The Tennessee legislature helps out
In a 70-28 vote today, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed HB 368, a bill that encourages science teachers to explore controversial topics without fear of reprisal. Critics say the measure will enable K-12 teachers to present intelligent design and creationism as acceptable alternatives to evolution in the classroom.
…
“There has been a widespread pattern of discrimination against educators who would challenge evolution in the classroom,” Casey Luskin, a policy analyst for the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute, in Seattle, Washington, told ScienceInsider. “Schools censor from students the evidence against evolution. This protects the rights of teachers to teach in an objective way.” The Discovery Institute supports the bill and others like it in other states.
And thus we see yet another illustration of the compatibility of religion and science.
Intelligent Falling. Teach the controversy!
Oh goodie. A bridge between science and crazy, with a legally protected onramp conveniently located at a school near you (provided you live in Tenn.) I can’t wait till they get to my state.
New! From the state that brought you the Scopes Trial!
Tennessee you say? Hmmmmmmm! What’s next, mathematics? Teachers free to teach that 2 + 2 = 5 or 21 or i? Freedom to teach that Pi = 3? The possibilities are limitless. How about physics? Freedom to teach that Ptolemy’s model of the solar system was correct? That Earth is flat? That Apollo really does drive a fiery chariot across the sky every day? The “truth” about relativity or quantum mechanics?
How about History? How about …….? Well shoot, if we’re going to teach the “controversy” let’s teach all of them that have ever been. Equal time for every discredited notion that humans have ever had; it’s only fair. I’d laugh if I wasn’t weeping already
The boilerplate in this legislation has been around for awhile. In 2009, they (whom I assume to be CSC) pushed it in (at least) Michigan, Florida, Texas and Louisiana, where it passed and was signed into law by Bobby Jindal. As an avid student of the intelligent design movement, I hope that you will indulge some of my own boilerplate from communicating with state legislators…
These “academic freedom” initiatives are deeply problematic. They are constructed to appear reasonable to anyone unfamiliar with their intent. The critical language is
To understand why this particular language is critical to the intent, it helps to consider the meaning of controversy in a scientific context. While philosophers of science offer convoluted accounts for the meaning of science and how it differs from other realms of human inquiry, a simple summary is that science seeks to explain natural phenomena. Toward that end, scientists (all those seeking to explain natural phenomena, including the elementary school student monitoring the temperature of melting ice) propose theories to explain the phenomena, and test these against available evidence. Scientific controversies arise where there are alternative theories, along with disagreement as to which are best supported by available evidence.
In this light, Tennessee HB 368 could be simplified and clarified by replacing the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories language with diverse. Hence,
However, I can guarantee that this change would be rejected by the legislation’s sponsors. This is because the intelligent design position is not an attempt to understand nature. It is not a scientific theory, nor are the elaborate arguments about complexity and information constructed by intelligent design scientists intended to provide a foundation for any scientific theory. (This simple fact is little appreciated.) The sole objective of the entire movement is to challenge naturalism. The dynamic here is to argue that conventional evolutionary theory cannot adequately explain the process leading to this or that detail of biology. It can’t explain abiogenesis. It can’t explain the genetic code. Provided one holds adequately explain to mean account for all individual evolutionary events leading to a phenomenon, one has a wide range of phenomena from which to choose. Of course, the challenges are one-way; conventional theory is the only existing theory under discussion. ID advocates don’t have a theory, so they don’t need to explain anything. (Design itself is not an explanation, but a conclusion.) ID scientists don’t consider explanation to be their responsibility. While this is convenient, it also means that ID scientists are not, in fact, engaged in scientific investigation and, consequently, have nothing to offer science education. It is appropriate for educational administrators to insist that science teachers focus on explanation, and do not attempt to substitute argument for it.
Legislation like Tennessee HB 368 gets around this by specifically privileging argument without explanation. The way this would work in the classroom is that a teacher would introduce conventional evolutionary theory, indicating that, while it is very good at explaining micro-evolutionary variation (e.g., evolution of drug-resistant tuberculosis), it doesn’t offer detailed explanations for macro-evolutionary changes (the Cambrian explosion is a favorite). The teacher doesn’t differentiate does not explain from cannot explain, leading students to conclude that conventional evolutionary theory is fundamentally flawed. The scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories… language protects the teacher from being held accountable. At the same time, teachers who wish to help their students understand the weaknesses of intelligent design (or, for that matter, young earth creationism) are not protected by the provisions, because there is no existing theory associated with it. Although these outcomes seem absurd, I can assure you that they are carefully intended by the authors (probably not legislators themselves) who wrote HB 368. Anyone who has followed this movement for any period of time knows that the actions of the intelligent design community are always intelligently designed! (You may offer Dover as an exception, but you will find that the big guns at the Discovery Institute pulled back once they had assessed the character of the principals.)
Ken,
The Discovery Institute was all for the teaching of ID in the Dover dispute. They had plenty of time to get used to the character of the principals and offered nothing but support. They didn’t pull back until it became clear that they would be cross-examined by competent attorneys. And even then, as soon as the case was decided, the DI went into full attack mode on Judge Jones. In other words, the DI distanced itself from the Dover people just enough to protect itself from close examination and has never had any problem associating with creationists and frauds.
Thank you Ken.
That may be, and I will defer to your greater knowledge of the details. I know that they were heavily involved at the start, and had every intention of running the show, but my recollection is that they cut out when the board’s young earth creationism could no longer be denied, and that Rick Santorum did the same. If any of them were sufficiently aware of their own limits to worry about cross examination, it kind of surprises me. Behe certainly wasn’t.
If they had, they’d have to disband, wouldn’t they?
[Quote]”there has been a widespread pattern of discrimination against educators who would challenge evolution in the classroom”[/quote]
No, there’s widespread discrimination against willfully teaching children falsehoods.
Oops, obviously haven’t got the hang of the html tags round here
Ken,
Yes it’s a setup to present ID as a scientific theory, with the student invited in a number of ways to conclude that it is superior to neo-Darwinism, but at the same time to prevent it being treated as a scientific theory subject to the usual critical scrutiny. Otherwise, it would be a lay-down misere for the neo-Darwinist teacher.
However, a fact of life in a state like Tennessee is I imagine that one’s tribal identity comes largely through affiliation to a church, and for teenagers such ultra-familial identity is very important. Consequently I should imagine, whatever the student’s private thoughts might be there is that extra compulsion against treating the sacred Old Testament as just another scientific hypothesis; that is, in the manner the ID school wants to present it as.
(NB: I have never been to Tennessee, don’t know much about it, and live on the opposite side of the planet.)
Cool.
Now they can also teach 911 conspiracy theory, alien abductions, ghosts, oh my.
I’m waiting for the first teacher of native American descent to try to teach their brand of creationism. Could get interesting.