Fairness?

The Washington, D.C. based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has released it's first assessment of the state of state science education standards in five years, and finds it in no better shape now than then. This is, they find, in spite of the fact that "the majority of states have reworked, or crafted from scratch, their science standards over the past five years."

They continue: "The public's anxiety about the future of its scientific prowess is palpable—and reasonable. "

States that received an "A" grade (on an A-F scale, just like the ones the schools use for their students) include California, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, New Mexico, Indiana and -- go figure! -- South Carolina. Virginia has improved from a D in 2000, and New Mexico from an F.

Except for South Carolina, it will be noted that all are either blue or purple states.

The criteria used by the Foundation are as follows:

• Do the standards contain clear and fair expectations by grade level for students?
• Are the standards organized in a sensible way, both showing logical progression from grade to grade and easily navigated so teachers, parents, and the public can understand?
• Is there an appropriate amount of science content, and if so, do the standards outline the best approach to share that content?
• Are the expectations outlined specific enough, yet set high aims that will equip students with the science skills they need for college?
• Are the standards appropriately serious, or do they incorporate pseudo-scientific fads or politics?
  

One of the main reasons states received failing grades was described as "Missing facts and concepts that are integral to physics, chemistry, and biology."

Concepts like the Big Bang and Evolution. Evolution was, in fact, singled out for special mention by the Foundation in its press release on the study. In the 2000 study, 12 states received an F in the teaching of evolution. Five years later, there remain 12 states in the failing column. Kansas got an F- Minus!

In an early draft of the report's section dealing with Kansas, the new Kansas standard for evolution received a score of 3 points out of 3 possible. The study's authors noted the diselection of a number of the 1999 board's fundies and subsequent improvement in the decisions of the board vis a vis the science standard. The authors expressed concern, though, that the fundies were again ascendant, and thus the new standard was in danger. A note appended just before publication states:

"Note added In Proof: The early warnings have been
justified. Kansas has adopted standards whose
treatment of evolutionary material has been radically
compromised. The effect transcends evolution,
however. It now makes a mockery of the very definition
of science. The grade for Kansas is accordingly
reduced to 'F.'" (My emphasis.)

* * * * *

Americans like to think they are fundamentally a fair people. As a group, they also manifest a level of scientific literacy slightly below that of a Yanomamo warrior with a nose full of ebene. When polled, Americans answer questions framed in the form "Should all sides be taught in the evolution/Intelligent Design debate" with a resounding "Yes!" So when a scientist gets fired for allowing a sneak attack on science, they see it as The Man coming down on some nebish who was just trying to be fair.

This scenario has been playing out for the last year or so over the desision by Richard M. von Sternberg (a.k.a. Rick Sternberg), editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington -- an obscure journal published by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History -- to publish a paper by Stephen Meyer, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute (DI). Sternberg seemed nonplussed when his collegues at the Smithsonian got purturbed. This either makes him the Grand Potentate of the Disingenuous, or plain stupid. Given that he is an anti-evolutionist who serves on the editorial board of a six-day creationist journal, it's incredible that he even got that job!

Von Sternberg's job status put him in limbo as far as getting relief from the slings and arrows of outraged colleagues went. He complained to the Office of Special Counsel -- the guys who make sure that whistle-blowers aren't targeted -- that the Smithsonian took his keys away and the real scientists at the Institute wouldn't play with him anymore. The OSC found that although in its opinion von Sternberg had indeed been wronged, his employer hadn't wronged him, so there was nothing they could do about it. Von Sternberg's actual employer, it seemed, was not the Smithsonian, but the National Institutes of Health.

Von Sternberg did manage to gain some sympathy, however. The Washington Post began to look almost like its Moonie rival. One of teh Post's sports writers, fercrisake, had to pipe in with her two cents worth, prompting the following exchange:

MY REPLY
Ms. Jenkins,

ID is not creationism? What is it, then?

The contention that because something is too complex to be explained other than with reference to a "designer" is a form of logical fallacy known as the “argument from design.” The argument from design is, in turn, a form of the argument from ignorance: It is unknown whether x is true, therefore y must be true. Inferring a designer of something means that the thing was, in fact, created. Something that exists and was designed had to be designed by someone. That someone is the thing's creator. Either the creator is God, or the creator was created. It is an infinite regression unless the assumption is made that the designer is God.

This is the ultimate begged question.

As for relying on Philip Johnson, now you are committing the fallacy known as “appeal to authority.” Johnson is not an authority in biology, no matter what he tells his faithful. Using him to bolster your essay is specious. Then you drag out Jeffrey Schwartz to mouth one of the ID’s most abused straw men, “random processes.” There is nothing random about evolution. There are different pathways of development, any or all of which can and will be exploited by living things. These pathways are dictated by endpoints of previous pathways. In other words, all possible pathways not originating from these endpoints are foreclosed. A few of these pathways will be successful; most will not. The successful pathways will be those that best meet the strictures of the environment in which these pathways arise. This is not random. It is stochastic. That word does not mean, as one of your colleagues at the New York Times actually stated in print, “conjectural.” (Walter Goodman. Dec. 19, 1997. New York Times, E34. He was quoting William F. Buckley, who knew what it meant.) Nor is stochastic a synonym for random.

Schwartz parades out another old creationist straw man, the equation of natural selection with evolution. You used the term “neo-Darwinism,” so I suggest you learn what that means before you buy anything Schwartz says, especially when chasing his straw man with his creationist torch leads him to another argument from ignorance.

Are you serious about this, or are you just angling for a job at the Moonie paper?

Bill Rozell
Carmichael, CA
http://mail.yahoo.com/config/login?/ym/Compose?To=falderol1@yahoo.com

HER REPLY

Hi Bill,

First, thanks for reading the Post.

