The Panda's Thumb

Video game for teaching biology

2012-05-15T19:54:59Z

I sent this link to an AP biology teacher, who pronounced it “cool” and forwarded it to other teachers in his district. The link describes a project by three scientific animators to develop a video game to teach the internal working of the cell – and presumably make it fun. The organizers of the project are seeking what I would consider fairly modest support through Kickstarter. As of this writing, they have a long way to go before the deadline, May 30. I intend to make a smallish pledge and encourage others to do so as well.

Atheists sue country club for religious discrimination

2012-05-14T20:02:02Z

Yes, you read that right. According to an article in the Detroit News, the Center for Inquiry has sued a country club for canceling a speech by the distinguished biologist Richard Dawkins, allegedly because the owner of the country club did not want “to associate with certain individuals and philosophies.” From our “if I did that, then you would …” department, imagine the outrage if someone had canceled a speech on finding out that the speaker was a religious fundamentalist. What is the difference?

Odocoileus virginianus

2012-05-14T18:00:00Z

Photograph by Richard Buquoi.

Freshwater: Board's Supreme Court Memorandum in Response

2012-05-12T21:07:24Z

As I posted earlier, in April John Freshwater filed a Notice of Appeal and a Memorandum in Support of Jurisdiction with the Ohio Supreme Court, asking that the Court consider an appeal of his termination. Now the Board’s attorneys have filed a Memorandum in Response. Basically, the Board argues that the case as decided by the 5^th District Court of Appeals is a narrow one, a “run of the mill termination case,” concerned solely with whether the Knox County Court of Common Pleas abused its discretion in denying Freshwater’s appeal of his termination. The Court of Appeals ruled that there was no abuse of discretion.

The Memorandum in Response argues that Freshwater’s appeal to the Supreme Court is no more than a ploy to convince the Supreme Court that it should “take another look at the facts”–in effect, to rehear the case. It argues that Freshwater is attempting to “transform this case into one about academic freedom and free speech,” but no substantial constitutional question is raised by it. It says that Freshwater’s invocation of academic freedom and free speech in his MIS is a “… desperate attempt to make this case appear as a matter of public or great general interest … [and] … has no basis in reality” (p. 11). The Memorandum in Response argues that had Freshwater been allowed to continue his behavior in the classroom, the Board of Education, in its failure to control Freshwater’s behavior, would itself have been exposed to the risk of violating the Establishment Clause and resulting litigation.

The next step is for the Supreme Court to decide whether it will hear the case or let the Appeals Court ruling stand. I have no idea how long that will take, but I’ll try to find out what typical delays are.

Something's definitely run amuck

2012-05-09T20:06:22Z

Today on the DI Media Complaints Division blog, William Dembski writes,

I recall posting on my blog a gorgeous picture of wildflowers, hinting at the wonders of God’s creation, and seeing comments by atheistic evolutionists who dismissed it as merely “sex” run amuck.

I actually remember this post. It was a post Dembski put up on May 14, 2005 at Uncommon Descent. Quoth Dembski:

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The Extravagant Design of Nature

May 14, 2005

Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Intelligent Design

Have a look at the following image and consider what your gut is telling you: (1) that nature is full of extravagant design that we should not expect on materialistic principles; (2) that nature has programmed us through evolution (e.g., sexual selection) to appreciate beauty in nature so that we can be good little robots and spread our genes. Here’s the image.

Dembski now says “atheistic evolutionists…dismissed it as merely ‘sex’ run amuck” (hmm, why the scare quotes? Nevermind.) But that’s not what I remember. Back then, us PT posters had a discussion of whether or not the photo was a fake. We concluded it was. If you know anything about mountain wildflowers (which are typically small and scattered), and/or if you’ve been to the Grand Tetons and snapped the photo at that viewpoint, it’s easy to be suspicious.

For some reason we never got around to posting our findings on it – probably because everyone was deeply immersed in the Kitzmiller case and related battles. But, googling it now, I find that:

1. “Grand Tetons and Wildflowers, Wyoming”, has become quite popular (I think it was so even before 2005), being copied all over the web, reproduced on posters, etc.,

2. It has been noted to be a fake by professional photographer Ralph Nordstrom of ralphnordstromphotography.com:

There is an image on WebShots that is a bit closer to the point, another totally fabricated image. This one is called “Grand Teton and Wildflowers, Wyoming.” This photograph is not possible. First of all, I have photographed at this same location in the Tetons. It’s the famous Ox Bow bend in the river and I can vouch for the fact that there are no wildflowers growing anywhere around there, especially in such profusion. Second, the ‘wildflowers’ presented here are anything but wildflowers. Rather, they are a photograph from a lush domestic garden superimposed on the otherwise beautiful photograph of Mt. Moran and the river. Certainly this is not fine art.

