Category: Culture
NAS’s Draft “Framework for Science Education” Ignores Critical Thinking When Teaching Evolution
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is drafting a “Conceptual Framework for New Science Education Standards” which contains guidelines and standards on how to teach evolution. As we’ve noted before here on ENV, science education authorities often laud the importance of using critical thinking when teaching science, but then they completely ignore or eschew such educational approaches when it comes to teaching evolution. They single out evolution as the topic where scientific critique or critical analysis is carefully avoided. The NAS’s public preliminary draft “Framework for Science Education” (warning: large 6.8 Mb PDF file) uses exactly this approach. Having perused the proposed draft framework and found some dogmatic statements about evolution, a few noteworthy points emerge. While some of the Read More ›
Free to Think: Caroline Crocker’s New Book Tells Story of Discrimination Against Intelligent Design
While Chris Comer’s lawsuit made a bogus case for discrimination, there are cases documenting genuine discrimination–against scientists who support intelligent design (ID). One of those incidents took place at George Mason University (GMU), where Caroline Crocker was ousted from teaching biology because she challenged to neo-Darwinian evolution and favorably mentioned ID in the classroom. Dr. Crocker later appeared in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but now many more details about Caroline Crocker’s story are revealed in her new autobiographical book, Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters. Free to Think tells the story of a biology professor who cares deeply about students, received glowing student reviews, wouldn’t compromise her integrity when challenged to disregard anti-cheating rules, and produced high quality curricular Read More ›
Federal Appeals Court Rejects Chris Comer’s Lawsuit Alleging Discrimination Against Evolution
In 2007, Chris Comer was forced to resign from her job at the Texas Education Agency (TEA). She then filed a lawsuit alleging she was forced to “stay neutral on creationism,” and claimed that TEA’s “neutrality” policy violated the First Amendment. We reported last year when Comer lost on summary judgment at the federal district court level. Comer then appealed her case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which filed its ruling on July 2 upholding the district court’s decision and tossing Comer’s case. The Fifth Circuit held, “we find no evidence to support the conclusion that the principal or primary effect of TEA’s policy is one that either advances or inhibits religion, we conclude that the policy does Read More ›
Sneers and Double Standards Pass for Scholarship in Evolution: Education and Outreach
Pop quiz: Did the following quote come from (A) Panda’s Thumb, or (B) An article in a scholarly journal published by Springer science publishing? “An especially good example of silliness is the ID assertion that natural processes cannot create new genetic information. ID advocates have recently been pushing this line heavily as of late (Meyer 2009)…” If you answered (A), then… …you’re wrong. It came from a recent article by former NCSE staff-member Nick Matzke in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach — an NCSE-aligned outfit, where apparently such language passes for scholarly argument. But in the words of Jay Richards, “a sneer is not an argument.” Of course Matzke’s reference in the quote from his recent paper is to Read More ›
We Hold Some Truths To Be Self Evident
When we celebrate our country’s independence on July 4th, the day may resonate with many Americans more powerfully than in other recent years. The nation’s political mood is increasingly, well, independent. Voters are fed up with incumbent politicians and reigning political parties. This accounts for the unlikely bestselling books that keep shooting up out of what might seem like nowhere — previously obscure biographies of the Founders that pose fundamental questions about the role of our government and what direction the nation is headed. In a welcome development, Americans want to refresh their acquaintance with the sources of our rights as citizens. Yet there is one source, more basic than any other, that so far has not received the attention Read More ›