Textbook selection by the South Carolina State Board of Education has been held up because of baseless objections by creationist reviewers. Does this sound familiar? It’s what triggered the Dover trial — clueless school board members rejecting standard biology textbooks because they wanted something more…biblical.

During October and November, the texts approved by the state Evaluation Committee were sent out for public review to 28 sites – mostly colleges and universities with teacher education programs. It was during this period of time, that Ms. Kristin Maguire (or one of her colleagues) apparently contacted two outside referees to review the texts, a Dr. Joseph Henson and a Dr. Horace D. Skipper.

Skipper and Henson are young-earth creationists. Dr. Skipper is listed on the Institute for Creation Research website among the colleagues of Carl Fliermans, an ICR “Associated Scientist.” Henson is on the faculty at Bob Jones University. According to his testimony on the BJU website, “Through his high school years, [Henson] did not believe evolution because of his religious upbringing, his familiarity with the Genesis accounts of Creation and the Flood, and because he did not take biology in high school. However, during his college years he entertained ideas about theistic evolution and other compromising positions in an effort to reconcile the Bible with what was considered science… These questions, along with the commandment in 1 Peter 3:15, prompted him to study, think, and pray on his own, as well as consult believers knowledgeable in science and philosophy who upheld the absolute authority of the Bible. These years of struggle resulted in a firm belief in the biblical account of Creation.”

Real winners there; there objections at that link are funny. Ken Miller’s response to the creationist criticism of his textbook is an entertainng read, too.

Those are the four incompetents the residents of Pinellas County, Florida need to vote against in the next school board election: they favor corrupting science education with creationist nonsense. They all claim that students should be taught multiple “theories” in science classes, where they mangle the word “theory” to mean any ol’ crap someone wants to babble about, without regard for the evidence.

Hey! Dan Whipple got to see a preliminary screening of Ben Stein’s silly movie, Expelled!

Read the review — it makes the point that the movie doesn’t even bother to explain what ID and evolution are before taking sides, and it defends its position incompetently. The movie is “so intellectually garbled it’s hard to summarize,” which is about what we all expected.

There’s no mention of my role, but I expect it would be a tiny part anyway; no mention of Eugenie Scott, either. Dan Whipple, if you see this — there are a lot of us who’d like to know more details about how our interviews were chopped up for this movie!

Texas Citizens for Science has come up with the site visit report for the ICR. It’s funky stuff: it seems they had creationist-sympathizers review the program, and they issued a pile of fluff and let them slide on their content.

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So that’s what the ICR is up to

If you’ve been wondering what’s up with that attempt by the Institute for Creation Research to get accredited by the state of Texas, Texas Citizens for Science has dug up some suggestive information: the ICS is trying to trade up from their past worthless accreditation by an evangelical accreditation board, and they’re hoping to tap into some secular legitimacy.

The story is below the fold.

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All you Brits who pointed and laughed at our village idiot who built a major Creation “Museum” in Kentucky are going to get your comeuppance: Lancashire is about to get a “giant Christian theme park that will champion the book of Genesis and make a multi-media case that God created the world in seven days.”

We’re pointing and laughing ourselves now, but I assure you — we also feel your pain, and there are tears in our eyes.

Many people have been sending me this story about Texas considering accrediting the Institute of Creation Research for training teachers, and I’ve just been reluctant to mention it because poor Texas has been getting walloped over creationism lately, and I was feeling a terrible sympathy for the place. It’s as if the whole state has fallen into a pit of suck.

The ICR wants to offer Masters degrees in science education, of all things; they claim they’d be offering instruction in evolution alongside their science curriculum, but we know that is a lie, since the people at ICR aren’t competent to offer kindergarten level courses in pretty, pretty baby animals, let alone real biology. A state advisory board, in a fit of ignorance and insanity, has approved this plan, but it next has to go before the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for final approval.

I hope Texas scientists can slap that Board into wakeful reality before that meeting, because if this goes through, the trust I can give Texas-trained teachers is getting flushed right down the sewer. And if Texans can’t fix this, the rest of the country has to step up and deny certification to anyone trained in Texas — their diplomas and degrees will be worth about as much as Monopoly money.

Sorry, Texas. It’s just getting to be a bit much.