Recently in Assault on Education Category

In a Comment in the journal Genome Biology Gregory Petsko, Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry Protein Crystallography at Brandeis University discusses the latest shenanigans of the Intelligent Design movement. ( Gregory A Petsko It is alive Genome Biology 2008, 99::106)

They’re at it again. Armed with another new idea from the Discovery Institute, that bastion of ignorance, right-wing political ideology, and pseudo-scientific claptrap, the creationist movement has mounted yet another assault on science. This time it comes in two flavors: propaganda and legislative.

What is Petsko talking about?

The lawsuit filed by Texas science educator Chris Comer (see Chris Comer Sues Texas Agency: ‘Neutrality’ is Endorsement of Religion) has been posted by the National Center for Science Education.

A juicy tidbit from the lawsuit:

… the Agency’s firing of its Director of Science for not remaining “neutral” on the subject violates the Establishment Clause, because it employs the symbolic and financial support of the State of Texas to achieve a religious purpose, and so has the purpose or effect of endorsing religion. By professing “neutrality,” the Agency credits creationism as a valid scientific theory. Finally, the Agency fired Director Comer without according her due process as required by the 14^th Amendment — a protection especially important here because Director Comer was fired for contravening and unconstitutional policy.

Oh yeah - Watch NCSE’s video about Chris Comer.

NOTE TO COMMENTERS: The topic of this thread is Chris Comer’s lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency. Do not clutter this thread with unrelated topics like evidence of Christ’s resurrection, evidence for the Origin Of Life (OOL), etc. I won’t be as lenient as I was in the last thread on this topic.

This was just posted as a comment by “laminu” to the Help Louisiana post. I’m promoting it (with some minor editing for a few typos) to a full post because it deserves wider reading.

Notes from a lawyer and law teacher who’s been following this bill throughout the process:

1. About the discussion to this point:

a) Generalizations won’t do – you’ve got to read the bill, now Act 473, to see what the actual effect will be. (b) Louisiana NEVER adopted the Code Civil that is associated with Napoleon’s name: Louisiana’s original Civil Code was developed by three pretty darn good Louisiana lawyers from French (a projet of the Code Civil) and Spanish sources, to which they added provisions to cover the commercial laws dealt with elsewhere in French law. (Louisiana had been Spanish, not French, for decades when Jefferson sent Monroe to buy the Ile d’Orleans from Napoleon, such that it made sense to the redactors of the Louisiana code to follow Spanish legal traditions with respect to personal and family law issues.) Civil law reigns in most countries of the world outside the US and England, anyway, and to my way of thinking gives clearer guidance and quicker, more efficient justice in civil matters than the common law – much of which has already been replaced by clumsily written “codes” in the US. So, please, give the canard that “Louisiana is different in all legal respects because of the Napoleonic Code” a rest. The Civil Code has precisely NOTHING at all to do with the teaching of creationism in the public schools anyway.

Bill Barrow of the (New Orleans) Times Picayune has the bad news:

Gov. Bobby Jindal attracted national attention and strongly worded advice about how he should deal with the Louisiana Science Education Act.

Jindal ignored those calling for a veto and this week signed the law that will allow local school boards to approve supplemental materials for public school science classes as they discuss evolution, cloning and global warming.

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will have the power to prohibit materials, though the bill does not spell out how state officials should go about policing local instructional practices. … Critics call it a back-door attempt to replay old battles about including biblical creationism or intelligent design in science curricula, a point defenders reject based on a clause that the law “shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine … or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.”

In signing the bill, Jindal issued a brief statement that read in part: “I will continue to consistently support the ability of school boards and BESE to make the best decisions to ensure a quality education for our children.”

Political observers said Jindal’s signature will please one of his key local constituencies: conservative Protestants in north Louisiana. Jindal’s long-term political challenge, they said, particularly if the Brown University biology graduate ever seeks national office, is not allowing his political image to be defined by such moves.

“It’s good politics if you are a conservative Republican politician,” said Pearson Cross, a political scientist at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “That being said, not every place is Louisiana. … Certainly this is not going to do anything to endear Bobby Jindal to a majority of voters in places like California and Massachusetts and New York.”

Baton Rouge pollster Bernie Pinsonat said: “The ideal candidate is one who has broad appeal. … To become president today, you can’t become isolated as the candidate of the religious right.”

Yet a cadre of scientists, national groups with a secular agenda, editorial writers and even Jindal’s college genetics professors suggested the bill could push Jindal toward that kind of identity.

