Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Education Policy

  • Against Personal Freedom on the Left

    Ed Brayton reports on a victory for FIRE against the University of Delaware, which had a diversity training seminar that was mandatory for all students. It was followed up by big brother style watch-dogging.

    Just in case some of us might get the idea that it is only right-wing ideologues who would like to indoctrinate people, there is plenty of evidence for the same behavior on the left. Where a particular ideology manages to hold unchallenged authority backed by force, there is an unfortunate tendency to act in this manner.

    FIRE is to be congratulated for challenging this type of activity. They are continuing to challenge such practices at the University of Delaware, which, though defeated on this program, has not explicitly agreed to end certain other practices.

  • Of Colossal Wastes of Time

    Jon Blumenfeld thinks that reconciling religion and science is a colossal waste of time. He says:

    Time for battle stations in the comments section, because I am going to say something that is sure to ruffle some feathers: The attempt to reconcile religion and science in general, and the bible and evolution in particular, is a colossal waste of time.

    He’s apparently particularly concerned that the most recent Reports of the National Center for Science Education contains many articles on the topic.

    I have a suggestion: If you believe reconciling religion and science is a colossal waste of tim, just don’t do it. Hmm. Come to think of it, I don’t think he does. Problem solved. Well, not quite, because apparently he doesn’t like anyone else to take their time doing it. Now I’m not going to bother to defend theism. I rarely do. I’m not even going to suggest that any particular group of people need to read material on religion and science.

    But the NCSE is interested in sound science education in the United States, and particularly in the teaching of evolution (see their about page), and in the United States there are a variety of groups that support that goal. I, for example, am a Christian Bible teacher who supports the teaching of evolution (and the absence of creationism of any variety including ID) in public schools.

    As an advocacy organization, NCSE is simply intelligent to serve all of the constituent groups who are likely to support the cause they advocate–sound science education, and particularly the inclusion of evolution. I know atheists are making a few gains as a percentage of the population right now, but sound science standards for public schools are going to need the support of some religious people.

    I don’t mean to sound cynical, but this is simple, basic politics. The NCSE staff seems to understand it quite well, which is one reason they are very effective. We can go ahead some day and have an argument over religion vs. atheism. But let’s not mix up the battle for sound science education get confused with that issue.

    (HT: The Panda’s Thumb)

  • Florida Science Standards Under Attack

    The new draft science standards in the state of Florida are under attack for their forthright inclusion of evolution. You can read more about the state of the debate on the Florida Citizens for Science blog. Those of us who support sound science are acquainted with the style of argumentation involved.

    I want to help make it clear that this is not a “religion vs. secularism” debate. There are a substantial number of people of faith of many persuasions who support the inclusion of the consensus scientific position in the science standards. I even know a number of ID supporters who don’t believe ID should be included in the High School science curriculum.

    Robert Crowther, contributor to the Discover Institutes EvolutionNews.org blog has even weighed in with a comment:

    I just blogged at Evolutionnews.org about this amazing development of the Florida Citizens for Science now being the sole arbiters of who is or is not a part of the “scientific community.”

    Apparently scientific inquiry is free, only so as long as you adhere to the Darwinian orthodoxy. Otherwise you will find yourself not a part of the “sceintific [sic] community.”

    This is presumably a response to this quote from Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science:

    “It’s a PR issue,” he said. “And it’s a religious issue. In the scientific community, it’s not an issue.”

    Well, Mr. Crowther, I see the PR issue. I see the religious issue. I even see some philosophical issue. What I don’t see is the debate in the scientific community. I see a few dissidents who seem uninterested in doing science, but prefer instead to hire PR people, write popular books, and hijack other people’s research. Now PR and popular books aren’t bad, but they don’t constitute an “issue in the scientific community.”

    (Full disclosure: I am a board member of Florida Citizens for Science. The list of board members is here.)

  • New Florida Science Standards

    New science standards for [tag]Florida[/tag] public schools are now available for review (HT: Florida Citizens for Science. These look very good, but there will inevitably be conflict about the issue of evolution.

    There was also a good article on this process in the Orlando Sentinel (again HT: Florida Citizens for Science.

    Interested parties should read and comment on these standards. Though I would expect that the evolution items will generate more controversy than others, the key issue here is not evolution, but sound science education in all areas.

