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NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2016/11/18

(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)

Dear friends of NCSE,

A preview of Joseph Romm's Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to
Know. And a creationist lawsuit against Kansas over the state's
adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards is at a definitive
end.

A GLIMPSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW

NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview of Joseph Romm's Climate
Change: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2016).
The preview consists of chapter 7, "Climate Change and You," which
offers to "explore some of the more personal questions that climate
change raises for individuals and their families," including "What is
the best way to talk to someone who does not accept the growing body
of evidence on climate science?"

The reviewer for the Guardian writes, "Climate Change, What Everyone
Needs to Know is a must-read for those who want to become climate
literate and join the growing conversation about the greatest threat
humanity faces today," and the reviewer for The Daily Beast adds,
"Given the pressing need for action, Climate Change is the right book
at the right time: accessible, comprehensive, unflinching, humane."

For the preview of Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know (PDF), visit:
https://ncse.com/files/pub/evolution/excerpt--romm.pdf 

For information about the book from its publisher, visit:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/climate-change-9780190250171?cc=us&lang=en& 

THE END OF COPE V. KANSAS

On November 14, 2016, the Supreme Court declined to review COPE et al.
v. Kansas State Board of Education et al., thus bringing the case to a
decisive end. At issue was Kansas's adoption of the Next Generation
Science Standards, which, according to the plaintiffs-appellants,
"establish[ed] and endorse[d] a non-theistic religious worldview" in
violation of the Constitution.

"This is a case that was frivolous from the get-go," commented NCSE's
executive director Ann Reid, noting that the federal courts have
consistently recognized (in the words of McLean v. Arkansas) "that
evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not
violate the Establishment Clause." She added, "It's a shame that
Kansas was forced to devote resources to fighting this case instead of
educating its schoolchildren."

The lead plaintiff COPE, Citizens for Objective Public Education, is a
relatively new creationist group, founded in 2012, although a number
of members of its board of directors and attorneys representing it in
the case -- including John H. Calvert, the founder of the Intelligent
Design Network -- have a history of creationist activity. The
remaining plaintiffs were a handful of children in Kansas's public
schools and their parents.

Originally filed in 2013, the case was dismissed by the United States
District Court for the District of Kansas in 2014 on the grounds that
the plaintiffs lacked standing to assert any of their claims. After
the court's ruling was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals
for the Tenth Circuit, the decision was upheld in April 2016,
whereupon the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court in August 2016.

By now, nineteen states -- Arkansas (so far for primary and middle
school only), California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois,
Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia
-- plus the District of Columbia have adopted the NGSS, with New
Hampshire the latest to do so, in November 2016.

For the Supreme Court's order (PDF, p. 2), visit:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/111416zor_4fci.pdf 

For NCSE's collection of documents from the case, visit:
https://ncse.com/legal/cope-v-kansas-state-boe 

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

WHAT'S NEW AT NCSE'S BLOG?

Have you been visiting NCSE's blog recently? If not, then you've missed:

* Glenn Branch pursuing the claim of Darwin's eight-hundred-fold uncertainty:
https://ncse.com/blog/2016/11/we-may-well-suppose-redux-0018352 

For NCSE's blog, 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 

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http://ncse.com/blog 

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