Too bad Jindal didn’t heed Prof. Barbara Forrest’s appeak to veto the bill. Now it’s become a political hot potato, with possible implications come November.

The Louisiana Coalition for Science will have more coverage as events unfold, as will NCSE, which notes

… bill supporter David Tate, a member of the Livingston Parish School Board, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune (April 18, 2008), “I believe that both sides – the creationism side and the evolution side – should be presented and let students decide what they believe,” adding that the bill is needed because “teachers are scared to talk about” creationism.

Over and over we hear from the Disco ‘Tute boys that they’re not pushing the teaching of intelligent design creationism and that they’re only interested in teaching the controversy or critically analyzing evolution or teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Most recently they are pushing the “academic freedom” bills being introduced in state legislatures and, in the case of Louisiana, being passed by those legislatures. Of the Louisiana bill the Disco ‘Tute piously claims that

Why is the law needed?

For two reasons. First, around the country, science teachers are being harassed, intimidated, and sometimes fired for trying to present scientific evidence critical of Darwinian theory along with the evidence that supports it. Second, many school administrators and teachers are fearful or confused about what is legally allowed when teaching about controversial scientific issues like evolution. The Louisiana Science Education Act clarifies what teachers may be allowed to do.

When one inquires just a dab deeper, though, that “scientific evidence critical of Darwinian theory” turns out to be creationist crap, much of it filtered through Jonathan Wells’ Moonie spectacles in Icons of Evolution. And the creationist teachers claim cover from the state actions.

Does that really happen?

Sure it does. In my update on “Coach” Dave Daubenmire’s appearance on Geraldo At Large, I noted that Daubenmire floated a new defense of Freshwater’s teaching of creationism in 8^th grade science. Daubenmire said that in 2003 Freshwater

… began to teach what was then the state standards to teach the controversy of evolution.

Daubenmire is apparently referring to the Disco ‘Tute’s “critical analysis of evolution” ploy, first tried out on the Ohio State Board of Education. That Board subsequently adopted (but later abandoned) a grade indicator in its 10^th grade biology standards that said

23. Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory. (The intent of this indicator does not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design.

I’ve read some of the materials that Freshwater used and I’ve talked with his students. Freshwater was feeding them the worst of creationist trash and through his spokesman is now claiming that he was following state standards that explicitly disavowed the teaching of intelligent design!

Update at the bottom of the post starring Geraldo Rivera!

In a post just below PvM gave the background to the Freshwater case in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. The 5-member District Board of Education met this afternoon and after a 3.5 hour executive session, voted unanimously to initiate termination proceedings against Freshwater. Those proceedings start with a copy of the resolution being provided to Freshwater via registered mail. On receipt of the notification, Freshwater has 10 days to request a hearing before the board or a referee. If he elects to not request the hearing, the Board will consider the termination at its July meeting. If he does request it, Board action will be delayed until a hearing has been held.

The Board’s resolution cited four basic grounds for its resolution:

The Columbus Dispatch reports that a much awaited report on the activities of John Freshwater, a Mount Vernon teacher, has finally been released.

The conclusions are straightforward and shocking

A Mount Vernon teacher undermined science instruction in the public school district by discrediting evolution in his classroom and focusing on creationism and intelligent design, a probe has found.

Worse, the teacher “burned crosses onto students’ arms, using an electrostatic device, in December. Freshwater told investigators the marks were Xs, not crosses. But all of the students interviewed in the investigation reported being branded with crosses.”

While his defenders argued that the teacher merely used the device to draw ‘X’, the picture shows otherwise.

To me this clearly looks like a cross, not an ‘X’.

As noted a few days ago, Louisiana is in the process of adopting the Disco ‘Tute’s execrable “Science Education Act.” It has been passed by both legislative bodies and now all that remains is for Governor Bobby Jindal to sign it. While there is little doubt he’ll do so – he has argued that both evolution and ID should be taught in public schools – it is still very important to let him know what he’s doing.

The Louisiana Coalition for Science has posted an open letter to Governor Jindal and is asking that anyone concerned about the subversion of science education to contact him and urge him to “…veto SB 733 in the best interests of our children and to protect the reputation of our state.” Keep them clean, please.

The full text of the open letter is below the fold. More info and other relevant links are here.

