Don McLeroy is the new head of the Texas State Board of Education, and if you want to get an idea of what we face, there’s a transcript and recording of a talk by McLeroy on the web.
It’s awful. It’s mostly incoherent babble. He quotes a lot of odd irrelevancies, declares naturalism to be the enemy, compares evolution to the Matrix, and openly admits his advocacy of Intelligent Design creationism as a strategy to advance the goals of himself and his audience, and he says “we are all Biblical literalists, we all believe the Bible to be inerrant”. He also quotes Phillip Johnson:
So what do we do about our Bible in the intelligent design movement? According to Johnson, the first thing to do is to get the Bible out of the discussion. Remember, even if you don’t bring the Bible into the discussion, the naturalist has already put it into the discussion. And Johnson states “it’s vital not to give any encouragement to this prejudice and to keep the discussion strictly on the scientific evidence and the philosophical assumptions. This is not to say that the Biblical issues aren’t important, the point is the time to address them will be after we have separated materialistic prejudice from scientific fact.”
So give ’em a little time. They’re not going to mention the Bible in their efforts right now, but all this ID stuff is simply a cunning plan to eventually sneak Biblical literalism into the public schools.
And this is the fellow they’ve put in charge of public school education in Texas.
as a biology teacher in TX this is not what I want to hear. ugh…
Guess this means you got my brother‘s email. Was a bit to frustrating to dissect so easily, so he’ll likely make some LOLCreationists based on other people’s posts.
I liked the bit about “chip away at the objective, empirical evidence”. In other words, “I’m right, no matter what the evidence says!”
“Remember keep chipping away at the objective empirical evidence.”
Insert foot.
How long before he mandates that teachers cannot speak about global warming? And, further, how long until this guy is brought before the Supreme Court for injecting a theistic view of science (Bible or not) into public schools? Unfortunately even if it went to the SC, I don’t believe for a second that the ultraconservative court would strike him and ID down.
Oh, that was a whole *truckload* of stupid. And I was *forced* to read it, since I have to sit here in this arena and register students for the next five hours with nothing more than this old, broken down registration computer in front of me.
You really know how to kick a guy when he’s down, PZ. :)
I had a guy a few years ago tell me that the best thing I could do to help in the fight regarding teaching ID in public school science classes was to bury my head in my research and get tenure. “They” have a tendency to put their money where their mouths are and mobilize to effect change; “we” have a tendency to mutter in our cups a lot. This is a not an effective combat strategy.
The Bible is inerrant?
Wow! Who knew?
You mean, Joshua didn’t have a copy-editor making little red marks on his parchment? I guess it was more like: “Hey Honey, can you look this over, I was channeling GOD just now and it looks inerrant to me, but… see what you think.”
And didn’t some committee pick the books that went into the Bible?
Did they have some kind of inerrancy test we don’t know about?
Did they vote? What if they made a mistake?!
I’m very confused.
josh:
But, surely you don’t want us to be labelled as ‘fundamentalists’ or ‘histrionic’ do you?
;)
I dunno about Texas sometimes. You got Molly I., but a whole lot of stupid too. I guess the power structure is screwed up because there seems to be some really clear thinking progressives down there and yet numb-nuts like W. get elected and clowns get put in charge of education.
Just kinda strange. Anybody from Texas have an explanation for this?
Tony: Oh shit no! Let us not be referred to as histrionic! Horrors.
That label’s loaded! Drop the ‘progressive’ and back away from the rhetorical device. Lie on the ground with your hands on your head.
Texas has issues.
It’s fat, it’s polluted and apparently stupid.
Can we give it back to Mexico now?
Since he mentions Dembski, let’s ask Bill to give this toad’s lecture his stamp of approval.
We’ve sent Don McLerory our latest textbook “Of Hamsters and Humans” – from the quotes he came out with, it seems clear that he has read and absorbed our key arguments against evolution in favour of an intelligent designr.
It’s not about the Bible, folks, the Bible doesn’t mention lots of things, but that does not make them false. Dr. Ed. E. Vidence, our founder says “Controversy is not all bad, however, for it gives teachers the opportunity to engage their students at a deeper level. Instead of filling young minds with facts, teachers can show their students supernatural stuff. In this way, students begin to understand how science really works. When they see scientists and scienticians disagreeing over intelligent designr, students learn something about how scienticians are all dogmatically lead to follow certain scripts on what to say. They also learn about the distinction between fact and fiction – and how intelligent designr is neither of these.”
Anybody from Texas have an explanation for this?
Yup. There’s plenty of stupid to go around and Texas is a big ass state. :)
That we elected W as our Governor is hardly scathing criticism considering we elected him to run our country. *shudder*
No thanks. I kinda like being an American.
We need to teach critical thinking in class, including dissecting how a hypothesis was formed, and how it can be tested. Do it with lots of stuff like astrology and dowsing. Intelligent Design will eventually follow in getting debunked by the students when the kids actually figure out that they need to apply the same line of thought.
At least, that’s pretty much how it worked out with me, minus the school’s endorsement of teaching critical thinking. Got that from my parents, instead.
