NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2014/07/04
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2014-07-04 16:29.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, The creationism/evolution controversy comes to the county fair. Wyoming's science standards are back on hold. A new issue of Reports of the NCSE is available. And NCSE is pleased to offer a preview of Brandon Haught's history of the creationism/evolution controversy in Florida.
"CREATIONISM COMES TO THE COUNTY FAIR" Writing in the July 2014 issue of the American Geoscience Institute's magazine Earth, Scott K. Johnson relates his experience in engaging in evolution outreach in a not-so-usual venue: at his local county fair. In 2012, he explains, he became aware of a booth "pitching the ideas and literature of the 'creation science' movement" making the rounds of county fairs in Wisconsin. Joining with Nick Schweitzer, a local science booster, Johnson established a booth at the Dane County Fair to present evolution. At first, the booth was not a success: "a little too cramped, cluttered and nondescript ... it left passersby without a clear idea of what we were up to." Learning from their mistakes, Johnson and Schweitzer refined and improved their exhibits in the booth in the following year. "The updated display was a definite improvement," Johnson writes, "but the response was similar to the previous year: some great interactions, but lower overall interest than the intelligently designed creationist display." NCSE's Steven Newton was not surprised, commenting, "It's hard to motivate people to defend what they assume is the default state, the status quo." The creationist movement, he added, "sees itself as Luke Skywalker-type superheroes fighting the Empire." It's "easier then to motivate people to donate; both Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute have budgets that dwarf [that of NCSE], for example. A lot more could be done with outreach in support of science -- if only there were the money to do it." The moral, according to Johnson? "If there is one thing we can learn from creationists at a county fair, it's that outreach opportunities exist anywhere there is a crowd. ... Science outreach activities that piggyback on nonscience events ... can help scientists reach people they might not interact with otherwise. But effective outreach isn't easy in that kind of setting, as we found during our exhibit experiences. ... You need a hook at least as alluring as your competition." Their booth will return to the Dane County Fair in July 2014. For Johnson's article in Earth, visit: http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/creationism-comes-county-fair SCIENCE STANDARDS ON HOLD IN WYOMING The Wyoming state board of education voted on July 1, 2014, to recommend a halt to the development of a new set of science standards for the state, according to Wyoming Public Media (July 1, 2014). As NCSE previously reported, a footnote in Wyoming's budget for 2014-2016 precludes the use of state funds "for any review or adoption" of the Next Generation Science Standards, in part owing to their treatment of climate change. The board subsequently referred the development of a new set of standards to a state department of education committee, which was instructed not to consider the NGSS at all in its work. The recommendation to halt the process passed on a 10-1 vote. Walt Wilcox, a member of the board who supported the recommendation, told Wyoming Public Media, "Without the opportunity to take a look at the Next Generation Science Standards, we’re not convinced that our work, as our state, and with that standards committee -- can move forward in helping to create the best standards." "I commend the board for the action," Marguerite Herman of Wyoming for Science Education and Climate Parents told the Casper Star-Tribune (July 2, 2014), adding, "It reaffirms the board's position that in order to carry out its statutory direction to approve the best standards for Wyoming, it needs to have the freedom to consider all standards from all sources." She suggested that the legislature would have to take the next step. In the meantime, the standards adopted in 2008 are in force, but as the Star-Tribune (June 29, 2014) reported, local school districts are apparently free to adopt the NGSS, and about fifteen (of forty-eight) have done so. For the story from Wyoming Public Media, visit: http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/board-education-votes-suspend-science-standards-review For the stories from the Casper Star-Tribune, visit: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/wyoming-board-of-education-votes-to-suspend-science-standards-discussion/article_78f95734-b839-5a89-bffd-540400a0eb44.html http://trib.com/news/local/casper/wyoming-schools-likely-free-to-use-controversial-science-standards/article_11ba40ff-4a7d-58c2-9aa3-5542519fd963.html And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Wyoming, visit: http://ncse.com/news/wyoming RNCSE 34:4 NOW ON-LINE NCSE is pleased to announce that the latest issue ofReports of the National Center for Science Educationis now available on-line. The issue -- volume 34, number 4 -- features Adam Benton's "Creationist Ministries Present a Distorted View of Human Evolution" and Alexandra Contosta's "A Land Use Puzzle," as well as Joshua Rosenau's interview of Elizabeth Kolbert. And for his regular People and Places column, Randy Moore discusses Big Bone Lick. Plus a host of reviews of books on climate change: John Abraham reviews Tony Eggleton's A Short Introduction to Climate Change, Mark Boslough reviews Michael E. Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, Jonathan Cole reviews G. Thomas Farmer and John Cook's Climate Change: A Modern Synthesis, Charles Gasparovic reviews Daniel Botkin's The Moon in the Nautilus Shell, Jonathan Mitchell reviews Andrew P. Ingersoll's Planetary Climates, and Joshua Rosenau reviews Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction. All of these articles, features, and reviews are freely available in PDF form from http://reports.ncse.com. Members of NCSE will shortly be receiving in the mail the print supplement to Reports 34:4, which, in addition to summaries of the on-line material, contains news from the membership, a regular column in which NCSE staffers offer personal reports on what they've been doing to defend the teaching of evolution, a regular column interviewing NCSE's favorite people, and more besides. (Not a member? Join today!) For the table of contents for RNCSE 34:4, visit: http://reports.ncse.com/index.php/rncse/issue/current/showToc For information about joining NCSE, visit: http://ncse.com/join A PREVIEW OF GOING APE NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview of Brandon Haught's Going Ape: Florida's Battles over Evolution in the Classroom (University Press of Florida, 2014). The preview consists of chapter 1, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," which details the "red-hot anti-evolution effort of the 1920s" in the Sunshine State, culminating in the first passage of antievolution legislation in the country in 1923. NCSE's deputy director Glenn Branch wrote, "William Jennings Bryan launched the creationist crusade from his home in Florida, and the state has been a battlefield in the evolution wars ever since. In Going Ape, Haught provides the definitive blow-by-blow account of the Sunshine State’s ninety-year struggle over the teaching of evolution." Branch recently interviewed Haught about his book for Evolution: Education and Outreach. For the preview of Going Ape (PDF), visit: http://ncse.com/book-excerpt For information about the book from its publisher, visit: http://upf.com/book.asp?id=HAUGH002 For Branch's interview with Haught (PDF), visit: www.evolution-outreach.com/content/pdf/s12052-014-0014-3.pdf WHAT'S NEW FROM THE SCIENCE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Have you been visiting NCSE's blog, The Science League of America, recently? If not, then you've missed: * Steve Newton reviewing The Collapse of Western Civilization: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/end-times-oreskes-conway-s-collapse-western-civilization-0015712 * Glenn Branch discussing the geocentrist who might have testified in the McLean trial: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/07/orbit-mclean-0015697 * Stephanie Keep addressing misconceptions about "survival of the fittest": http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/misconception-monday-survival-fittest-part-1-0015718 http://ncse.com/blog/2014/06/misconception-monday-survival-fittest-part-2-0015719 And much more besides! For The Science League of America, visit: http://ncse.com/blog 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 x303 fax: 510-601-7204 800-290-6006 branch@ncse.com http://ncse.com Check out NCSE's new blog, Science League of America: http://ncse.com/blog 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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