The Louisiana Coalition for Science has released a press release calling for the Senate to reject the creationist bill approved by the Louisiana House

New group stands up for sound science education in Louisiana

LA Coalition for Science decries House support for SB 733, calls for Senate to reject bill

Baton Rouge, LA, June 11, 2008 — In response to numerous attacks on science education in the Bayou State, concerned parents, teachers and scientists are getting organized. The new group — Louisiana Coalition for Science — calls upon the Senate to oppose SB 733, a bill which will open the door to creationism in public schools.

Spread the news.

It’s been a good week for science, and evolutionary science in particular so let me mention a few newsworthy events.

• Alabama Kills Evolution Bill
• Ono gains temporary injunction against “Expelled”
• Kenneth Miller reviews “Expelled”
• Jeffrey Schloss reviews “Expelled at ASA
• Percival Reviews “Expelled”

And in late breaking news:

Turkish Islamic author Oktar aka Harun Yahya given 3-year jail sentence

Oktar’s teachings echo those of Christian fundamentalists in the United States. He has publicly denounced Darwinism and Freemasonry in high-profile attacks.

Expelled Theatre count

The Florida legislature failed to pass either of two forms of the Discovery Institute’s draft “academic freedom” bills, and adjourned Friday evening. We have until the legislative session next year to make sure that those in the legislature know exactly what the history and intent of bills like that are. But it doesn’t feel like a “win”; those of us who invested our time in advocating for good science education in Florida essentially got lucky this time.

The “academic freedom” and “critical analysis” bills currently being considered by the Florida legislature are old stratagems borrowed from antievolution efforts in other states. Ronda Storms and Alan Hays have been asked whether “intelligent design” could be taught in science classrooms. Storms and Hays steadfastly refuse to answer the question posed. You have to look at what has been done in the name of narrow religious antievolution and not what is said.

(Originally at the Austringer.)

On Monday, April 14^th, Florida Citizens for Science, the Florida ACLU, and many other groups sponsored a press conference and panel discussion criticizing the “academic freedom” and “critical analysis” bills currently filed in the state Senate and House, respectively. The bill in the senate, the one still misusing the “academic freedom” phrase, is scheduled to go to the floor on the 17^th. That will be today very shortly. I am not terribly optimistic about the outcome, since it seems that the legislators didn’t bother to turn out for the events on Monday, and the mainstream media invented some stuff out of whole cloth, but mostly failed to report on the full range of reasons why the bills under consideration are bad for Florida’s schools, students, parents, and business.

I’ll summarize what was actually said at the press conference. The segments may incorporate both paraphrased and verbatim passages.

Let’s don’t and say we did. That’s what kids used to say when someone suggested doing something that the others didn’t want to do. And that is the point of special laws or standards that single out evolution for special treatment. Let’s find a way to say we are doing it, but still not require it, or fudge quite a bit.

At first glance the bill, as amended by the Florida House of Representatives yesterday, looks like a strong endorsement of teaching evolution. And state Representative Hays, the bill’s main sponsor in the House, says

Don’t try to read something in there that isn’t already there. It’s direct and to the point. Any good science theory that is a valid theory should be able to withstand a critical analysis.

Source

But it singles out evolution for odd special treatment, so a closer look is in order.

Anything goes in science class in Florida if the “Evolution Academic Freedom” bill passes. The bill advanced strongly today, passing the Senate Judiciary Committee by 6 to 3, or 7 to 3 by another count. (We still have trouble counting votes.)

The bill’s first provision after its name is:

9 (2) As used in this section, the term “scientific

10 information” means germane current facts, data, and peer-reviewed

11 research specific to the topic of chemical and biological

12 evolution as prescribed in Florida’s Science Standards.

Who decides what is germane or peer reviewed? Individual teachers and students are given rights under the bill. This right is not precisely stated but in no way denied either, and they would need that right in order to enjoy the other rights granted under the bill. If everything from germane through peer-reviewed is one conjunction then topics must be both germane and peer reviewed, in at least one person’s opinion. Creationists will insist that anything of interest to them is germane, and they also claim, except when under oath, that specific scientific papers support creationism. They also claim indirect support from numerous other papers via quotation abuse, or quote mining as it is known online. If germane (in someone’s opinion) and peer reviewed (in someone’s opinion) are taken to be separate sufficient conditions then absolutely anything goes. Florida’s fine new science standards will just be “if you want to”.

First, the Discovery Institute didn’t seem to know about the anti-evolution bill introduced in Florida last week. Now, they don’t seem to actually understand what the bill does. Both of these things are quite strange, considering that the Discovery Institute folks actually wrote all of the substantive parts of the bill.

