NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2014/12/05
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2014-12-05 14:55.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, NCSE is featured in the new Climate Education and Literacy Initiative. A creationist lawsuit against the adoption of the NGSS in Kansas is dismissed. And there is a major new survey on religion and human origins, plus a preview of The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change.
THE NEW CLIMATE EDUCATION AND LITERACY INITIATIVE "[T]he White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) is launching a new Climate Education and Literacy Initiative to help connect American students and citizens with the best-available, science-based information about climate change," according to a December 3, 2014, press release from the White House. And NCSE is involved. NCSE's Mark McCaffrey applauded the new initiative. "Education, training, and public awareness about the risks and possible responses to climate change is vital," he explained. "The Climate Education and Literacy Initiative helps to amplify existing efforts, builds support for new ones, and provides a solid foundation for further efforts." As part of the launch, a series of educational videos were released highlighting key elements of the Essential Principles of Energy was released. The videos were developed by the Department of Energy together with the American Geosciences Institute and the National Center for Science Education. Accompanying the videos are guides for students and teachers. Also highlighted in the press release were a new Action Fellowship with the Alliance for Climate Education, new resources that will be added to the digital collection of the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network, and a series of regional climate-science workshops for educators that will be held by NOAA in 2015. For the White House press release (PDF), visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/climateed-dec-3-2014.pdf For the Essential Principles of Energy videos, visit: http://energy.gov/eere/education/downloads/energy-literacy-videos LAWSUIT OVER NGSS DISMISSED A federal court dismissed a creationist lawsuit seeking to prevent Kansas from adopting the Next Generation Science Standards on the grounds that doing so would "establish and endorse a non-theistic religious worldview." In a December 2, 2014, order in COPE et al. v. Kansas State Board of Education et al., Judge Daniel D. Crabtree of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the case. The complaint contended that the NGSS "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." Both the Big Bang and evolution were emphasized as problematic. Judge Crabtree's decision did not address the content of the complaint, instead finding that that the Kansas state board of education and the Kansas state department of education enjoyed Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity against the suit and that the plaintiffs lacked standing to assert any of their claims, failing to establish any of the three relevant requirements for standing: injury, causation, and addressability. As NCSE previously reported, the lead plaintiff, COPE, Citizens for Objective Public Education, is a new creationist organization, founded in 2012, but its leaders and attorneys include people familiar from previous attacks on evolution education across the country, such as John H. Calvert of the Intelligent Design Network. The Kansas board of education voted to adopt the NGSS in June 2013, and the lawsuit in effect attempted to undo the decision. NCSE's Josh Rosenau, who dismissed the lawsuit as "silly" to the Associated Press (September 26, 2013) when it was filed, expressed satisfaction at the outcome. He predicted that even if the plaintiffs had established standing, they would have lost the case: "They were trying to say that anything not promoting their religion is promoting some other religion, and that argument has been repeatedly rejected by the courts." The NGSS have been adopted in twelve states -- California, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington -- plus the District of Columbia. The treatment of evolution and climate science in the standards occasionally provokes controversy (especially in Wyoming, where the legislature derailed their adoption over climate science), but COPE v. Kansas is the only lawsuit to have resulted. For the order granting the motion to dismiss the case (PDF), visit: http://ncse.com/files/2014-12-02_Order_on_Motion_to_Dismiss.pdf For NCSE's collection of documents from the case, visit: http://ncse.com/legal/cope-v-kansas-state-boe And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Kansas, visit: http://ncse.com/news/kansas A MAJOR NEW SURVEY ON RELIGION AND HUMAN ORIGINS A new survey suggests that public attitudes toward religion and human origins are more diverse and less confident than the Gallup findings indicate. "It's important to know that a large portion of the population is unsure about their beliefs, and there is a large portion of the population that doesn't care," Jonathan P. Hill told the Atlantic (November 23, 2014), prior to the December 2, 2014, release of the National Study of Religion & Human Origins. "To help generate a better picture of the landscape of beliefs, the NSRHO includes separate questions about human evolution, God’s involvement, the manner in which God created, the existence of a historical Adam and Eve, belief in literal 24-hour days of creation, and the geological timeframe for the emergence or creation of humans," the report explains. Accordingly, there are varying ways in which to parse the results. If creationism is defined as involving denying human evolution and affirming that God created humans, the study found