    Thanks to the dedicated folks who participated in writing these new standards for our state.

  • Any Military Connection Triggers Criticism

    Sometimes I wonder if some of my liberal fellow-citizens really don’t like change, progress, innovation, and experimentation all that much. I really thought that conservatives were the ones who were supposed to look only at traditional solutions, while liberals were open to a variety of ideas.

    This afternoon I was doing some writing in my living room, where I sometimes work when the juices are flowing slowly. There’s nothing like turning on a little TV news to annoy me enough so that I’ll start writing at my maximum typing speed. The story that got me started today was about a Marine run High School in Chicago. The link is not to the story I was watching, because I changed channels and can’t remember where that was, but the story and the tone is the same.

    Here we have a High School that young people want to get into, that offers an opportunity for discipline and learning in a structured environment, and what do the critics have to say? Oh no! We’re preparing them to be soldiers! In this case that should be Marines, but why should an Air Force vet like me care about a minor issue like that?

    Now I have to wonder why it is such a bad thing if these young people are prepared for military service. That gives them an option, even a number of options, including reserve and national guard service. It should also prepare them to go into training to become police officers for example. But more importantly, especially in areas where the public schools do not provide an education in a disciplined environment it will simply produce a high proportion of students who can successfully go on to college or to training for other careers.

    It is not the only option for students, and there are certainly students who don’t belong there, but we should welcome such opportunities, especially in the public school system. Providing options that work should be regarded as a good thing.

    Finally, we need a military made up of people who are willing to carry out the orders of the civilian leadership. Any horror one may feel at the orders given to the military–and I myself am horrified by some of those orders–should pale in comparison to the thought of a military that is not prepared to carry out the orders of civilian authority, or of a country with no professional military service at all.

    Complaints of poor people being forced into military service do not reflect well, in my view, on those complaining. It’s a risky job, but it is a job. It is a job that needs to be carried out, and we should honor each and every person who is willing to do it. We should not denigrate them by suggesting they’re just too stupid to do anything else.

    PS: While I was writing this, the story came up on Fox News whose interviewer asked the imbecilic question–“Why do you need so many of these schools?” Hmm!?!? Perhaps they work?

  • Mixed Emotions about Sweden

    I read this news article from Sweden with mixed emotions (HT: Panda’s Thumb).

    My first reaction is negative. Since these schools are faith based, it seems appropriate to me that they teach from the perspective of the faith involved in sponsoring the school. I relate this to my own experience being home schooled and being taught creationism. At the end of High School, my grades and test scores were substantially above average, and I know many home schooled or Christian schooled kids who have a similar experience.

    Personally I would prefer to have gotten down to learning what evolution actually was earlier. It would have saved me some time exploring this on my own, but in general, I would prefer to leave such choices to parents, as long as the children in question are able to pass the appropriate tests. I prefer directing education through the requirements for standardized testing or for admission to the next level, rather than prescribing a curriculum in faith-related schools.

    But there is actually the real question. Sweden’s schools are not organized like American schools apparently. The schools in question are funded by the state even though they are faith based. This triggers the other side of my mixed emotions. If the taxpayers need to pay for it, then the state should control the content. All church related schools, as well as my home schooling, were entirely funded by my parents, the same parents who chose to teach me creationism. They chose it; they paid for it.

    I also should emphasize that I believe the correct choice in using public money to fund education at the elementary or high school level is to use that money to teach consensus science, and that means evolutionary theory, and no brand of [tag]creationism[/tag], including ID.

    I’m not certain if there are non-state funded schools in Sweden that would not be subject to this mandate or if all schools are state funded in one way or another. That’s an interesting question for further research.

    Americans should be careful in reading this story and blog reactions to it, because it does not reflect our situation in terms of either funding or the general structure of our educational system.

  • Creation-Evolution Links 9/26/07

    Well, this is rather quick for another round, but there have been some more good posts I’d like to call attention to.