Rob Crowther just devoted most of an article over at the Discovery Institute’s Media Complaints Blog to scolding the media for their coverage of the Florida legislation. Apparently, most of the news coverage made the outrageous claim that the “Academic Freedom Act” would actually permit the teaching of “alternative theories” to evolution. Crowther is outraged, claiming that the bill does no such thing. He thinks that the various media outlets have “been fed some ‘smelly crap’” by pro-evolution groups such as Florida Citizens for science. I think it’s because the various media outlets have actually read the bill.

Read more at The Questionable Authority, where comments may be left.

Speaking of brazen antics, PT commenter Glen Davidson over on the AtBC forum blew the whistle by posting the “Expelled Challenge” FAQ. Apparently, these folks are running scared that their project will be little more than one step up from “direct to video” projects, and are coordinating mass attendance of students and their parents from literalist-Christian schools. They are providing what amounts to a kickback to school administrators for movie ticket stubs from attendees who go to the “Expelled” movie during its first two weeks in the local theater.

(Continue reading at the Austringer.)

The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a six section overview on Science, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

Section 1: Science as a Way of Knowing
Section 2: Science and Society
Section 3: Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design
Section 4: Why Intelligent Design is not Science
Section 5: Science Education and Intelligent Design
Section 6: Fairness and Balance in the Classroom and Beyond

I would add another section on the scientific vacuity or infertility of Intelligent Design. Ask yourself this simple question: What non-trivial contribution has Intelligent Design made to our scientific understanding? And ask you then a follow-up question: For those systems which ID claims to be designed, how does ID explain these systems?

The answers, or lack thereof, may surprise you.

HT: NCSE

In South Carolina, things were mostly quiet after last year’s election and defeat of creationist candidate for state superintendent of education Karen Floyd, and the defeat of the pro-creationism language that the Discovery Institute tried to worm into the curriculum standards.

But you knew they wouldn’t give up. Now a young-earth creationist named Kristin Maguire has been elected as the chairperson of the State Board of Education. Her qualifications? She home-schooled her four children. And that’s it.

The South Carolinians for Science Education blog has more on this, both about Maguire’s election and about a new assault on the textbook selection process. Best stock up on the headache medicine now. It’s going to be a long 2008.

Yesterday the Discovery Institute held a press conference at the capitol building in Des Moines, to announce Guillermo Gonzalez’s plans to sue Iowa State University over their decision to deny him tenure. Supposedly the lawsuit will be filed pending the rejection of an appeal to the Board of Regents, which is virtually guaranteed simply for the fact that the Regents typically uphold tenure decisions. Joining Casey Luskin, Rob Crowther, Gonzalez’s attorneys, and a few other DI folk was state Senator David Hartsuch (R-District 41).

The core of the DI’s assertion is that there were “secret tenure deliberations” aka a plan to oust Dr. Gonzalez because of his ID views.

Continue reading at Neurotopia.

By Brandon Haught, Communications Director of Florida Citizens for Science.

Before I begin, let me give a brief recap of what’s going on for anyone just joining us. Florida’s state science standards for public schools is currently going through a revision process. The current standards are a miserable mess, having been given a grade of F by the Fordham Institute. The standards don’t mention the word evolution, instead referring to this important biology concept as simply “changes over time.” The draft of the new standards feature evolution as one of the major concepts students must know. The draft standards are now going through a public review period. Anyone can go to the website and rate/comment on the standards. Of course, the inclusion of evolution is causing quite a stir. Several newspaper articles, editorials, letters to the editors, online forum posts, etc. have been keeping track of this. The public comment period closes about mid-December. Then the writing committee will make any needed revisions to the draft. Finally, the state board of education will vote on whether to accept the new standards.

That is just the short version of what’s going on. For more details, feel free to browse through this blog’s posts over the past few weeks. Of special note is the concern over the Polk County board of education expressing displeasure over evolution in the standards.

Although Behe has referred to Miller as an ‘intelligent design proponent’, Miller himself is on the record in many different forms that we should not conflate Miller’s faith with his scientific position.

