Lou Dobbs will be “discussing” ID at 6:00 pm (Eastern Time) tonight. Rob Hovis, a strong defender of honest science education on the Ohio State Board of Education, will be on the show along with another OBOE Board member – possibly ID creationist Deborah Owens Fink, who introduced a “two model” (ID and Evo) motion to the Board in 2000. Anyone remember Debbie denying that they want ID taught in Ohio publics schools? Yeah, sure.
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This page contains a single entry by Richard B. Hoppe published on January 12, 2006 4:14 PM.
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Dobbs is very conservative, ergo, I am not expecting good things.
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I woner if they’ll show the guy in the panda suit looking in the window of the building where the board meeting was held?
hehe.
The segment would be a good opportunity for Dobbs to take allygally’s suggestion and refer to ‘ID is science’ as a hoax.
The only issue even close to a “controversy” was whether ID is science. If Kitzmiller didn’t put that to rest, nothing will. Any reporter or journalist with integrity should now identify the ID movement as non-scientific/religious and the ‘ID is science’ movement as a hoax. The “discussion” is over.
Hopefully the segment will not be yet another display of lazy, non-analytical reporting, i.e. no reporting whatsoever, just two unequal views presented “equally.” Let the viewers decide, if you will.
That format may be entertaining, but it does a disservice to the viewers by abusing their trust. They should be told up front that one side wants quality science education and the other side wants to teach science students something that has now been exposed as a hoax.
In my dreams, I guess.
BTW, if anyone’s interested in reading through the objectional part of Ohio’s lesson plan, read the “Critica Analysis of Evolution” section.
http://www.re-discovery.org/active_1.html
Track record…
Yeah, screw those elite scientist.
e·lite or é·lite (Ä-lÄ“t’, Ä-lÄ“t’) pronunciation n., pl. elite or e·lites.
1. A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: “In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them” (Times Literary Supplement). 2. The best or most skilled members of a group: the football team’s elite.
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/95[…]panda6aq.jpg
Never watched this show before, and it hasn’t even gotten to the ID part yet, but I don’t think I’ve ever been less impressed with a news anchor/talk show host.
Ok, little more impressed with Dobbs, he seemed to make it very clear that ID was religous. Not impressed with Hovis. There were several opportunities for him to tear apart Fink’s argument and he didn’t take any of them. He was on the defensive the entire time. It would have been interesting to actually hear what the “Five Conecepts” are, along with their merits, or lack thereof.
If anyone else wants to watch that tripe, I captured it on my PC.
I think Dobbs and Fink should hook up.….they appear to have much in common.
De-lurking to comment:
The pro-science side on the show was not as strong as it should have been.
Where can I send contributions to support legal action.
christine
Debbie said it was “never our intent” to introduce intelligent design. I guess she forgot her motion before the Ohio Board of Education, March 7, 2000, to give 50% evolution, 50% intelligent design int he classroom.
Debbie said that the material in the “critical analysis” plan is not ID. She knows otherwise. She said these topics are debated in the scientific community. She is either ignorant or dishonest.
I don’t care if she accosts me again at another Board of Education meeting with this simple message, I’ll say it anyway: she is a liar.
It makes me very sad for the state of Ohio that someone like this controls the content of what my children will be taught.
In disgust, Jeff
A disappointing segment… exactly what was expected. We hear the same old, boring argument from the science side (“non-science is not science”) and the slick new phrase from the creationist IDers (“critical analysis”).
What uninformed viewer could possibly have learned anything from that segment? It looked like a legitimate debate… let’s just call it even, shall we?
Clearly the ID (CA?) side wins every time something like this is aired.
I can’t imagine watching Mr. Dobbs again if this is how he “reports” the “news.” Ugh.
Andy wrote
Hovis is an investment advisor in a small town in rural Ohio, and has worked damned hard to educate himself on the issue and then put his political capital on the line for us. He’s not Clarence Darrow, but he’s a damned strong advocate for us on the Board.
Debbie Owens Fink is a marketing prof at U of Akron (where her husband in chair of the board of trustees), and has been pushing this crap for half a dozen years. She’s got the patter down pat – her coaching from the Disco Institute only occasionally slips.
Bear in mind also that Hovis has to work with the rest of the Board on a host of issues – school funding, charter schools, standards for other subject matter areas, evaluations of troubled districts, and so on. Neither he nor the others can blow up the bridges over one issue or they become ineffective Board members.