Yes, the founding father of ID is, in fact, a creationist. But what's interesting is that many distinguished theorists agree that you don't have to be a creationist or even a theist, to see highly organized structures that makes evolution problematic as a sole explanation.

THAT was my point, and I don't rely on Johnson to make it.

Increasingly they use the word "design" to describe what they see in the complex but highly organized structure of cells, proteins, etc.

Example: the current issue of Science magazine apparently has an interesting article, which I haven't read. Another reader writes me this:

"The most recent issue of Science (August 26) has an article about estimating the number of species of microbes in the soil. The authors conclude that the actual number of species in typical soil is a thousand times greater than was expected. They say that there is no theory to guide making this fundamental observation about evolution of the diversity of species in nature.
The office in which I work as a program manager in genomics and structural biology at the Department of Energy began the human genome project, and then turned to the genomes of microbes. Many unexpected discoveries have been made thanks to the new technologies that came about through this and related programs. We now recognize that species of microbes don't compete, as Darwinian theory says, but cooperate in tightly organized communities. Reproduction rates in these communities are as slow as possible; fitness is measured by reproducing as little as possible, not as much as possible, as Darwin's theory led biologists to assume until recent times."

So that's the kind of thing some non-creationist IDers are talking about. No, there is little hard science thus far to support ID, and it's surely not ready for classroom teaching. However, it's a field of growing inquiry. Whether we like it or not.
Best, Sally Jenkins

MY SURREPLY

Good Morning, Sally,

Thank you for a more than timely reply.

"But what's interesting is that many distinguished theorists agree that you don't have to be a creationist or even a theist, to see highly organized structures that makes evolution problematic as a sole explanation."

First causes are metaphysics, not science. As I demonstrated, it is logically impossible to believe a system was designed without positing a designer, and that designer was either designed itself or is God. Therefor when one begins as a scientist to put one's self forward as an adherent of ID and acting in ones profession from that position, one ceases to be a scientist.

There is no such thing as a "non-creationist IDer".

Your other reader wrote:

"'They say that there is no theory to guide making this fundamental observation about evolution of the diversity of species in nature. . .

"'We now recognize that species of microbes don't compete, as Darwinian theory says, but cooperate in tightly organized communities. Reproduction rates in these communities are as slow as possible; fitness is measured by reproducing as little as possible, not as much as possible, as Darwin's theory led biologists to assume until recent times.'"

Evolution is not in question. It is still the only game in town. Its mechanism is open to debate, but not its existance. The most public recent debate was between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. The debate was over the level at which competition was taking place. What a diverse grouping of non-competing microbes would show is not that another element is necessary. If it shows anything at all, it shows that Dawkins may be right.

Dawkins is known for his "selfish gene" model of evolution, wherein organisms are vehicles which genes or communities of genes use to compete. Autonomous pieces of genetic material called prions are readily exchanged among microbes and viruses within a given population. To a population geneticist, the definition of evolution is change in the relative frequencies of genes within a population. Period. "Nature, red in tooth and claw" is not necessary. In Dawkins' model, once enough copies of enough prions are distributed widely enough in a population -- even a population made up of things less related to each other taxonomically than I am to the mold on my shower grout -- then cooperation is going to rear its ugly head.

"Increasingly they use the word "design" to describe what they see in the complex but highly organized structure of cells, proteins, etc."

Scientists use words metaphorically all the time. I just used the word "use" to describe what genes do with the organisms in which they occur. The word implies goal-directed behavior, which is not what I meant. "Design," when used by scientists, does not mean they are saying or even implying actual design. If they are, they have gone beyond the pale and will be checked. Hard. Ask Richard von Sternberg, formerly of the Smithsonian.

The fact that a system runs in such a way that what Darwin said does not fully explain it does not mean that system didn't evolve naturally. Poor old "Darwin," as used by IDers, is an effigy, another creationist straw man. Natural selection is just part of the whole mechanism, and maybe not even the most important part. Darwin himself recognized this weakness, though he appears to have missed the implications in the copy Mendel's work found recently in his library. If you read the message you quoted from your other reader carefully, you will see that even he does not contend that evolution is not a fact. And as I have shown, he is mistaken in his contention that conventional evolutionary ideas have not produced a mechanism by which apparently unrelated organisms do not appear to compete.

Thanks again,

Bill Rozell

HER REPLY TO MY SURREPLY
Hi again,

Well, thanks for the very lively discussion. But I think you'll find that there are some theorists who are evolutionists and yet are intrigued by notions of intrinsic intelligence. They don't find the two utterly incompatible.

By the way, it's interesting to me that merely discussing ID is viewed as an endorsement of it. That seems wrong. As neuroscientist Leon Cooper, a Nobel laureate at Brown University. told Willima Safire (sic) last week about ID and Evolution, ''If we could all lighten up a bit perhaps, we could have some fun in the classroom discussing the evidence and the proposed explanations -- just as we do at scientific conferences.''

Best, Sally

PS -- I was utterly appalled at what happened to Richard von Sternberg, formerly of the Smithsonian.

There are lots of perfectly legitimate people in the science community who acknowledge that while ID is not an answer, some of its proponents are asking critical questions.

ME AGAIN

Hello again,

For the lighter view, try the Flying Spaghetti Monster: http://www.venganza.org/

This is serious. Deadly serious. IDers are American Taliban, intent on turning our schools into madrassas. A fundamentalist is a fandamentalist is a fundamentalist.

And you've just handed them a victory. They can -- and will -- now claim that the Washinton Post endorses ID. Katherine Graham is most likely spinning in her grave.

As for von Sternberg, ask him why he's so cozy with those six day creationists over at William Jennings Bryan College that he's on the masthead of their journal. What would happen to you in your job if you were caught writing columns dictated by Al Davis?

Thanks yet again,

Bill