NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2013/10/04

(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)

Dear friends of NCSE,

NCSE's Glenn Branch discusses Kentucky's reaction to creationists in
Evolution: Education and Outreach. NCSE needs your help in planning
for a series of on-line activist trainings. The New York Times reports
on the textbook adoption process in Texas. A new survey investigates
attitudes toward climate in rural Nebraska. And antievolutionists file
suit over Kansas's adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards.

NCSE'S LATEST IN EVOLUTION: EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

"Kentucky's A-minus defense of evolution," by NCSE's Glenn Branch, was
just published in Evolution: Education and Outreach. The abstract of
his article: "A recent report from the Kentucky Department of
Education summarizes and responds to comments from the public about
the treatment of evolution in the Next Generation Science Standards,
under consideration for adoption in Kentucky. The responses are
assessed, receiving the overall grade of A-minus, and their usefulness
as a model for teachers facing similar comments is discussed."

Founded in 2008, Evolution: Education and Outreach seeks to promote
the accurate understanding and comprehensive teaching of evolutionary
theory for a wide audience. Starting with its first issue, NCSE
regularly contributed a column under the rubric "Overcoming Obstacles
to Evolution Education." In 2013, the journal became completely open
access, and NCSE plans to continue "Overcoming Obstacles to Evolution
Education" under the new system. The first five volumes of Evolution:
Education and Outreach are now freely available as well.

For "Kentucky's A-minus defense of evolution" (PDF), visit:
http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/pdf/1936-6434-6-29.pdf 

For the content of the journal from volume 6 (2013) onward, visit:
http://www.evolution-outreach.com/ 

For the content of the journal from volume 1 (2008) to volume 5 (2012), visit:
http://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12052 

HELP NCSE TO HELP SCIENCE EDUCATION ADVOCATES

Are you concerned about the integrity of science education in the
United States? Are you worried about efforts to undermine the teaching
of evolution and climate change? Are you willing to work with your
neighbors to defend and improve the quality of science education in
formal and informal education?

Over the next year, NCSE is planning a series of on-line trainings to
enable people like you to support the integrity of science education
in their own communities. You can help to make these the best
trainings possible by taking a short on-line surveyabout what topics
and issues are important to you.

For the survey, visit:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7D5N7XZ 

For NCSE's existing resources on taking action, visit:
http://ncse.com/taking-action 

UPDATE FROM TEXAS

The creationists and climate change deniers reviewing biology
textbooks in Texas attracted the attention of the newspaper of record.
"As Texas gears up to select biology textbooks for use by high school
students over the next decade, the panel responsible for reviewing
submissions from publishers has stirred controversy because a number
of its members do not accept evolution and climate change," The New
York Times (September 28, 2013) reported.

The comments from the reviewers hostile to evolution and climate
change were disclosed by NCSE and the Texas Freedom Network in a joint
press release issued on September 9, 2013, as NCSE previously
reported. Subsequently, NCSE's Joshua Rosenau discussed a variety of
these comments in detail on NCSE's new Science League of America blog,
devoting posts to debunking the comments relevant to Ernst Haeckel and
embryology, climate change, and punctuated equilibrium.

The Times observed, "By questioning the science -- often getting down
to very technical details -- the evolution challengers in Texas are
following a strategy increasingly deployed by others around the
country," adding, "There is little open talk of creationism." (One
reviewer stated that "creation science" should be taught in the
classroom, however.) "Instead they borrow buzzwords common in
education, 'critical thinking,' saying there is simply not enough
evidence to prove evolution."

NCSE's Joshua Rosenau attended, and testified at, the Texas state
board of education's hearing on the textbooks, held in Austin on
September 17, 2003. His testimony is posted on the Science League of
America blog, as is his report of the hearing. "I lost count over the
four hours of testimony," he observed in the latter, "but it felt like
there were three or four speakers in support of evolution and climate
change education for every creationist or climate change denier who
spoke."

The Times reported, "The publishers are considering changes," quoting
a spokesperson for Pearson as saying that the publisher adjusted the
books but without compromising the integrity of the science. But the
textbooks are only part of the equation. Rosenau told the Times, “Most
educational decisions are made in the 17,000 school districts and by
individual schoolteachers in the classroom, ... [a]nd it is really
hard to know what is happening there."