Regardless of how “not impressed” you might be with him on TV, Rob is a damned good man to have on our side.
RBH
Owens Fink came off as reasonable until the very end. Her statement that students should be taught to critically evalutate theories, “especially one that is so dogmatically taught” gave her away.
Did anyone watch the segment on the avian flu after the ID discussion? There were three medical doctors talking about how H5N1 has mutated so that it can more easily stick to human skin cells. I wanted to yell at Lou and ask him if he wanted doctors who understand how viruses (and bacteria) mutate or not.
IMHO, Rob did a good job given that all of Lou’s questions to him were along the lines of, “Well, why don’t we just be reasonable and teach ID?”
I’m kicking around the idea of organizing another science-book donation to the El Tejon, California, school district, like the one the DebunkCreation email list did for Dover. Ohio and Kansas don’t offer any specific district to target with such a thing. California, however, does.
For those who don’t know what I’m referring to, go to:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archi[…]/000888.html
Anyone interested?
This would seem to fit here - Richard Dawkins was interviewed today (on BBC Radio 5) about his new UK TV series the ‘Root of all evil’. The series puts forward his views on religion of course - in the course of his travels he goes to Colorado and interviews ‘Pastor Ted Haggard’ about evolution. Religious teaching in UK schools and the Dover trail gets a brief mention at the end (when the next guest who happens to come on the show is an Army Chaplain - he shows he doesn’t understand what ID even is - and why it’s not an issue here).
In case you’re interested:
Richard Dawkins on BBC Radio 5 live
Good idea Lenny I’m not working at the moment, and ‘hard up’ as we say - but if there is an easy way to get you a fiver (Paypal?) - you can have my ‘widows mite’.
zoarkk asked
Americans United and NCSE. AU is specifically focusing on Ohio now, and NCSE supplies the scientific advice on cases like this.
RBH
I want to second Dick’s comment about Rob Hovis. He is a class act, and will continue to fight for honest science education in Ohio.
Is the Lou Dobbs show segment on ID streamed to the web anywhere? I hear I’m on it…
Here is the transcript in case anybody missed it. I think Dobbs’ show is also repeated at 4:00am ET Friday morning, if you are up that late.
Nick asked
Yeah, you were on it, but for some reason weren’t identified by name or affiliation except in the fire station where I watched it. Weird. You were your usual articulate self, however.
I dunno if it’s streamed anywhere. For guys my age, a “stream” is something you fish in. :)
RBH
Nick,
I have it recorded on my PC. If you want it you can ftp it from me, or we could figure out something else if needed.
Drop me an email if you’re interested.
hmm, not to be confused with things you can phish in (tho i think that’s illegal).
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/p/phishing.html
This is a repeat of comment #70901 which I accidentally posted on the wrong thread. Sorry.
I don’t know if this has come out before, but Jeff was the target of a vicious personal attack at the board meeting. He was there as the official representative of the Senate of The Ohio State University, and after presenting the Senate’s official position on the lesson plan was blindsided by Deborah Owens Fink.
She produced an email that Jeff had written and she misrepresented its contents to imply that Jeff was advocating physical violence on his opponents. (Can anyone say Mirecki?) Another creationist on the board (Michael Cochran) joined in on the attack. Jeff was blindsided and left almost speechless. There was a stunned silence in the room as Jeff struggled to find words to respond. He was far more composed than I would have been.
Jeff was followed by a student who was harassed by Cochran.
When I got up to speak, I was furious and let them have it with both barrels. I will be back next month.
The details of Jeff’s attack appeared on the Discovery Institute website within a few hours. Headline: In Ohio Darwinist Admits Plan to Burn Evolution Critics. I will not provide a link; I will not contaminate this site with even that much of this vile pollution.
I suspect that Debbie, Cochran, and DI conspired together to launch this attack.
If you want to protest Jeff’s treatment, or ask them how they got their hands on Jeff’s email, or how the DI learned about Debbie’s performance in Ohio, contact them at:
Deborah Owens Fink Michael Cochran
BTW: I usually post as McE. This time, I’m uncloaking.
Brian McEnnis
Brian, I’m not shocked by the behavior of folks like Ms. Fink (how appropriate her name is). Standard political tactics engaged in by the right since the neocons started trying to take power in the late 70’s.
swiftboating has become quite a successful tactic.
