NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2017/09/22
Submitted by Peter Burns on Fri, 2017-09-22 16:46.
National Center for Science Education
(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)
Dear friends of NCSE, The end of the creationist kerfuffle in South Korea. A new honorary degree for NCSE's founding executive director. And a proposed new set of science standards in New Mexico is suspiciously skimpy on evolution and climate change.
CREATIONIST KERFUFFLE OVER IN KOREA South Korea is not going to have a creationist heading a new ministry. Park Seong-jin, nominated to head the newly created ministry of small and medium venture business in South Korea, withdrew himself from consideration for the post, according to KBS World Radio (September 15, 2017), after the National Assembly adopted a hearing report finding him unfit for the post. As NCSE previously reported, Park was a controversial nominee primarily because of his affiliation with the Korea Association for Creation Research, a young-earth creationist organization that promotes creation science; Park reportedly resigned as its director the day before he was nominated for the post. According to a report from UPI (September 11, 2017), during a recent hearing before the National Assembly, Park told legislators, "As an adherent of creationism, [I believe] the Earth's age is 6,000 years, as put forward by the church." Song Ki-hun, a Democratic member of the National Assembly, commented that Park's views "worried" people in the "bio-sciences sector." For the KBS World Radio story, visit: http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/news_Po_detail.htm?No=130205 For the UPI story, visit: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2017/09/11/Moon-Jae-in-nominee-sparks-uproar-over-creationist-views/9611505149184/ And for NCSE's previous coverage of events overseas, visit: https://ncse.com/news/international CONGRATULATIONS TO EUGENIE C. SCOTT Described as an "award-winning scholar and champion of science," NCSE's founding executive director Eugenie C. Scott received an honorary degree from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, at the university's Academic Convocation on September 15, 2017. Scott delivered an address on the importance of a liberal arts education, using the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial of 2005 as a source of examples and anecdotes. The honorary degree was Scott's tenth. She was previously honored with honorary degrees from McGill University in 2003, the Ohio State University in 2005, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, in 2006; Rutgers University in 2007; the University of New Mexico in 2008, the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado College in 2010; and Chapman University in 2013. For NCSE's collection of material from the Kitzmiller trial, visit: https://ncse.com/library-resource/kitzmiller-v-dover-intelligent-design-trial And for Scott's memoir about the genesis of her interest in evolution, visit: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/inspired/article/1903/ SHENANIGANS IN NEW MEXICO "New Mexico's Public Education Department unveiled proposed teaching standards ... that critics say would omit references to evolution, rising global temperatures and the age of Earth from the state's science curriculum," reports the Albuquerque Journal (September 16, 2017). The new standards are modeled on the Next Generation Science Standards, which have been adopted by eighteen states and the District of Columbia so far. But, as Mother Jones (September 15, 2017) observed, "the draft released by New Mexico’s education officials changes the language of a number of NGSS guidelines, downplaying the rise in global temperatures, striking references to human activity as the primary cause of climate change, and cutting one mention of evolution while weakening others." "These changes are evidently intended to placate creationists and climate change deniers," NCSE's deputy director Glenn Branch told Mother Jones, and would, if implemented, "dumb down New Mexico's science education." Kim Johnson, a physicist and former president of the New Mexico Academy of Science, and Stephanie Ly, president of the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico, were quoted by the Albuquerque Journal as agreeing, Ly describing the proposed standards as a "perverted, watered-down vision" of the NGSS. A subsequent report in the Santa Fe New Mexican (September 19, 2017) quoted the superintendent of the Santa Fe schools and the K-12 program director for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation (a non-profit organization that supports New Mexican science teachers) as opposed to the proposed standards, as well as NCSE's Glenn Branch, who reiterated that the divergences between the NGSS and the proposed standards "water down the treatment of evolution and the [human] impact [on] climate change." The Associated Press (September 19, 2017) also covered the story. Ellen Loehman of the New Mexico Science Teachers' Association commented, "Our position is that the Public Education Department has injected politics into science"; the NMSTA is urging the department to adopt the NGSS without the objectionable changes. Also quoted as opposing the proposed standards was the director of the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club. The department, according to the Associated Press, declined to explain the rationale for the divergences between the NGSS and the proposed standards. There is still time for concerned New Mexicans to protest. The Public Education Department will be accepting public comments on the standards through October 16, 2017, and then will hold a public hearing in Santa Fe. For the story in the Albuquerque Journal, visit: https://www.abqjournal.com/1064653/whose-science-excerpt-critics-say-proposed-nm-science-standards-omit-evolution-climate-change.html For the story in Mother Jones, visit: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/new-mexico-remove-climate-change-evolution-public-education/ For the story in the Santa Fe New Mexican, visit: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/education/sfps-board-questions-troubling-science-curriculum-proposal/article_8592980b-00c6-5b0f-ab52-d0408af42d43.html For the Associated Press story (via the Las Cruces Sun-News), visit: http://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/education/2017/09/19/science-teaching-guidelines-trigger-criticism-new-mexico/683031001/ And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in New Mexico, visit: https://ncse.com/news/new-mexico WHAT'S NEW AT NCSE'S BLOG? Have you been visiting NCSE's blog recently? If not, then you've missed: * Brian Pinney describing what he's been learning about coping with religious conflicts in informal science education: https://ncse.com/blog/2017/09/sbc-voices-navigating-religious-conflict-0018608 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 Check out NCSE's blog: 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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