The Texas state board of education is expected to make a final
decision on the textbooks submitted for adoption in November 2013. The
president of the Texas Freedom Network, Kathy Miller, expressed her
worry about the outcome, telling the Times, "Utterly unqualified
partisan politicians will look at what utterly unqualified citizens
have said about a textbook and decide whether it meets the
requirements of a textbook." TFN's Stand Up for Science campaign is
urging the board to adopt the books.

For the story in The New York Times, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/education/creationists-on-texas-panel-for-biology-textbooks.html 

For the joint press release from NCSE and TFN, visit:
http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7651 

For Rosenau's blog posts about the objectionable comments, visit:
http://ncse.com/blog/2013/09/texas-textbook-reviewers-ernst-haeckel-0015026 
http://ncse.com/blog/2013/09/texas-textbook-reviews-climate-change-0015032 
http://ncse.com/blog/2013/09/texas-textbooks-punctuated-equilibrium-0015043 

For Rosenau's blog posts about the hearing, visit:
http://ncse.com/blog/2013/09/my-testimony-before-texas-board-education-0015045 
http://ncse.com/blog/2013/09/texas-textbook-hearings-view-from-ground-0015062 

For TFN's Stand Up for Science campaign, visit:
http://tfn.org/science 

And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Texas, visit:
http://ncse.com/news/texas 

POLLING CLIMATE IN RURAL NEBRASKA

"Most rural Nebraskans think global climate change is definitely
happening," according to the Nebraska Rural Poll. But "[r]ural
Nebraskans are less likely to believe human activity is a significant
cause of climate change this year than they were five years ago and
are more likely to think current climate change is due to normal
climate patterns."

Asked, "Do you think that global climate change is happening?" 25% of
respondents said definitely yes, 48% said yes somewhat, 1% said
definitely no, and 14% said that they didn't know.

Asked about the claim "[i]ncreased carbon dioxide and other gases
released into the atmosphere will, if unchecked, lead to global
climate change," 59% of respondents agreed, 17% disagreed, and 25%
neither agreed nor disagreed. In 2008, 67% agreed.

Asked about the claim "[h]uman activity, including industry and
transportation, is a significant cause of climate change," 54% of
respondents agreed, 20% disagreed, and 26% neither agreed nor
disagreed. In 2008, 65% agreed.

The poll was conducted by mail to 6320 randomly selected households in
the 84 non-metropolitan counties of Nebraska (all but Cass, Dakota,
Dixon, Douglas, Lancaster, Sarpy, Saunders, Seward, and Washington
counties); there were 2317 responses (a 37% response rate). The margin
of error was +/- 2%.

For the Nebraska Rural Poll report (PDF), visit:
http://ruralpoll.unl.edu/pdf/13waterandclimate.pdf 

And for NCSE's collection of polls and surveys on climate change, visit:
http://ncse.com/polls/polls-climate-change 

ANTI-NGSS LAWSUIT FILED IN KANSAS

Are the Next Generation Science Standards unconstitutional? A
complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District
of Kansas on September 26, 2013, alleges so. The complaint in COPE et
al. v. Kansas State Board of Education et al.contends that the NGSS
and the Framework for K-12 Science Education (on which the NGSS are
based) "will have the effect of causing Kansas public schools to
establish and endorse a non-theistic religious worldview ... in
violation of the Establishment, Free Exercise, and Speech Clauses of
the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th
Amendment" (pp. 1-2). The plaintiffs ask for a declaratory judgment in
their favor and for an injunction prohibiting the implementation of
the NGSS in Kansas or, failing that, an injunction prohibiting the
implementation of the sections of the NGSS to which they object.