It doesn’t make it any better tho.
What never ceases to shock me though, is that after pulling this kind of stunt, they invariably STILL claim the moral “high ground”.
and what disgusts me to the utmost extent, to the extent I’m working on leaving the US as we speak, is that most Americans let them get away with this crap.
the audience in attendance at that meeting should have raised an immediate stink about Fink’s behavior, and demanded an immediate halt to any further proceedings until her claims could be investigated and shown to be what they are.
but… other than a brief moment of silence, what did the audience actually do, Brian?
did they side with your correct indignation at such low tactics?
or did they just sit and watch the show.
I’m genuinely curious to know.
The audience at that point consisted mostly of fellow members of Ohio Citizens for Science. So, yes, they were on my side.
I can only speak for myself. I waited for board president Westendorf to say something. She just called the next speaker, who was attacked by Cochran. At that point, board member Eric Okerson spoke up, reminding board members that they were not supposed to be cross examining the speakers.
I think all of us chose to keep quiet, since each of us knew that we had opportunities to speak our minds when we got up to the microphone.
The speaker before me got up said words to the effect: “Given the way that previous speakers have been treated I have decided not speak.” And then he sat down. Very theatrical, and very effective.
Then I told the board exactly what I thought of the behavior of Owens Fink and Cochran.
I think that was far more effective than disrupting the meeting with protests.
After the meeting, several board members apologized to us individually. I received apologies from Jim Craig, who had voted to keep the lesson plan, and from Rob Hovis, who had voted to remove it. Both showed their class.
Brian McEnnis
kudos to you for sticking it out.
I doubt i could have been so restrained.
I think i would have stood up and pulled a “this whole court is out of order” routine and stormed out.
then insisted on being interviewed by the press about what happened in there.
but that’s just me, I guess.
If i were any member of the board, i would have immediately called a halt to the proceedings as soon as el finko pulled that little stunt of hers.
I’ve seen more civilized city council meetings end directly after similar stunts were pulled.
perhaps I’m wrong in this case, but it sure rankles.
btw, i couldn’t find any reference to the specific claims of el finko over on the DI site. perhaps they thought better of it and removed it.
doubtless it will wind up on UD later today or tommorrow.
at this point, is there any doubt in your mind that there will have to be yet another federal court case to settle this matter?
it’s obvious the IDiots want this to go to the supremes.
better now that later, i say, let’s get this over with.
I didn’t want to do this, but what the heck. Consider this site polluted with DI sewage
oh.. god.. my eyes!
I’m gonna go scrub my eyes with drano.
brb
*ack* *sputter*
that’s a little better.
my sincerest apologies. i just checked the front page without actually checking any deeper.
I guess they figure they got a lot of play out of Mirecki, so why not do it again.
heck, even out current resident troll Larry has heard of Mirecki.
*sigh*
People like Fink are the ones that think they have the right to teach other people’s children what they want to. “god” forbid my own children turn out like them one day, dishonest, arrogant, self-righteous, smug, ignorant…
I don’t give a rats *ss if they want to teach their ID creationism junk to their own children. But I choose REAL science for my own.
From the CNN script:
I know the ‘Wedge document’ is far reaching - but ‘master plan for the universe?’.
Oh! the irony at the end of the segment - the next article is about ‘bird flu mutating’ - lets hope that if ‘religiousity’ is inherited, bird flu can evolve to target the likes of Fink. Or perhaps she’ll take that as a threat?
The science groups all around the country should start attending school boards meeting and began a campaign for good science. Obvious the forces of good are at the defensive against the forces of obscurantism (i.e., IDiots). We should go on the offensive and be proactive.
Spore’s link to the “Critical Analysis of Evolution” lesson (in #70720) was an interesting read.
I wasn’t too impressed to see that the second sentence on page 1 reads:
I realize I’m picking nits, but wouldn’t you expect educators to know the difference between all together and altogether?
Then, on page 2, we find this gem:
I seem to recall that scientific theories also involve a lot of supporting evidence. We are talking scientific theory here, right? Since this is a science lesson plan?
The “best” part is Attachment A, Five Aspects of Evolution.