…and by the online Museum of Hoaxes.

Back in 2005, someone from PT actually found what looks like the original source of the flowers part of the photo, which came from a photo of some garden. I can’t find that now, though.

Anyway, the point:

In Dembski’s head: those atheistic evolutionist just dismiss this glorious photo of God’s creation as ‘sex’ run amuck.

In our actual heads: Wow, that does look intelligently designed, but it’s not the nature part that’s intelligently designed, it’s the photo itself and the garden they photoshopped in front of the mountains. Heh heh IDists are dumb.

I will agree, though, that if anything is magical and supernatural, it’s Photoshop. This cute family who visited the spot agrees:

This message was brought to you by the Crawling-completely-into-the-heads-of-ID-advocates Division, Department of Long Memory, Pedantry Lab at the University of Ediacara.

Update: PT commenter AJ found the original of the flower garden. It turns out to be from a garden in Salem, Oregon, the center of the horticulture industry in the Willamette Valley. The photo, “Iris Garden, Salem, Oregon,” is by Adam Jones, you can buy a poster of it here.

I haven’t tried to find the specific original of the Grand Tetons, as there are a few zillion possibilities.

Does analytical thinking discourage religious belief?

2012-05-08T14:41:08Z

I am not sure how much I want to make of this – indeed, I am not sure I want to make anything of it - but Science Now recently ran a short piece to the effect that analytical thinking may “cause [people’s] religious beliefs to waver, if only a little.” More specifically, the author, Greg Miller, describes a number of studies that show that when people are made to think analytically, they are slightly less likely to express a religious belief than when they think intuitively.

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The article cites a recent study by Amitai Shenhav, David G. Rand, and Joshua D. Greene, in which volunteers were asked to answer questions that seem to have an immediately obvious answer, but that answer is flatly wrong. One example:

A bat and ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The way the question is phrased, it cries out for the answer $0.10; that is the intuitive answer. The correct answer, the analytical answer, is $0.05. (Trolls, please try to figure it out for yourselves before asking for help.) People who gave the intuitive (and wrong) answers in general reported stronger religious beliefs, even when the results were controlled for IQ, education, and so on.

If the study by Shenhav and his colleagues suggested that intuitive thinking encourages religious belief, or at least correlates with it, a more-recent study by Will M. Gervais and Ara Norenzayan suggested that analytical thinking might discourage religious belief. Specifically, the authors devised different tactics to put their subjects into an analytical frame of mind. Even as trivial a device as having subjects view photographs of either of two statues, Rodin’s Thinker and a discus thrower, seems to have an effect on the subject’s reported religious beliefs: Those who viewed the Thinker were slightly less likely to report a religious belief than those who viewed the discus thrower.

Science Now quotes the psychologist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University as distinguishing between what the subjects believed and what they said they believed; some people, says Kahneman, actually hold beliefs which, “if they were thinking more critically, they themselves would not endorse.” The statement may not be as cynical as it sounds; I would like to think that at least some people will change their minds when given new information or presented with compelling new arguments.

Finally, these results potentially cast doubt on a claim I made in another posting on Panda’s Thumb:

Nevertheless, both atheists and creationists (some of them, anyway) want to think that science necessarily leads toward atheism or agnosticism. It is hard to say, but it seems more likely that skeptics or freethinkers, who may be already inclined toward disbelief in God, are more likely to become scientists or, perhaps, science teachers.

The recent studies hint that science (or analytical thinking) may in fact encourage disbelief, though the effect is possibly not strong.

Trachemys scripta elegans

2012-05-07T18:00:00Z

Photograph by Paul Burnett.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Trachemys scripta elegans – red-eared slider, a non-native invasive species in California – but very well established in the (former) habitat of the western pond turtle.

47th Carnival of Evolution

2012-05-02T18:55:18Z

At John Wilkins’ Evolving Thoughts, titled “All the Evolution News that’s Fit to Blog.” Go easy on him: he’s injured.

May 11, 2012: Science and Religion in the Classroom: Edwards v. Aguillard at 25

2012-04-30T23:55:58Z

This should be of broad interest: a symposium at Stanford School of Law on the 1987 Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard. This is the decision that ruled “creation science” to be a sham devised to promote religion in the classroom. And, of course, the decision led directly to the decision to drop creationist terminology and adopt “intelligent design” terminology.

