Category: Culture
Texas Hold ‘Em: Calling Evolutionist Julie Berwald’s Bluffs in her Report on the Texas Science Standards Hearing
Julie Berwald, a freelance textbook writer who testified against critical thinking on evolution last week before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE), has written an inaccurate and unhappy report at the highly partisan Wired Magazine website about the Texas Science Standards hearing on March 25. According to Berwald’s account, she stated: “It’s really hard to come up with scientifically based weaknesses to evolution.” The intelligent-design supporters exploded in protest. The chairman banged his gavel repeatedly. “I will not have that kind of outburst in this room. If it happens again, I’ll clear the room and we’ll only have the testifiers in here. I’ll do it!” This was Berwald’s first bluff. The problem is that Berwald, whose attention during her Read More ›
Texas Evolution Lobby Dealt Another Blow With Dismissal of Chris Comer Lawsuit
Last fall, John West blogged about a press release from Texans for Better Science Education (TBSE) about Chris Comer’s lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency (TEA), a lawsuit which has been highly touted by the NCSE and other evolution lobbyists as purported evidence of discrimination against evolutionists. They claimed that Comer was “expelled for real,” and the national newsmedia uncritically bought the story hook, line and sinker. As TBSE’s timeline of Chris Comer’s disciplinary problems observed, “News reports of Comer’s departure have parroted the claim that Comer was ‘fired’ because she opposed teaching ‘creationism’ and ‘intelligent design’ and supported evolution.” The reality is that Comer was not “fired” and her resignation came because (as West put it), “TEA documents … Read More ›
John West in The Washington Post:
Who Wants to Discuss Science in the Debate Over Evolution?
In all the excitement of the debate over Texas science standards last week, one thing was made eminently clear: generally speaking, there is one side of this debate that focuses on the science at hand, and another side that keeps bringing up religion. Contrary to the stereotype (but not the actual experience of those who care to see things as they actually are), it’s the Darwinists in this debate who keep wanting to talk about religion. People who question Darwin’s theory want to talk about the scientific evidence for and against it, as John West explains in The Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog: Evolutionists typically cast themselves as the champions of secular reason against superstition, but in Texas they tried Read More ›
Wall Street Journal: Texas Opens Classroom Door for Evolution Doubts
Although incorrect at points, the Wall Street Journal’s article on the new Texas science standards is more accurate than some of the local reporting. The key thing the Journal gets right is that the Board definitely opened the door to critically analyzing evolution in the classroom. Unfortunately, the article omits or mangles a lot of the details. For one thing, the article doesn’t mention the new critical inquiry standard requiring students to “analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations…including examining all sides of scientific evidence… so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.” The story also garbles things when it states that “the board voted down curriculum standards questioning the evolutionary principle that all life on Earth is descended from Read More ›
Associated Press: Texas Board Approves Compromise
Unlike the slipshod Dallas Morning News article, the initial Associated Press report on the new Texas science standards acknowledges the “compromise” language requiring scientific critiques adopted by the Board and even quotes some of it: The curriculum will require that students “in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations … including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.” Although the AP story is clearly slanted toward the evolution lobby (and contains the obligatory inaccurate comments about intelligent design), it doesn’t suppress the basic facts about what the Board did.