Teachers are directed to:
The five aspects are:
You can readily guess what the “supporting” and “challenging” evidence for these aspects is like. I’ll just exerpt one as an example:
Finally, I looked over all 66 lesson plans for 9th & 10th grade science on the Ohio Dept. of Education’s web site. Guess how many other theories have a full lesson covering their “critical analysis”? (Full marks if you guessed 0.)
Tyrann,I totally agree with your comments,it is time to go on the offensive.I am a member of the N.C.S.E and The Center for Inquiry, hear in central Florida.We recently conducted the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Florida Science Standard Committee. Our aim is to target the local school districts and offer our help and advice,and place with them statements from the NSTA and the NABT along with other literature clarifying their legal position.We will also offer to work with them, to develop science workshops for both students and teachers.Our site is [Enable javascript to see this email address.],we would be honored to have any good advice or suggestions from PI
You can say that again! Religious Right diehards all over the country know that the easiest way to insinuate yourself into public policy is to run for school board. Voters pay no attention - even at the state level. Here in Ohio, the execrable Michael Cochran (see Brian McEnnis’s comments above) barely defeated the runner-up. That runner-up campaigned not at all, so far as I could tell, but happened to have the same last name as the state’s high court chief justice. Cochran almost certainly prevailed because he had the endorsement (surprise, surprise!) of the Republican party, and many voters probably just transcribed the Republican “Sample Ballot”.
If you are unaware, Dobbs stated on his show a few months ago somethiong to the effect of “Darwinism is not science”. I forget who the guest was, but he asked Dobbs if he was saying that evolution is not scientific and he reiterated that he felt it is not.
I send a message on his website, requesting that he stick to journalism, but I don’t think he took it to heart…
no! don’t leave it to “science groups”!
It’s something we ALL need to take responsibility for.
attend your local school board meetings YOURSELF and make your views known.
It’s general apathy that leads to things like Dover to begin with.
for those that didn’t watch and aren’t familiar with lou dobbs, he claims to be a hard-talking, straight-shooting journalist that just wants the truth, but he never lives up to it. it’s easy for him to look lefty in his promos, because he implicitly compares himself to the fox menagerie, which makes him look… “intellectual” or “educated”, i guess, in comparison. righties don’t want that in their “news”, of course. but when it really comes down to it, lou dobbs has always disappointed by failing to do his research, and furthermore prolonging dramatic debate by ignoring anything obvious that might bring the argument to a close.
like the staggering evidence supporting evolution and the absolute lack of evidence supporting ID, for instance.
for some reason i want to like lou, but he is part of the problem, not part of the solution. don’t get excited next time he wants to talk about evolution.
just a thought.
Spore,
that picture is kinda scary it’s giving me the willies thank god it’s not the burger king!
CLASSIC:
I didn’t realize that evolution was taught “so dogmatically.” But isn’t EVERYTHING that’s taught in school taught pretty much dogmatically? Maybe I’m wrong.
But I thought it was funny to follow up the evo/ID “debate” with a story about mutating flu.
Jason - you’re beginning to understand: ‘Irony’ : - something that most British people look for to find humour. Especially ‘dry’, ‘black’ humour.
Dawkins Radio 5 Interview
Notice how the interviewer (Simon Mayo) doesn’t give Dawkins an easy ride. Standard form here.
Amen, brother.
In any case, science groups won’t help win this fight, simply because this fight isn’t about science. It is a political fight, and it must be fought using the methods used in any OTHER political fight.
ID wasn’t killed in Dover by “science” or “science education”. It was killed by a handful of lawyers.
Never forget that.
And critical thinking Larry..
never forget that…
Whoops .… fukc!
sorry LeNNy!!!
Re “But isn’t EVERYTHING that’s taught in school taught pretty much dogmatically?”
Like physics or chemistry? Near as I can recall (it was a few decades ago), yep. Laws of motion, electromagnetism, etc., or properties of elements and compounds. Leastwise I don’t recall any class time spent on debates or controversies over the material.
Say, some of those classes taught that the periodic table had only 103 elements in it, and now it has 116 (last time I looked). Oh well.
Henry
Yeah, I couldn’t believe my organic chemistry lectures went unchallenged. All that stuff about carbon bonds and electron orbitals. If that stuff was important, it would be in the bible :)
Seriously tho, I suppose hard cold facts might have a dogmatic quality about them. Reality seems to be somewhat dogmatic and consistent. No way around that it seems, except for religion and drugs.
You can’t be 87510 serious?!?
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