ID: Why would we want science teachers to show their students supernatural stuff? Science has evolved to the point where we reject supernatural explanations for observable phenomena. Why are folks trying to tell us how we should science? WE’RE the ones doing it…and it is working fine, thank you very much. We’re not going into churches and telling people how to do their theology. We’re not going into wood shop classes and telling people how to teach the craft of joining boards.
That we elected W as our Governor is hardly scathing criticism considering we elected him to run our country. *shudder*
True, but youse guys could have kept W. from getting on that stepping stone (Which was clearly what being governor was all about). These days I evaluate the dog catcher to make sure he/she is not a latent wing-nut that will attain some important office in the future. W. should be a lesson that no office is a harmless place for a nutball.
I tend to find the whole “supernatural” thing to be an evasion. If it works, by virtue of it working, it becomes natural. “Supernatural” is a nonsense word used to claim that science doesn’t apply to it, which effectively means that it doesn’t work.
Science studies everything that has an effect. If something effect on reality means it’s not really worth bothering with.
Oops. If something has no effect on reality, that means it’s not really worth bothering with.
I need to proofread after editing for clarification a dozen times.
I think “intelligent designr” was a gag.
Well, it certainly made *me* gag.
What a boatload of drivel!
That’s why we keep http://www.tfn.org around to lower the boom on these wingnuts. The Texas Freedom Network catches these appointed liars and unrolls their idiocy for everyone to see.
To #1: Fight the good fight! I was born in Texas, moved to Kentucky when I was 10. It’s like the state just keeps giving me reasons to be glad I moved away.
What is it with this creo obsession for bringing back the Dark Ages?
They weren’t called Dark for nothing.
If I was a parent in Texas and McLeroy succeeded, the kids would be pulled out of public school ASAP and we would be thinking seriously of moving somewhere else.
It won’t be surprising if McLeroy et al. end up in federal court. That seems to be exactly where he is going and it doesn’t look like he cares in the least. Let me guess, the Texas Attorney General is 80 years old and a member of some wingnut Xian cult too.
In the battle of light against dark, truth against lies, knowledge against ignorance, nowhere is it written that light has to always win. In a macabre, horror movie sort of way it will be interesting to see just what happens if these guys do win.
Given the makeup of the court systems, one of these days they just might win. As a Texan who is now the president (Bush) once said, “the constitution is just a goddam piece of paper.” They really hate that separation of church and state amendment.
The cultist dream. Constitution + Toilet> Flush…end of problem.
Greg Abbott is about 50, shouldn’t be a wingnut but signed an amicus brief for the Georgia case on biology book warning lablels, in favor of the labels. No, he didn’t have the permission of the legislature or governor to do that — and it’s contrary to the policies of education in Texas (go figure) — but there you have it.
Abbott is also in a wheel chair. When he was a young buck attorney making big bucks for an Austin law firm, he was out for his morning job and a tree being felled struck him, crippling him. He sued and won a huge award for negligence, pain and suffering. He’s fought back and had a solid legal career, was appointed to one of Texas’s two supreme courts, where he voted against the rights of plaintiffs, like, say, joggers to sue people who fell trees that fall and strike the joggers. Then he ran for the AG slot. He supported the legislature’s restriction on such suits — sort of a, “I’ve got mine, fie on you” philosophy of the law.
Abbott’s pretty good on freedom of information, though. Usually.
PZ, you have one too many “r” letters in his name. It’s Don McLeroy.
See here (put your coffee and other drinks down, and swallow before you click): http://home.att.net/~dmcleroy/
I’ll be happy to treat ID as a science and evaluate it on its merits. But first DI will have to tell us exactly what ID is in scientific terms. Give us some mechanisms, some details, and a coherent framework for deriving hypotheses testable through observations in the natural world.
That is the basic prerequisite for a paradigm to have ANY scientific merit so right now we are judging ID to be worthless on its merits.
If by some miracle somebody at DI can formulate a coherent statement on ID that resembles an actual scientific theory then we can begin testing it as we do other theories. In that case there is little doubt that natural phenomena would also refute ID and it will again be judged worthless.
After all these years a single coherent mechanism or testable hypothesis is really not too much to ask.
You people are too easy to fool. Intelligent Designr’s “Dr. Ed E. Vidence”? Come on!! Falling for the jokes makes us look bad.
Re comments #12 & #16:
“Can we give it back to Mexico now?”
We’ll happily take the land back and welcome the many decent Texans, if you keep the yahoos, freaks and bigots on your side of the new fence (sorry, border). Ditto for California, Colorado, Nevada, Nuevo México…
ID will always fail. The central feature of the theory is that god is the designer.
The theory is, “If we can detect intelligent design than god exists.”
No one has ever been able to prove that god exists. Or prove that god doesn’t exist either. After a few thousand years, that isn’t going to change.
They even know that. It isn’t about proving god exists. It is about propagandizing kids with a cult version of xianity in public school science classes.
Bronze Dog wrote:
Not necessarily. Paranormalists and other woo-woos who think that there are excellent scientific studies showing that ESP is real, PK works, and mediums really do talk to the dead claim that this now show us that the supernatural works, is true, exists, etc.
