute gallop through the issue of academic freedom and the intelligent design movement. Shorter – and undoubtedly more coherent - version is:
- Evolution is not an unchallengeable orthodoxy within science and major areas (of evolution as fact, the pathway of evolution, and its mechanisms) have been challenged in the past by researchers working within the field. These researchers used the institutions of science (peer reviewed journals etc) to bring about change.
- Despite the claims of the DI, there is no evidence that there is active suppression of ID proponents in any way that would prevent them challenging the status quo using the institutions of science. There is no evidence of the academic freedom of ID supporters being infringed.
- There is currently no theory of ID and it is likely that any theory of ID would eventually have to fallback on supernatural action and thus violate the bedrock principle of methodological naturalism. Given the success of MN and its centrality to modern science, this would most likely mean that any ID theory would fail to convince the scientific community.
- The appeals to “academic freedom” to teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution are spurious and indicate the lack of a positive argument for intelligent design and its ultimate reliance on supernaturalism.
Slides are here.
Discovery Institute fails in New Mexico
The DI-inspired “Academic Freedom/Strengths & Weaknesses” bill that was in committee in New Mexico has failed to get a hearing before close of session and has thus expired. Dave Thomas has more over at PT. The state of play for 2009 must be depressing for the DI
- Mississippi – dead in committee
- Oklahoma – dead in committee
- Iowa – dead in committee
- New Mexico – dead in committee
- Alabama – in committee
- Missouri – in committee
- Florida – in committee
- Texas – in committee
As a strategy this is clearly not working.
Texas
Texas House Bill 4224 (introduced yesterday) attempts to introduce “strengths and weaknesses” language, despite opposition from scientists and educators. More over at NCSE.
Iowa rejects ”Evolution Academic Freedom Act”
Over at PT, Hector Avalos is reporting that the deadline has passed for the DI-inspired “Evolution Academic Freedom Act” (HF 183) to move out of committee in Iowa. This one is now officially dead. Thus the scorecard so far looks like:
- Mississippi – dead in committee
- Oklahoma – dead in committee
- Iowa – dead in committee
- New Mexico – in committee
- Alabama – in committee
- Missouri – in committee
- Florida – in committee
- Texas – at state board
This brings the tally for 2009 to three dead out of eight. Frankly I can’t imagine the DI is terribly happy about this.
Florida joins the pack
NCSE is reporting that SB 2396 has been proposed in Florida. It will require "thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution." The bill is sponsored by Stephen R. Wise (R-District 5). Amazing how many of these bills are being sponsored by Republicans. You’d think they’d have more important things to worry about.
It’s a bit of a strange bill. The preamble calls for the "thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution and certain governmental, legal and civic-related principles" while the body calls for teachers to “teach efficiently and faithfully … the following: (a) A thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution.” Following that item there are a number of others: the history and content of the Declaration on Independence, the Constitution, flag education, history of the United States, the Holocaust, kindness to animals, “the benefits of sexual abstinence as the expected standard”, the sacrifices of veterans, and “the nature and importance of free enterprise to the United States economy.” Quite the grab-bag and it seems as though students don’t have to critically analyse any of the other topics beyond evolution. I wonder why?
This brings the tally for 2009 to eight:
- Mississippi – dead in committee
- Oklahoma – dead in committee
- New Mexico – in committee
- Iowa – in committee
- Alabama – in committee.
- Missouri – in committee
- Texas – at state board
- Florida – introduced
Iowa faculty on the “Evolution Academic Freedom Act" (HF 183)
There’s a petition and statement going around regarding HF 183 for Iowa academics to sign. The text reads:
We, the undersigned members of institutions of higher learning in Iowa, urge our legislators to reject passage of “The Evolution Academic Freedom Act” (HF 183) introduced by Rod Roberts (R-Carroll). The language of this bill comes primarily from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which has conducted lobbying efforts and political activism against the teaching of evolution since 1994.
Evolution is as established a scientific theory as any other theory in science. It is misleading to claim that there is any controversy or dissent within the vast majority of the scientific community regarding the scientific validity of evolutionary theory. Since there is no real dissent within the scientific community, then “academic freedom” for alternative theories is simply a mechanism to introduce religious or non-scientific doctrines into our science curriculum.
Similar efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in schools repeatedly have been found to be unconstitutional, something witnessed most recently in Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005) in Pennsylvania.
We, therefore, urge our legislators to recognize HF183 as part of a long history of creationist assaults on science education, and reject passage of this bill.
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