NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2016/09/23
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2016-09-23 17:20.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, Creationists hope to take their case against the Next Generation Science Standards to the Supreme Court. NCSE's Grand Canyon excursion is featured in the pages of Scientific American, while NCSE's Josh Rosenau discusses climate change education in the pages of TES. And the shenanigans over evolution in state science standards resume in Texas.
COPE APPEALS TO THE SUPREME COURT COPE et al. v. Kansas State Board of Education et al., the creationist lawsuit seeking to reverse Kansas's 2013 decision to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards on the grounds that the state thereby "establish[ed] and endorse[d] a non-theistic religious worldview," is now under appeal to the Supreme Court. As NCSE previously reported, in December 2014 a district court dismissed the case, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to assert any of their claims; in April 2016 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court's dismissal. In May 2016, the plaintiffs unsuccessfully asked the appeals court to review the case en banc. Subsequently, in August 2016, COPE asked the Supreme Court to review the appeals court's decision and to address the question "Do theistic parents and children have standing to complain if the goal of the state is to cause their children to embrace a 'nontheistic religious worldview that is materialistic/atheistic'?" The lead plaintiff, COPE, Citizens for Objective Public Education, is a relatively 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 Next Generation Science Standards have so far been adopted in eighteen states and the District of Columbia, with similar standards adopted in a number of further states. The treatment of evolution and climate science in these standards occasionally provokes controversy, but COPE v. Kansas is the only lawsuit to have resulted. For COPE's petition to the Supreme Court (PDF), visit: https://ncse.com/files/COPE-Plaintiff-Petition-Aug2016.pdf And for NCSE's collection of documents from COPE v. Kansas, visit: https://ncse.com/legal/cope-v-kansas-state-boe MIRSKY ON RAFTING WITH NCSE In a column published in the October 2016 issue of Scientific American, Steve Mirsky relates his excursion through the Grand Canyon with NCSE. "Since 1981," Mirsky writes, "the Oakland, Calif.-based NCSE has defended evolution education in public schools against constant threats from those who seek to remove it from biology curricula or to 'balance' it with the addition of oxymoronic 'scientific creationism' or its mutated progeny such as 'intelligent design.'" Answering the question "what does rafting down the Grand Canyon have to do with science education," NCSE's executive director Ann Reid explained that young-earth creationists have taken the Grand Canyon as evidence of Noah's flood a few thousand years ago, despite the overwhelming geological evidence to the contrary. Mirsky promised to discuss the geologic history of the Canyon in a subsequent issue. By the way, NCSE is now accepting reservations for the next excursion to the Grand Canyon, June 29 through July 7, 2017. For Mirsky's column in Scientific American, visit: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hanging-with-scientists-at-the-bottom-of-the-grand-canyon/ And for information about the 2017 excursion, visit: https://ncse.com/news/2016/08/ncse-grand-canyon-2017-0018361 NCSE'S ROSENAU IN TES NCSE's Josh Rosenau contributed a column about the NCSE/Penn State survey of climate change education in the United States to TES (September 19, 2016). Observing that "scientists, policymakers, and the global community recognize climate change as an urgent threat that citizens -- especially students, the citizens of tomorrow -- must understand and confront," Rosenau added that nevertheless, "While many teachers cover climate change, they tend to downplay the confidence of the science and the urgency of the issue." The reasons for the neglect of climate change, he explained, include pressure from the local community and unfamiliarity of teachers with the scientific consensus on climate change, as well as "slow deployment of state standards emphasizing climate change, political efforts to suppress such standards, outdated and misleading textbooks, and insufficient in-service training." Despite these obstacles, Rosenau concluded, "[S]tudents need and deserve climate education to be presented uncontroversially across the curriculum in their schools." For Rosenau's column in TES, visit: https://www.tes.com/us/news/breaking-views/climate-science-isnt-debate-teachers-still-shy-away-facts-class And for NCSE's report on the survey (PDF), visit: http://ncse.com/files/MixedMessages.pdf SHENANIGANS IN TEXAS Members of the Texas state board of education launched a preemptive attack on a panel appointed to streamline the state science standards for biology during its September 14, 2016, meeting, according to the Texas Freedom Network's Kathy Miller, who criticized the attack in a September 16, 2016, letter to the board posted on the Texas Freedom Network's blog. A panel of educators and scientists is currently working on streamlining the science standards for biology, and a staff member from the Texas department of education was scheduled to deliver a routine report on the panel's progress at the board's meeting. But a member of the panel -- Raymond Bohlin, associated with Probe Ministries and the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture -- appeared at the meeting, criticizing the majority of the panel for a preliminary vote to remove certain standards. The standards that the panel voted to remove were aimed at undermining the treatment of evolution. They were inserted, without input from scientists or educators, by members of the state board during the last revision of the standards in 2009. The objectionable standards called for students to analyze "all sides of scientific evidence" and to evaluate "sudden appearance, stasis" in the fossil record, "the complexity of the cell," and "the DNA molecule for self-replicating life." The history as well as the pedagogical and scientific problems of these standards is described in detail by Ryan Valentine of the Texas Freedom Network, Ben Pierce of Southwestern University, and John Wise of Southern Methodist University in a 2015 report. The panel's vote to remove the standards is only preliminary; a final vote will follow after the panel reviews results from a survey of Texas educators. The panel's recommendation will presumably then be considered by the state board of education. The fact that a number of members of the board -- reportedly including Marty Rowley, Ken Mercer, and Barbara Cargill -- were sympathetic to Bohlin's complaints about the panel's vote struck Miller as "deeply disturbing." Also disturbing was the discovery that antievolutionist Charles Garner of Baylor University was appointed to the panel after the application deadline, over the objections of the state department of education, at the behest of Barbara Cargill. "The state board should respect the process it has established and refrain from any further efforts to pressure curriculum panelists and undermine their work," Miller wrote in her letter to the board. Harking back to previous controversies, she added, "Texas has been embarrassed enough already, and our kids deserve far better." For the letter from Kathy Miller, visit: http://tfn.org/tfn-president-science-letter/ For the report on the objectionable standards (PDF), visit: http://tfn.org/cms/assets/uploads/2015/11/TFNEF_Report_-_Science_TEKS_Analysis.pdf And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Texas, visit: https://ncse.com/news/texas 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 discussing "evolution in the back seat": https://ncse.com/blog/2016/09/evolution-back-seat-0018333 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. 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 600 Oakland CA 94612-2922 510-601-7203 fax 510-788-7971 branch@ncse.com http://ncse.com Check out NCSE's 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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