“The supernatural has been scientifically proven” is not a meaningless or self-contradictory statement. We know what is meant. It’s just that no — it hasn’t. Not yet. And probably not ever. But go ahead and continue to knock yourself out trying (and making excuses).
You people are too easy to fool. Intelligent Designr’s “Dr. Ed E. Vidence”? Come on!! Falling for the jokes makes us look bad.
You’ve got to admit Mike P that the stuff these wingnuts say is so out there it gets really difficult to tell the difference between their statements and parodies.
Time to thin the herd.
HE’S A DENTIST!
it all starts to make sense, now…..
And yet, when they flunk the Randi Challenge, or just get in a heated argument, they’ll bring up “Science can’t test the supernatural!”
What I was kind of going for was a bit of circularity they use: If it doesn’t have effects, science can’t test it, and it’s shoved into the useless supernatural category. If they have something wrongly labeled “supernatural” that has effects, they’ll use that label to say science can’t test it.
I’ve seen quite a lot of these games. :(
If you think it’s bad just wait. The science standards are up for review soon and the board has a conservative majority
http://www.tfn.org/pressroom/display.php?item_id=5964
And for those of us in Austin, we get to console ourselves with the fact that our representative is a Regent University educated, ID embracing nutjob who’ll gladly take us all down in flames. There’s something inherently wrong with someone who homeschools their children sitting on the SBOE.
http://pmbryant.typepad.com/b_and_b/2006/03/texas_textbook_.html
I can’t wait to see what their nonsense is going to do to my property taxes. :(
Well, at least we haven’t put labels in our textbooks,
sent Michele Bachmann to Congress, or built a biotronic-rich creation museum although there are plenty in this state who would like to. We just appointed a thoroughly anti-science drudg to head the state board of education.
What we’re going to need down here from all of you is
some serious help in about a year or so. Since Texas has a large and unwarranted influence on the nation’s textbooks, be ready to help us defend sound science education when McLeroy gets his public hearing shot at scuttling reason.
It’s going to get nasty.
Can we please already start boycotting Texan approved school textbooks and order ours from Canada?
If the publishing houses want to go along with lies, hit them where it hurts.
I must say that McLooney was rather flattering with regards to the psycho-manipulative powers of Charles Darwin; it must take some truly potent skills to over-write the obvious, self-evident, incontrovertible, plain-to-see truth that “goddidit” with “a fantastic theory on which there is no proof and many serious problems” in the minds of the masses. How does a mere fallen being accomplish such a feat? Hmmm…. could it be…. Satan?
Reading that transcript was disheartening in ways I can’t even articulate. It was so patently, utterly, ridiculously stupid that there’s no point responding to it; if you’re unable to detect the issues with it on your own, it’s unlikely that anyone else can help you identify them.
Bronze Dog wrote:
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of those games, too. So have we all. Hurts the head, doesn’t it?
Dawkins’ strategy is to call “Bullsh*t” on them when they try this. No, it’s not “untestable.” It was tested, and you lost. You would have cried out the results to the rooftops had they gone the other way, wouldn’t you? A real, demonstrable, no-doubt-about-it miracle and we’d all be bowing our heads — or at least scratching them over something that makes us sit up and take serious notice. Maybe the supernatural is real after all.
Another approach is to say “oh, I’m so sorry. Of course, paranormal and religious claims are really just like expressing preferences or feeling an emotion or shouting ‘hooray’ out loud, aren’t they? It’s all just morals and meaning. It’s metaphors and personal therapy. You can’t test those. So we’ll back off, lest we be crass and literal and guilty of scientism.”
“And better luck on the next test, and with the next Convincing Evidence for the Existence of God.”
Is there a race for the bottom among the states? Clearly putting an old antiscience wingnut in charge of public school systems is suicidal.
Let’s see, so far Kansas and Texas are in the lead but a few other states are close behind.
Shrug. Might just as well watch the race. How bad can it get before the Dark Agers are through? Looking forward to the public book burning ceremonies. Just hope they don’t bring back the witch hunts for evolutionary biologists and science teachers.
Aron said in comment #1,
Actually, this is just what you want to hear. Since these IDiots cannot keep their collective mouth shut about how they are doin’ it for God, it will be trivial to get any they do overturned by a court (even in Texas).
Anybody from Texas have an explanation for this?
Simple: Governor 39% is jacking off the trailer park.
The weaker the Republicans get, the more they’ll turn to these drooling superstitious freaks for support.
.
So where’s Deaddog when you need him?
I’m giving my state another election to win me back. As Grand Moff Texan pointed out, more people wanted NOT Rick Perry as Governor. The next election, if it is finally pulled from the hands of Goodhair and his cronies, will allow rational Texans their chance to prove themselves. I would prefer a stronger democratic candidate than Chris Bell, but you know, it’s all about breaking that thick, nutty shell around our legislature one crack at a time.
Bronze Dog: And you’ve figured out how to prevent difficulties with transferrence? What wonders! (Re: teaching critical thinking) That said, I think it is worth a try. How to bootstrap it, though?