that 37% of the public are creationists and 29% are convinced (absolutely or very certain) creationists. If creationism is defined as further requiring that God miraculously created a historical pair of progenitors of the entire human race, then 25% of the public are creationists and 22% are convinced creationists. Only 8% of the public are young-earth creationists, who accept that the days of creation were literally twenty-four hour days and that humans came into existence within the last 10,000 years. But the report adds, "The remaining two-thirds of creationists do not take the Old Earth view[,] however." Rather, many "are simply unsure whether the days of creation were literal, and they are especially unsure about when humans first came into existence." As for theistic evolutionism, the report described it as less popular than creationism: "Using the broadest categorization, respondents who (a) believe in human evolution and (b) believe that God (or an intelligent force) was somehow involved in the creation of humans, 16 percent of the population can be placed in this category. Furthermore, only half of this group (8 percent) is very or absolutely certain of both of these beliefs." Just 9% of the public are atheistic evolutionists (in the sense that they deny that God was involved in human evolution, not necessarily in the sense that they deny the existence of God). The remaining 39% of the population is unsure (or holds "uncommon views (such as believing that humans did not evolve from earlier species while simultaneously believing that God had nothing to do with the emergence of humans"). The survey also asked respondents to indicate whether having the right beliefs about human origins was personally important to them: 42% indicated that it was very or extremely important, with 63% of creationists, 52% of atheistic evolutionists, 35% of theistic evolutionists, and 23% of unsure respondents thinking so. These respondents were also asked to explain why, and the report describes their responses at length. The Atlantic observed, "Even if people don't personally care about being right, they do seem to care a lot about what's taught in science classrooms, particularly in public schools," and NCSE's Josh Rosenau suggested that creationists are particularly concerned about evolution's account of human origins. "Who are we as people? That's the question that they think evolution is answering. What does it mean to be a person?" The survey also investigated demography. The Atlantic summarizes, "Hill found that religious belief was the strongest determinant of people's views on evolution -- much more so than education, socioeconomic status, age, political views, or region of the country. More importantly, being part of a community where people had stated opinions on evolution or creation, like a church, had a big impact on people's views." In a post for BioLogos's blog (December 2, 2014) describing the study and explaining the factors it found to be relevant to belief about human origins, Hill wrote, "The most important takeaway here is that individual theological beliefs, practices, and identities are important, but they only become a reliable pathway to creationism or atheistic evolutionism when paired with certain contexts or certain other social identities." For the story in the Atlantic, visit: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/11/you-cant-educate-people-into-believing-in-evolution/382983/?single_page=true For the report of the survey (PDF), visit: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k8pm1s48uaqvvm3/NSRHO%20Report.pdf?dl=0 For Hill's post at BioLogos's blog, visit: http://biologos.org/blog/the-recipe-for-creationism And for NCSE's collection of polls and surveys, visit: http://ncse.com/creationism/polls-surveys A PREVIEW OF THE THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO CLIMATE CHANGE NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview of Robert Henson's The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change (American Meteorological Society, 2014). The preview consists of chapter 14, "The Predicament: What Would It Take to Fix Global Warming?" Henson writes, "The global warming problem isn't going to be solved tomorrow, next week, or next year: we're in this one for the long haul, and there clearly isn't any single solution." The publisher writes, "This fully illustrated reference for nonscientists and scientists alike is an updated and expanded revision of Robert Henson's The Rough Guide to Climate Change, previously published in the UK. It provides the most comprehensive, yet accessible, overview of where climate science stands today, acknowledging controversies but standing strong in its stance that the climate is changing -- and something needs to be done." For the preview of The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change (PDF), visit: http://ncse.com/book-excerpt For information about the book from its publisher, visit: http://bookstore.ametsoc.org/catalog/book/thinking-persons-guide-climate-change 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: * Glenn Branch examining the history of "lumpers and splitters": http://ncse.com/blog/2014/11/whence-lumpers-splitters-0016004 * Stephanie Keep discussing misconceptions about fossils: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/11/misconception-mondaythursday-fossils-everywhere-0016006 http://ncse.com/blog/2014/11/misconception-monday-fossils-everywhere-part-2-0016012 http://ncse.com/blog/2014/11/misconception-monday-fossils-everywhere-part-3-0016018 * Mark McCaffrey pondering the Public Religion Research Institute's poll on climate: http://ncse.com/blog/2014/12/climate-confusion-0016024e 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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