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Science and Religion in the Classroom: Edwards v. Aguillard at 25

2012 is the 25^th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards v. Aguillard that teaching creationism in the public schools violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, and the National Center for Science Education, the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences are sponsoring a symposium on the historic case. The symposium, to be held in Room 290 of the law school at Stanford, starting at 12:30 p.m. on May 11, is free and open to the public; those attending are asked to RSVP in advance.

The schedule for the symposium:

INTRODUCTION - 12:30

Michael W. McConnell (Stanford)

THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION-SCIENCE MOVEMENT AND LEGAL CONTROVERSIES - 12:45

Lawrence Friedman (Stanford, moderator)

Ronald Numbers (Wisconsin)

Ed Larson (Stanford, visiting)

Michael Ruse (Florida State)

Patricia Bowers (former Louisiana AG Office)

EDWARDS’S CONSTITUTIONAL LEGACY - 2:30

Eugene Volokh (UCLA, moderator)

Kent Greenawalt (Columbia)

Eugenie Scott (NCSE Director)

Nadine Strossen (N.Y. Law School)

Steven D. Smith (San Diego)

DOES THE DEBATE MATTER? - 4:15

Ed Larson (Stanford, moderator)

Nathan Chapman (Stanford)

Michael McConnell (Stanford)

Hank Greely (Stanford)

Ronald Numbers (Wisconsin)

Eugenie Scott (NCSE)

CLOSING REMARKS - 5:00 Ed Larson (Stanford)

For further details, and a link to RSVP, visit: http://www.law.stanford.edu/calenda[…]gion%20in%20^the%20Classroom%3A%20Edwards%20v.%20Aguillard%20at%2025/

HT: NCSE

North Menan Butte

2012-04-30T18:00:00Z

Photograph by Matt W. Ford.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Wind-carved tuff formations on North Menan Butte, Snake River Plain, Idaho.

Ham on Horses

2012-04-28T19:45:25Z

Now that Shinola is no longer manufactured, I have to wonder what Ken Ham shines his shoes with. Today, Mr. Ham, the alleged proprietor of a putative Ark Park in Kentucky, ran a piece that criticizes the Kentucky Horse Park for promoting “(outdated) evolutionary ideas.”

Of all the fatuous nonsense in that article, this claim may be the, um, best:

One popular belief in regard to the horse evolution series is that as horses supposedly evolved, they got bigger. Eohippus is listed as 14 inches tall, while Mesohippus is listed as 24 inches tall. The next two horses in the display, Miohippus and Merychippus, grow steadily bigger. What’s the problem, though, with the belief that horses somehow evolved into larger and larger animals? If that were true, shouldn’t we see only very large horses today? But we don’t–horses vary in size from the Clydesdale to the much smaller Fallabella (just 17 inches tall).

I will not bother to explain that the domesticated horses we see today are products of artificial selection. Rather, I will note that Mr. Ham’s “deduction” is equivalent to saying, “If we are getting generally taller, then why is my granddaughter shorter than her mother?” Or, if you prefer, “If IQ’s are generally increasing, then why do we still have creationists?”

Acknowledgment. Thanks to Dan Phelps for the link. I am truly impressed that Mr. Phelps has the patience to track this kind of bunk.

Freshwater, Dover, and the Rutherford Institute

2012-04-27T20:47:58Z

I’ve been rereading “Monkey Girl,” (Amazon; Barnes&Noble) Edward Humes’ excellent book on the Kitzmiller trial, and ran onto something I’d either missed first time through or forgotten. As is the case in the Freshwater affair, the Rutherford Institute got involved in Kitzmiller. It represented three sets of Dover parents who requested that they be allowed to intervene in the case, joining the school board as defendants. Filed the same week that the Board’s intelligent design-based statement was read to the first classes in school, the Application to Intervene argued that those parents had a stake in the outcome of the trial, and therefore should be allowed to participate as defendants, represented, of course, by the Rutherford Institute.

The Rutherford Institute argued on behalf of the three sets of parents that if the plaintiffs (Tammy Kitzmiller, et al.) prevailed and the ID statement to biology classes was forbidden to be read, their children would not be able to hear about intelligent design. The Application to Intervene as Defendants (PDF) claimed that

The Intervenors seek to participate in this action because, if the Plaintiffs are successful, the lawsuit will have the effect of censoring the Dover Area School District Board and shielding all ninth graders from criticism of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

…

[The intervenors] seek to ensure that their children will have full access to information concerning the theory of evolution, including its many gaps for which there is no evidence. The Applicants further seek to ensure that their children not be denied access to a critical analysis of evolution merely because some persons believe that critics of the theory are religiously motivated. (pp. 2-3)

Further, in the Application to Intervene Rutherford argued that parents of school children are entitled to assert a “… First Amendment right of access to information and ideas in an academic setting…”. Still further,

The Applicants have a substantial legal interest, rooted in the First Amendment, in making sure that their children are not prevented from learning about intelligent design.