    • Aetiology has a good post and updates on the community college teacher fired apparently for calling the early chapters of Genesis a myth. I referred to this event in an earlier post
    • I found this post at The Questionable Authority very helpful in understanding fossilization and its relation to reconstructing the history of organisms. The principles are very similar to those in archeology, and make good sense to me.
    • Ed Brayton has this article on the Louisiana Family Forum to which Louisiana senator [tag]David Vitter[/tag] wants to give some of your tax money. It appears there are less savory activities than employing the services of prostitutes, such as taking your money and giving it to groups that will use it to harm your children’s education..
    • A post from Florida Citizens for Science reports that Cheri Yecke is in the top three for the Florida Education commissioner job. I have blogged previously on why she should not be selected.

  • The Problem with Public School Bible Classes

    I have noted before that while Bible classes taught from an academic perspective have been ruled constitutional, I still think they are very bad ideas. Including the Bible as it applies in literature and history classes is appropriate, though it should be proportional to its importance to the field, and should be taught in a way that is neutral.

    While problems may arise in such classes about the way in the which the Bible is taught, there is at least a good basis for setting the boundaries–the standards of the field in question.

    Chris Heard at Higgaion tells of a community college teacher who has been fired because his teaching of Genesis 1-11 offended some of his students. You see, he taught what would be regarded as the academic mainstream view of these passages, and thus didn’t take them as narrative history, which his students would have preferred. Now this was in a western civilization course.

    Imagine what would happen if the course was a High School Bible course, and someone taught critical views of these passages? That is what many, many academically trained teachers would do, and it would certainly be a violation of church and state separation to have teachers required to teach a particular sectarian view of the passages. Remember that it is not even the majority Christian view that these passages should be read as narrative history. (No, I will not be impressed by arguments that involve saying that Catholics aren’t Christians, and thus don’t count for the “majority.”) Such a class taught to high school students would result in an uproar in the Christian community. At the same time, they will try, as they have through the truly National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools.

    The best way to teach young people the Bible is for the individual churches to provide their own instruction. I would suggest that instruction be broad and include an overview of how other people understand the texts. The young people can be introduced to more academic views in civilization and literature classes.

    If the Bible is to be taught in public schools, the approach must be academic and critical, and must include all those views to the left of fundamentalism. Most of the parents aren’t even aware of such views, and will be shocked at what happens in those classes. Their hope is to get NCBCPS curriculum accepted and put it in the hands of underqualified teachers who will accept it as it is.

  • Barbarians? What Barbarians?

    Mark Olson responded to my post Why the Creation-Evolution Controvery is Important with a post of his own, Barbarians at the Gate. It appears that was his gentle way of telling me that I’m a bit over the top, at least about my comment on the assault on the integrity of science. Kudos to Mark for method! I don’t see any barbarians, or at least I see only barbarians acting in a very civilized way, but I do see some danger.

    I would first like to point out that I said what I said in the context of the case of Dr. Richard Colling at Olivet Nazarene University (start with Where Teaching the Controversy is Prohibited). I didn’t specify that in my own post, because I was responding to some of the responses I received to my posting on that issue. Where precisely is this “assault on integrity” going on? I believe it is happening in Christian churches.

    I’m not, however, talking about the dearth of Biblical knowledge, though I do think that is a problem. I’m talking about the way in which some Christians try to pressure other Christians into accepting a war between religion an science–a war which is quite unnecessary. The most guilty parties are advocates of young earth creationism, but old earth creationists join in when the target is theistic evolutionists, and the ID crowd joins right in.

    I’ve already expressed by view on this a few times before and particularly in more recent discussions of the situation at Olivet Nazarene University. But I lived this in my own life. There was certainly no effort to “teach the controversy” in my Seventh-day Adventist education. The entire effort was to indoctrinate me as a young earth creationist. I had very little idea what evolutionary theory actually was even after I received my graduate degree.

    But there is something faintly amusing to me about getting painting as one proclaiming there are barbarians at the gates. The ID movement is one of the noisiest “suppressed” movements out there. They are truly claiming that the barbarians are at the gates–in this case “Darwinist” barbarians. But is that cry justified?

    I think it is not. First, of course, they seem to have an abundance of ways in which to make themselves heard. Second, they are not taking the appropriate road to scientific recognition, which is the production of science.

    There are two ways to obscure truth. On the one can attempt to suppress those who speak it. But on the other hand we can present so many untested things as truth that it’s hard to determine what is valid and what is not. In order to prevent the second of these, we have peer-reviewed journals and we have results that can be replicated by other scientists. Those are the proper gateways through which thing should pass to become part of the general body of science.

