NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2013/02/22
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2013-02-22 17:30.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear Friends of NCSE, The Friend of Darwin awards for 2013 are announced. Plus a detailed profile of Zack Kopplin appeared in the Houston Press, NCSE's Project Steve celebrated its tenth anniversary, and a "strengths and weaknesses" bill aimed at climate science was introduced in the Kansas legislature.
FRIEND OF DARWIN AWARDS FOR 2013 NCSE is pleased to announce the winners of the Friend of Darwin award for 2013: Baba Brinkman, of "The Rap Guide to Evolution" fame; Jay Labov, the senior advisor for education and communication for the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council; and Sean B. Carroll, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin and Vice President for Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In a February 20, 2013, press release, NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott commented on the worthiness of all three recipients. She described Brinkman's rap as accurate and funny, adding, "it connects with audiences scientists rarely reach." She referred to Labov as "NCSE's go-to guy" for his work coordinating the Academy's advocacy of evolution education. And she praised Carroll for his "superb" efforts at communicating evolution to the public over the past two decades. Brinkman, Labov, and Carroll join Bruce Alberts, Fred Edwords, Niles Eldredge, Steve Gey, Brandon Haught, John F. Haught, Victor Hutchison, Lawrence S. Lerner, Jere Lipps, Steve Mirsky, and Patricia Princehouse, to name a few, as NCSE's Friends of Darwin. The Friend of Darwin award is presented annually to a select few whose efforts to support NCSE and advance its goal of defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools have been truly outstanding. For the press release, visit: http://ncse.com/evolution/rap-artist-education-advisor-extraordinaire-master-scientist And for a list of previous recipients of the award, visit: http://ncse.com/about/friend-of-darwin KOPPLIN IN THE HOUSTON PRESS Zack Kopplin, the young activist behind the initiative to repeal Louisiana's antievolution law and the effort to expose the funding of creationism through vouchers-for-private-schools schemes nationally, was profiled in the Houston Press (February 20, 2013). "Kopplin, now 19 and a student at Rice University, has taken his fight to Houston, to Texas," the article explains. "And if our state's legislators don't yet know his name -- if they haven't seen him all over cable news or haven't read his writings on famed evolutionist Richard Dawkins's Web site -- they soon will." In Texas, Kopplin will be lobbying the legislature not to implement a vouchers-for-private-schools scheme like Georgia's or Louisiana's, which have been accused of using public funds indirectly to subsidize the teaching of creationism: "Per Kopplin's research, Louisiana's encounters with creationism have been even starker and more egregious: self-proclaimed prophets declaiming their holiness; schools learning of the friendships between Adam, Eve and iguanodons; students shoveled in front of television sets showing little more than Bible-based videos for hours." Among those quoted in the article are Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network; NCSE board member Barbara Forrest; Harry McDonald, the president of Kansas Citizens for Science; Kevin Carman, formerly the dean of the College of Science at Louisiana State University, who blamed Louisiana's antievolution law for making the state unattractive to scientists; Nobel laureate Harry Kroto, who described Kopplin's efforts as "heartening"; and Neal Lane, the former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, who similarly praised Kopplin for his activism. For the profile of Kopplin in the Houston Press, visit: http://www.houstonpress.com/2013-02-21/news/zack-kopplin/full/ And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Louisiana, visit: http://ncse.com/news/louisiana TEN YEARS OF PROJECT STEVE Project Steve -- NCSE's lighthearted response to the creationist tradition of amassing lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" -- debuted ten years ago, on February 16, 2003. The signatories endorse a statement describing evolution as "a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences," affirming that "there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence," and characterizing the inclusion of creationism in the public schools as "scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically inappropriate." Project Steve is named in honor of the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, a valiant supporter of both evolution education and NCSE, and only scientists with PhDs (or the equivalent) who share his first name -- Steve, Steven, or Stephen, or cognates such as Stephanie, Stefan, Esteban, and so on -- are allowed to endorse the Project Steve statement. After ten years, the official Steveometer reads 1239, and because only about 1% of the population possesses a qualifying first name, that implies that at least 123,900 scientists would agree with the statement, dwarfing any creationist list. Described by Steven Pinker as "the most formidable weapon in the fight against neo-creationism today," Project Steve is indeed a superlative accomplishment, demonstrating the emptiness