NCSE's Joshua Rosenau told the Associated Press (September 26, 2013)
that it was a familiar argument, but "no one in the legal community
has put much stock in it." He added, "They're trying to say anything
that's not promoting their religion is promoting some other religion,"
and dismissed the argument as "silly." Steven Case, director of the
University of Kansas's Center for Science Education, concurred, citing
previous court rulings as evidence that the new lawsuit "won't hold
up." "This is about as frivolous as lawsuits get," Case told the
Associated Press. The Kansas state board of education voted 8-2 to
accept the Next Generation Science Standards on June 11, 2013, as NCSE
previously reported, and the lawsuit is evidently attempting to undo
the decision.

The complaint alleges that the NGSS and the Framework "seek to cause
students to embrace a non-theistic Worldview ... by leading very young
children to ask ultimate questions about the cause and nature of life
and the universe ... and then using a variety of deceptive devices and
methods that will lead them to answer the questions with only
materialistic/atheistic explanations. ... The effect ... is to cause
the students to ultimately 'know' and 'understand' that the student is
not a design or a creation made for a purpose, but rather is just a
'natural object' that has emerged from the random interactions of
matter, energy and the physical forces via unguided evolutionary
processes which are the core tenets of Religious ('secular') Humanism"
(p. 15). Both the Big Bang and evolution are emphasized as
problematic.

Conspicuously absent from the complaint are any mentions of the
relevant case law. For instance, in Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution
(1980), the court affirmed the trial court's conclusion that the
Smithsonian's evolutionary displays do not "create a religion of
secularism." In McLean v. Arkansas (1982), the court commented, "it is
clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense,
that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not
violate the Establishment Clause." In Peloza v. Capistrano School
District (1994), the court characterized the Supreme Court's decision
in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) as holding "unequivocally that while
the belief in a divine creator of the universe is a religious belief,
the scientific theory that higher forms of life evolved from lower
forms is not."

The lead plaintiff is COPE, Citizens for Objective Public Education.
In June 2012, as NCSE previously reported, COPE submitted a critique
of the then current draft of the Next Generation Science Standards to
the Kansas state board of education. Its vice president Anne Lassey
told the Associated Press (June 12, 2012) that the group had members
around the nation, although it was founded only in March 2012. At the
time, COPE's president was Jorge Fernandez, a self-proclaimed
young-earth creationist with publications to his credit in Journal of
Creation and on the True.Origin Archive website. Fernandez was
evidently replaced by Robert P. Lattimer, who was involved with
Science Excellence for All Ohioans, a creationist group that tried to
undermine the presentation of evolution in Ohio's state science
standards in 2002.

Fernandez and Lattimer are not the only people involved with COPE with
a history of creationist activity. Its vice president Anne Lassey is
married to its treasurer Greg Lassey, who was one of the authors of
the so-called minority report of the committee that revised Kansas's
state science standards in 2005; the report systematically deprecated
the scientific status of evolution. Albert J. Gotch, a member of
COPE's board, was the executive director of the Akron Fossils &
Science Center, a small young-earth creationist "museum" in the Akron,
Ohio, area. Joseph Renick, a member of COPE's board, is the executive
director of the New Mexico branch of the Intelligent Design Network,
which periodically supports antievolution legislation in the state: in
2011, for example, the group paid for a full-page advertisement in the
Albuquerque Journal in support of a (failed) "academic freedom" bill.

Two of the attorneys representing COPE also have a history of
creationist activity. John H. Calvert is the founder of the
Intelligent Design Network. Long active in efforts to undermine the
teaching of evolution in Kansas, Calvert suggested the infamous
"kangaroo court" hearings on proposed revisions to the Kansas state
science standards in 2005, which the scientific community boycotted.
In 2005, he also testified before a Pennsylvania legislative
subcommittee in favor of a (failed) bill that would have allowed
school boards to include "intelligent design" in any curriculum
containing evolution. Kevin T. Snider of the Pacific Justice Institute
helped to represent Jeanne Caldwell in her (failed) lawsuit, filed in
2005, alleging that the University of California Museum of
Paleontology's Understanding Evolution website was in violation of the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

For the complaint (PDF), visit:
http://ncse.com/files/pub/legal/COPE_v_Kansas_BOE/20130926_Complaint.pdf 

For the Associated Press article (via the Wichita Eagle), visit:
http://www.kansas.com/2013/09/26/3023148/lawsuit-filed-in-kan-to-block.html 

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 

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