    As a counter to that restriction we have free flow of information generally. The ID advocates who feel that they are being suppressed can write and publish books, they can write blogs, and everyone who wants can read. They can assault the gates of science all they want. That is freedom of speech. But it is essentially also freedom of speech for those scientists who peer-review the literature and who try to replicate results to say, “No, this doesn’t meet the standard.” The rest of us get to decide who we will believe.

    Someone is bound to ask then why I don’t think Olivet Nazarene University is within their rights to suppress Dr. Richard Colling? Of course they are within their rights. They are a privately funded university, and they can set their own standards. They might fall afoul of accreditation committees, but that has not proven too much of a problem for many, many schools who would not allow the teaching of evolution as valid.

    But this is the church. You see, I care more about the church than I do about the rest of the world. I’m a Bible teacher. That’s where I live and work. It’s important to me. When I see there’s a problem with integrity in the world, I am concerned. When I see it in the church, that’s striking close to home.

    People who have gone to secular universities rarely understand my point on this. They feel that they spent their lives fighting for recognition, and that any religious ideas are suppressed in that atmosphere. Personally I suspect them of being a bit over the top, but I can’t be sure. You see, I never spent a day in a public school classroom. I’m part home schooled, part private schooled, and all Christian schooled.

    I would like Christian education to be ahead of everyone else, and to represent the very best that there is to offer. I’d like to see better training in all fields, but especially in science. If there is any place where Christians should demonstrate a sound education, rather than a thorough indoctrination it is in our church educational systems, from Sunday School to church sponsored universities.

    To do that we need to model free inquiry. Exploration not indoctrination.

  • Where Teaching the Controversy is Prohibited

    I have suggested many times before that before one believes what IDC (intelligent design creationism) advocates say about their goals, one should look at the way they handle the matter where they are in control. I’m sure that I will be accused of unfairly lumping ID and creationism together, but if they don’t want that to happen they should make efforts not to look so similar.

    While names have changed, and a slogan like “teach the controversy” has become popular only more recently, I can recall the same theme from my own childhood to the present. Evolutionists need to allow the teaching of creationism along side evolution. It’s only fair. At the same time, evolution was never given a fair presentation on the church side. I never heard in Sabbath School (I was raised Seventh-day Adventist) that there were such people as theistic evolutionists, nor did I learn anything about how they would view God as creator. It was always a war between light (creationism) and darkness (evolutionism), the first God’s own truth, and the second the devil’s deception designed to lead one to hell.

    Today I found this column from the forthcoming Newsweek, that tells about Richard Colling, who has written a book Random Designer. Now I haven’t read his book, though I will certainly set out to get a copy now. By the description it sounds very much like he and I would be on the same page philosophically and theologically. He’s a professor of biology at Olivet Nazarene University, where his book is now effectively banned. He doesn’t get to teach a basic biology course he has taught for years, and his book can’t be assigned reading.

    This action shows some of the destructive potential of ignorance, but it also removes any fig-leaf of respectability from the “teach the controversy” argument. The advocates of creationism generally do not want the controversy taught. They want to win. If they were to win a court case allowing their materials into the public school classrooms, their next move would be to prevent critical examination of those ideas, and then to prevent the teaching of evolutionary theory itself. I simply don’t believe the public propaganda. I never have, but the evidence that it is pure propaganda just keeps building up.

    And here I would note that while I oppose inclusion of intelligent design or any other variety of creationism in high school science classes until such time as it becomes mainstream science (don’t hold your breath), I’m perfectly happy to have any theory discussed in higher education. It should be critically discussed, which, in the case of IDC, would mean that it should be thoroughly shredded.

    But at Olivet, apparently, they don’t even want students to have to read about the views of a theistic evolutionist. I believe that the Olivet example is what theistic evolutionists such as myself can expect from the ID movement. They want to shut us out. They certainly don’t want to “teach the controversy” about ID, a controversy that is very much alive amongst Christians.

    You see, “teaching the controversy” is good when you want to wedge your way into the public schools, or force your way into universities. It’s not so good when someone wants to fairly examine the controversy inside a Christian school. They want a “heads we win, tails you lose” situation.

    Hat tips go to Metacatholic and Higgaion, both of whom have excellent comments on this story themselves.