That is, parents are constitutionally empowered to determine what should be covered in public school science curricula, regardless of whether it’s accepted science or fringe pseudoscience. Consistent with Michael Behe’s and Scott Minnich’s admissions in their Kitzmiller testimony that their redefinition of science would substantially broaden the landscape of admissible explanations in science, extending it into the supernatural, the Rutherford Institute’s argument would pave the way for the return of astrology and alchemy to the science classroom, should some parent or teacher wish it.

In a way the route for Rutherford Institute’s involvement in both Dover and Mt. Vernon was similar. Rather than being a principal actor, involved in the original disputes, Rutherford was a late-comer, entering the processes well after they were in progress. It attempted (in Dover) and succeeded (in Mt. Vernon) in inserting itself into an on-going process, making arguments that neither side made prior to Rutherford’s participation. In both cases it is arguing for an expansion of First Amendment rights, in the Dover case the right of parents to determine what will be taught in public school science classrooms, and in the Mt. Vernon case the right of a teacher to override instructions from the Board of Education regarding curriculum matters. And in both cases the result would be the inclusion of any damn fool thing a parent or teacher wants taught, regardless of its appropriateness to the class or the validity of its content. As the response from the plaintiffs in opposition to the Application to Intervene put it,

Second, if Applicants were correct that there is a First Amendment right of parents to dictate the content of public school curricula, that right would eviscerate the well-recognized authority of school districts to set their own curricula. (p. 7)

The Rutherford Institute’s argument has developed and been elaborated in the seven years between Kitzmiller and Freshwater, but it rests on the same foundation: A claimed First Amendment right to allow anything at all to be taught in science classes, subject only to the idiosyncratic wishes of individual parents or teachers.

For more, see NCSE’s Archive of Rutherford Intervention documents.

Added in edit: I’m not sure I made it clear that Judge Jones denied the request to intervene in Kitzmiller.

Josh Rosenau on Coyne on evolution and religion in Evolution

2012-04-24T02:36:52Z

Over at Thoughts from Kansas, Josh Rosenau has a much more thorough critique of Coyne’s Evolution article than I had time to write. Rosenau’s got a major family event in progress, so it wasn’t trivial for him to find the time. Rosenau mostly addresses Coyne’s statistical arguments, which are, well, strained.

Some major points:

1. Coyne’s attempt to blame religion-in-general for creationism (instead of, say, fundamentalism) using correlations between economics, religion, and creationism, misses a huge and obvious alternative hypothesis, which is that the real explanatory variable in changing minds to accept evolution is level of education.

2. Science education is too important to hold it hostage to some absolutist goal of eradicating religion (which is probably impossible on any foreseeable timeframe anyway, and which IMHO has no guarantee of solving more problems than it causes). Rosenau’s summary is apt:

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At the end of the day, I agree with Coyne that so long as the dominant form of American religion is anti-evolution, we’ll have problems with creationism in schools. Which suggests two possible solutions. One, which Coyne advocates exclusively, involves eradicating religion. He likes to toss that idea around, and it works OK as a slogan, but doesn’t suggest any obvious platform of actions that would actually eradicate religion (“Europe did it!” is not a platform). The other solution, which Coyne rejects for reasons that have less to do with evidence than personal aversion, involves changing the dominant form of religion. Doing that would involve outreach by scientists to religious leaders and religious communities, encouraging those who are already pro-evolution to speak out more, those who are on the fence to come out for evolution, and those that are anti-evolution to at least more fully confront the current state of evolutionary science, as well as the full range of theological approaches to evolution.

I think that latter strategy has a lot of potential. Scientific studies show that telling audiences that it is possible to be religious and to accept evolution is one of the most effective way to change their mind about evolution, and those studies are backed by years of experience by activists on the ground. A growing number of evangelical scientists are voicing their support for evolution, and opening up internal discussions within evangelical churches that will at least soften opposition to evolution, and may well be turning people around. Mainline Protestant churches are issuing more and stronger statements in support of evolution and evolution education, and leaders in many religious traditions are taking the opportunity of Evolution Weekend to urge churchgoers not to reject evolution.

The second strategy doesn’t require a complete revolution in our social system. We should, of course, work towards a more equitable economy, and my record on that point is, I dare say, stronger than Coyne’s. But doing so will not happen quickly, nor will any consequent change in society’s religious makeup. I don’t want science education to wait on a back burner for the conclusion of these social revolutions. I think there’s a deep need to uproot the social legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, of gender discrimination, of union-busting, of kleptocratic traditions and rules in Washington and our state capitols, of legacy college admissions, and a host of other tools of oppression and economic division. We don’t, however, need to treat those big, complicated fights as a necessary prerequisite of fixing science literacy. Fixing those inequities in American society could take centuries more, and I don’t think science literacy can wait.