On November 13^th, 2007 Nova will present Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” and as part of the experience, Nova is providing an excellent companion website. One of the features involves the perspective of various scientists on defining the concept of science

Miller has two segments in which he explains both the scientific method and religion and addresses what he considers some of the abuses of logic (“a gross mischaracterization to take a scientist in the past … and say that Newton worked based on a hypothesis of design)

On Isaac Newton Running time 1:34
Science vs. Religion Running time 2:29

Miller Wrote:

What Intelligent design pretends to do to be in the tradition in Newton, What intelligent design actually is, to be perfectly honest, is in the tradition of the middle ages where they stop investigation by saying we cannot answer this mystery it is the work of God “the designer”. This is a science stopper

Few may be aware that the State of Florida is revising its educational standards and that a dedicated group of people have been working on the science standards, including evolution. The Orlando Sentinel reports:

Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science, called the draft standards a “wonderful” blueprint for science education. Wolf, of Winter Haven, said the evolution debate holds little interest to most scientists, who accept it as fact. That’s why the issue did not become controversial during the standards-writing meetings, he said.

“It’s a PR issue,” he said. “And it’s a religious issue. In the scientific community, it’s not an issue.”

On EvolutionNews.org, the Discovery Institute’s blog site, Robert Crowther manages to spin it as

Florida Citizens for Science Excommunicate Prominent Scientists from “Scientific Community” For Doubting Darwin

So what has happened to Philip ‘the father of Intelligent Design’ Johnson? While some ID proponents have been arguing that ID has nothing in common with religion, Johnson seems to disagree. Since his stroke in 2001, Johnson’s public appearances seem to have been minimal and given his past statements, I am not surprised that ID is keeping Johnson out of the lime-light.

On UcD Tyke explains why the “confusion” by O’Reilly and Stein about the religious nature of ID is due to a fundamental entanglement with creationism. And while some effort is made to manage the message and pretend that ID makes no claims about the designer(s), ID proponents are very clear that the purpose of ID is to introduce the reality of God into the academic world.

Tyke Wrote:

This may be pessimistic, but I very much doubt ID will ever come close to disentangling itself from creationism and religion. By far the largest block of support for ID comes from the conservative Christian community, and they simply see no merit in pretending that they don’t necessarily mean God when they talk about an intelligent designer. In fact, many of them believe it to be disingenuous to do so.

Even Philip Johnson himself is quite open about his religious motives for supporting ID when talking about it on Christian radio shows. While his lawyerly choice of words may allow him to continue claiming that the science of ID is silent on who the creator is, there is no mistaking the message he is sending to the Christian faithful–that ID enables Biblical creationism as a scientific theory.

On Bill O’Reilly, Ben Stein made the following claim:

Ben Stein Wrote:

ID is an effort to fill in the gaps, and is a sincere effort to add new knowledge to the theory.

(paraphrased)

Nice to know that ID is in the business of filling the gaps, seems that Ben Stein does realize that ID is just a variant of God of the Gaps. However, like so many other ID proponents, Ben has been misled to believe that ID adds new knowledge to the theory. It doesn’t. Did he not get Bill’s memo? Did Ben not get a copy of the Wedge document?

Bill Dembski Wrote:

As for your example, I’m not going to take the bait. You’re asking me to play a game: “Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position.” ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it’s not ID’s task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots. True, there may be dots to be connected. But there may also be fundamental discontinuities, and with IC systems that is what ID is discovering.”

Since ID proponents argue, without much merit, that they are being censored, I invite them to explain on this thread to us what knowledge ID has added to science. Ideally, this would be knowledge which would not have been added to science were it not for Intelligent Design’s “revolutionary approach” which involved avoiding to deal in ‘pathetic levels of detail’.

Read more at Pharyngula

In the comments section of an earlier posting in which I explored the “arguments” from an ID proponent as to why the suckling behavior of whales shows evidence of Intelligent Design, Duncan posted the following rebuttal by Dr Colin D MacLeod

Duncan Wrote:

The comment about whales and their nipples being evidence of Intelligent Design was published in a letter to the Scottish newspaper The Herald, and seems to derive from a 1938 book by the Creationist Douglas Deraw, entitled “More Difficulties of the Evolution Theory”. The claim received a pretty terminal rebuttal on 20 October, with the publication of the following letter:

As reported by NCSE, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) has withdrawn his $100,000 earmark for anti-science education: Vitter earmark withdrawn. During yesterday’s session Vitter asked that the money in the earmark be directed to other projects, insisting that he never intended—yeah, right—for the money to go towards teaching creationism.

Joshua Rosenau of “TfK” has the full exchange on his blog.