of the creationist attempt to appeal to authority. So to celebrate its tenth year in existence, here are twenty-five suitably light-hearted superlatives from Project Steve, one for each letter of the alphabet for which there's a Steve. (NCSE would be overjoyed to hear from any qualified applicant whose surname starts with the letter X. Steve Xi, Stephanie Xenopoulos, Esteban Ximenes, where are you?) For the list of superlatives from Project Steve, visit: http://ncse.com/news/2013/02/ten-years-project-steve-0014715 And for information about Project Steve, visit: http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve ANTICLIMATE BILL IN KANSAS House Bill 2306, introduced in the Kansas House of Representatives on February 12, 2013, is a novelty: a "strengths and weaknesses" bill directed at climate science alone. The bill contains two main provisions. The first charges the Kansas state board of education with providing "a course of instruction in science" which will "(1) Provide information to students of scientific evidence which both supports and counters a scientific theory or hypothesis; and (2) assist students in developing scientific theories or hypotheses." The second reads, "The legislature recognizes that the teaching of certain scientific topics, such as climate science, may be controversial. The legislature encourages the teaching of such scientific controversies to be made in an objective manner in which both the strengths and weaknesses of such scientific theory or hypothesis are covered." "The point of the bill is obviously to misrepresent climate science as scientifically controversial," explained NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott. "It's not as though the bill is providing any concrete guidance to teachers. The only effects of enacting such a misguided bill would be to discourage responsible teachers from presenting climate science accurately and to encourage irresponsible teachers to misrepresent it as controversial." She commented that both scientific organizations such as the American Geological Institute and educational organizations such as the National Association of Geoscience Teachers have taken firm stands on the necessity of teaching climate science in accordance with the consensus of the scientific community. "Creationists have used the 'strengths-and-weaknesses' dodge for years," she added. "It's not surprising to see climate change deniers doing the same." According to the state legislature's website, HB 2306 was introduced by, and is currently sponsored by, the House Standing Committee on Education, rather than by any individual legislator. The chair of the committee is Kasha Kelley (R-District 80), the vice chair is Ward Cassidy (R-District 120), and the ranking minority member is Ed Trimmer (D-District 79). Also on the committee are Sue Boldra (R-District 111), John Bradford (R-District 40), Carolyn Bridges (D-District 83), Diana Dierks (R-District 71), Willie Dove (R-District 38), John Ewy (R-District 117), Shanti Gandhi (R-District 52), Amanda Grosserode (R-District 16), Dennis Hedke (R-District 99), Ron Highland (R-District 51), Roderick Houston (D-District 89), Jerry Lunn (R-District 28), Nancy Lusk (D-District 22), Kelly Meigs (R-District 23), Melissa Rooker (R-District 25), and Valdenia Winn (D-District 34). While it is as yet unclear which members of the committee support HB 2306, it is suggestive that Dennis Hedke -- by trade a consulting geophysicist at a firm with clients in the energy industry -- recently arranged for two climate change deniers, Willie Soon and John Christy, to testify before the Joint Committee on Energy and Environmental Policy. According to the Lawrence Journal-World (February 5, 2013), Hedke said, "The driving force for moving in the direction of producing the most renewable energy as possible has all been wound up or related to the suggestion that CO2 is bad. There is a lot of data and evidence out there that clearly contradicts that. ... I wanted to make sure our committee members got a chance to see the real data." Soon, in his testimony, contended, "There is no experimental data that exists that supports the view that the Earth's climate is changing in any dangerous way." For the text of Kansas's House Bill 2306 as introduced (PDF), visit: http://kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2306_00_0000.pdf For the story in the Lawrence Journal-World, visit: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/feb/05/legislature-considering-delays-renewable-energy-st/ And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Kansas, visit: http://ncse.com/news/kansas Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website -- http://ncse.com -- where you can always find the latest news on evolution and climate education and threats to them. -- Sincerely, Glenn Branch Deputy Director National Center for Science Education, Inc. 420 40th Street, Suite 2 Oakland, CA 94609-2509 510-601-7203 x305 fax: 510-601-7204 800-290-6006 branch@ncse.com http://ncse.com Read Reports of the NCSE on-line: http://reports.ncse.com Subscribe to NCSE's free weekly e-newsletter: http://groups.google.com/group/ncse-news NCSE is on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/evolution.ncse http://www.youtube.com/NatCen4ScienceEd http://twitter.com/ncse NCSE's work is supported by its members. Join today! http://ncse.com/join
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