Megascops asio

2012-04-23T18:00:00Z

Photograph by Steve Hedderton.

Megascops asio – Eastern screech owl, Middletown, New York.

Freshwater: Misrepresenting the case

2012-04-22T00:51:29Z

One of the salient properties of anti-evolutionist coverage of the Freshwater affair has been a systematic misrepresentation of the case. On various anti-evolutionist blogs and Christian news outlets, the case has consistently been characterized as being concerned solely with Freshwater’s personal Bible on his desk, excluding any mention of the various religious items displayed in his classroom, his use of blatantly creationist materials in class, his insubordination, and his multiple mutually contradictory accounts of what he in fact taught and what he did with the Tesla coil. In a recent report of an interview with Freshwater all those themes are repeated. It’s of note that the interview is on a web site with the motto “Restoring Truth to History Class,” one of whose recent emphases appears to be on Islamic infiltration into public school curricula in the U.S.

Given the false statements in its Freshwater story, I wonder what “truth” means to that site. The first paragraph of the story has four sentences. Every sentence has an error of fact. Below the fold I’ll walk through parts of the story, pointing out some of the distortions, misrepresentations, and plain falsehoods it contains.

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The first paragraph is a model of the creationist approach. As I noted, every sentence of that paragraph has an error of fact. The first sentence reads:

This morning, I spoke with John Freshwater, a teacher of 23 years who was fired from the Mt. Vernon, Ohio high school because he had a Bible on his desk.

Nope. The termination resolution adopted by the Mt. Vernon Board of Education contains exactly zero references to Freshwater’s personal Bible.

The second sentence contains just one fairly minor inaccuracy:

Freshwater, married for 32 years is a proud father of three; a son who graduated from the United States Military Academy, a daughter who graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and a daughter who is still in the Mt. Vernon High School.

Freshwater’s son did not graduate from the U.S. Military Academy. In fact he dropped out of West Point, attended Desales University, and completed his degree at Cedarville University, a fundamentalist Christian institution. He then joined the Army, completed officer training last year, and is a 2^nd Lieutenant.

The third sentence has another falsehood:

In 2006, [Freshwater] won Outstanding Teacher of the Year, and has always earned excellent evaluations.

Freshwater’s evaluations were excellent, as best I know, but he never received an “Outstanding Teacher of the Year” award because the Mt. Vernon district has never had such an award in the 40 years I’ve lived here. He did receive a couple of “Distinguished Teacher” awards, the sole criterion for which consisted of being nominated for the award by an administrator. Those awards were made for anything from classroom performance to service on committees or other extra-curricular service, and a number of them were awarded every year. The year my wife received a Distinguished Teacher award at least four other teachers also received one. Freshwater’s nominator, former Assistant Principal Tim Keib, testified that he couldn’t even remember who else he nominated for the award.

The fourth sentence has another falsehood:

However, in 2008 a complaint was lodged about the Bible that had always sat on his desk in the classroom.

The original complaint was about Freshwater’s use of the Tesla coil on students in class. Later, teachers, parents, and students alleged that he used creationist materials, prayed at Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings, and so on. The issue with his personal Bible was whether it was part of a more extensive display of Christian materials in his classroom.

That paragraph is illustrative of the general anti-evolutionist approach.

There are still more errors in the story. Skipping ahead a bit, in the third paragraph we read

Mr. Freshwater believes that the genesis of the problem began in 2003 when he taught the theory of evolution to his 8^th grade class. The teaching requirements stated that the theory of evolution was to be critically analyzed. This Mr. Freshwater sought to do, but learned that the school would brook no criticism of evolution. The school administration and some of the faculty objected to Mr. Freshwater’s critical discussion of evolution, and the data related to evolution, in spite of the requirement to analyze evolution critically. (italics in the original)

The “teaching requirements” for 8^th grade biology contained no such language. In 2003 Freshwater proposed that the district adopt the Intelligent Design Network’s Objective Origins Science Policy. Later he claimed that what he wanted to do was import a 10^th grade biology indicator–the “critical analysis of evolution” language adopted by the Ohio State Board of Education–into his 8^th grade class. The Board of Education rejected his proposal. Nevertheless, testimony showed that he imported creationist materials into his teaching of science.

So the report of an interview with Freshwater is riddled with errors of fact. One wonders where those errors came from, given that the author of the report claims to have spoken to Freshwater.