Mr. VITTER Madam President, I rise today to discuss a project I sponsored in the fiscal year 2008 Labor, Health, Human Services and Education appropriations bill. The project, which would develop a plan to promote better science-based education in Ouachita Parish by the Louisiana Family Forum, has raised concerns among some that its intention was to mandate and push creationism within the public schools. That is clearly not and never was the intent of the project, nor would it have been its effect. However, to avoid more hysterics, I would like to move the $100,000 recommended for this project by the subcommittee when the bill goes to conference committee to another Louisiana priority project funded in this bill.

Mr. HARKIN Madam President, I appreciate the sentiments by the Senator from Louisiana and accept this proposal to move the funding for this project to other priority projects for the State of Louisiana in the bill when it goes to conference committee.

Mr. SPECTER Madam President, I concur with my colleague and will agree to move these funds in conference committee.

Congratulations to everyone who contacted their senators about this earmark. The students of Louisiana owe you a debt of gratitude. You not only got the earmark withdrawn, you also got the sponsor to do it.

Kudos all around.

Laurence Moran at Sandwalk comments on a video excerpt with Bill Dembski, recently touted by the Discovery Institute’s Robert Crowther. What is fascinating that despite more than a decade of Intelligent Design ‘research’ this is the best ID has to offer.

Ironically, Dembski starts of by stating that “what darwinists have done is hidden behind complexities of living systems”. How ironic can this be… While science, as I have shown in several examples, deals in explanations, pathways and hypotheses, Intelligent Design has contributed exactly zero to our scientific understanding of these systems. Worse, while Dembski mentions some complex systems, he also avoids some examples of complex systems science understands quite well how they may have evolved.

My thanks to Robert Crowther for presenting the “best’ response ID has to offer. You be the judge.

By Dr. Hans Roskam, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), University of Leiden and Dr. Gerdien de Jong, Evolutionary Population Biology, University of Utrecht.

Dutch biologists are in great turmoil due to the censorship of BBC nature documentaries by the Dutch Evangelische Omroep (Evangelical Broadcasting, EO), a fundamentalist Christian public broadcasting company. As a fundamentalist Christian organisation inspired by the word of God as revealed in the literal text of the Bible, the EO denies all science that falsifies this literal text.

Consequently, all references to evolution, speciation, descent and millions of years are removed from BBC documentaries as broadcasted by the EO. BBC documentaries are  ‘neutralized’, that is, non-offending to creationist views by replacing spoken English text by an intentionally falsely translated spoken Dutch text, or by cutting whole scenes. Nevertheless, the documentaries are presented to the Dutch public as BBC documentaries. For instance, the EO DVD “Het Leven van Zoogdieren”, their censored version of Sir David Attenborough’s “The Life of Mammals” is explicitly presented as “written and presented by David Attenborough”, despite its many deviations and sins of omission.

Antievolutionists have long sought to subvert and infiltrate the public school science classrooms, looking to turn all those lecterns into pulpits to deliver their narrow sectarian doctrines. We’ve seen takeovers of classrooms, of school boards, and the promulgation of legislation to set things up the way they’d like it. Now, we have another untoward development: not content with turning science class into Sectarian Sunday School, they want taxpayers to chip in money to serve the cause. That’s right, instead of passing a collection plate where one gets a choice of contributing or not, they do want to pick your pockets.

The Times-Picayune has the story.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., earmarked $100,000 in a spending bill for a Louisiana Christian group that has challenged the teaching of Darwinian evolution in the public school system and to which he has political ties.

The money is included in the labor, health and education financing bill for fiscal 2008 and specifies payment to the Louisiana Family Forum “to develop a plan to promote better science education.”

More on the Austringer.

I’ve been continuing to put some time into criticizing Michael Behe’s expert report on the creationist texts involved in the California Creationism Case. This is a slow process, partly because I’m also working on other projects and partly because it’s difficult to read the Bob Jones “Biology for Christian Schools” text without encountering a range of unpleasant side effects. I’ve been fighting the increased blood pressure and the nausea, and soldiering on. Along the way, I’ve encountered some real gems that I thought I’d share with you.

Today, I’m going to give you two quotes: one on Darwin, and one on sexually transmitted diseases. The two are connected only by the surreal nature of what’s being said. As you read them, please remember that this is material that’s being taught to high school students, and that the folks who are teaching this stuff are suing the University of California, because for some strange reason UC doesn’t think that people who have been taught this stuff have adequately completed an actual college preparatory class in biology. All quotes are taken from the most recent (3^rd) edition of the text. I’m transcribing by hand, so unless indicated otherwise, all typos are mine.

Read more (at The Questionable Authority, where comments can be left):