Coming: Ten Years of Creationist Science Textbooks?
Tuesday, 2 December 2008 Clay Burell 
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From the “We Don’t Need Four Ten More Years” Department:
This is serious, and an opportunity for some net-roots experimentation that could be fun.
So let’s talk the problem first, then possible solutions:
1. Creationists at it again
The Houston Chronicle reports that a majority in the Texas Board of Education is likely to vote for state science standards requiring science teachers to teach the (non-existent) “weaknesses or limitations of evolution.”1
There’s still time for grass- and net-roots action to oppose these ideologues before a preliminary vote on the standards in January ’09, and the final vote slated for next spring.
2. Why this matters (inter)nationally
The short version: Texas and California standards are the tails that wag the dog of the US textbook industry. As James Loewen writes in the NYTimes best-seller, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong:
California and Texas . . . directly affect publishers and textbooks because they are large markets with statewide adoption and active lobbying groups. Schools and districts in nonadoption states must choose among books designed for the larger markets (308). . . . Usually adopters find the details they seek. Most textbook editors . . . know their market. They make sure their books include whatever is likely to be of concern (311).
So, because the Texas vote will set science standards for the next decade, textbook publishers will likely be aiming to please the creationists until 2018. And other states, to repeat Loewen, will have to choose amongst science textbooks designed for these Creationists in charge of Texas schools.
That’s why it matters. By 2018, Obama will have left his (knock wood) second term in office for a two full years – but most students during his presidency will have studied anti-science textbooks because of the actions of the Texas Board of Education.
Call it an Obama presidency with a Palin education policy.
3. Solutions?
Is it possible to influence the Texas BOE to vote down the provision in January or the following spring? It seems unlikely. Most of the members belong to the extreme religious right, with open ties to the creationist Discovery Institute that supported similar anti-science campaigns in Kansas and Pennsylvania.
But unlikely is not impossible. So here are some ideas:
1. Call on Obama to use the bully pulpit.
Click image to see Climate Change message on YouTube.
Last month, Obama declared an end to climate change science deniers. Earlier in the campaign, he openly voiced his opposition to creationism in all its guises during the campaign. If he appealed not to the ideological BOE, but to the nation – and the textbook industry – to shout down Texas, that might limit the damage to textbook content nationwide.2
2. Use Smart Mob and/or Tipping Point campaigns
Pressure the Texas BOE and, again, the textbook publishers, with opposition. Get schools nationwide to declare their support for evolution-friendly textbooks, and their refusal to buy anything else. (If I were to do that, show of hands: who would support it by spreading the word?)
3. Longer term, organize to defeat the creationists in school board elections.
It’s amazing that Board of Education officials need no scientific or educational expertise to be elected, yet they control the curriculum, standards, and funds of the public school system in Texas.
Worse, as U. of Arkansas Prof. Jay Greene argues,
Local school board elections on off-election days have very low turnout, often in the single digits. Given the obscurity of local school politics, it’s easier for the employees and their organized interests to dominate school politics. They’re just about the only ones following what is going on and voting in those elections.
What’s good for the creationist goose can be good for the scientific gander too – if only the gander played the politics smarter.
4. [Your ideas here]
- Here’s a good first-hand account of the hearings in Austin. [↩]
- Add to TheIndyDebate map. [↩]
- How to “Smart Mob” against Creationism in Textbooks (video)
- Free Online Textbook for Science Teachers: NAS’ “Science, Evolution, and Creationism”
- Reply to Gary Stager’s HuffPo Post on Duncan
- Ed-reads of Note: Farren on Green Econ Textbooks, Horn on Obama Ed Policy
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No. 1 — December 2nd, 2008 at 6:40 am
I’ve GOT to share this Twitter reply from jrdixey:
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Jennifer Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Thanks, Clay. It was the mid-1980s. Their take on it, IIRC, was that TX folks would only look at the index, and if they saw the word Evolution, they would put it in the “skip” pile and it wouldn’t get a second look. So they just took the word out of the index. I don’t know how accurate the actual content was (I was working on something else at the time) but my impression was that the only place the big bad “E” word was missing was from the index. I don’t remember the grade level of the science series. I also got the impression that this was pretty common practice among textbook publishers at that time.
Jennifers last blog post..Google’s Editable Search Results
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No. 2 — December 2nd, 2008 at 7:53 am
Consider this a devastatingly overly-left multi-cultural respect side… But for this particular study that inquires rocks for proof of biological mutations at a macro level (anyone who denies the micro level must never heard of influenza) leaves many to question (including me due to my lack of in-depth understanding of the workings) of evolution.
I had a textbook that presented both scenarios, plenty more Taxonomy than you wanted. However, we didn’t learn creationism (despite me being in what seemed to be a right wing school).
I don’t see the issue with exploring multiple ‘scenarios.’ Either way Evolution will need some reform in it’s presentation to be a strong standing theory overall. (Or I should say stronger, right now it’s stuck at gray trying to reach one or another shade darker or lighter.)
That’s just my take on it. Much like I’d like to see my History book add more about minority cultures other than African Americans. Who receive too much attention… I don’t mean that in a racist way, more I’d rather see the right-wing and U.S. government as a whole own up to the entire story rather than bits and pieces. Why shun someone for their perception of the world, over perception vs. perception issues?
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Michael Doyle Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 am
“Evolution” is an unfortunate word, not one Darwin preferred, but we’re stuck with it.
Descent with modification explains biology as we know it–short of the God of Abraham Himself making an appearance (to more than just one tin-foiled man), it will remain the foundation of biology.
Why? Because it works.
There is no “both” here. I think that raising creationism in one of its many forms in class should not be verboten if only to use it as an example of what science is not, but to hold it against the same light we view evolution is to defile what science means.
Magic does not belong in the classroom.
Michael Doyles last blog post..One problem with drug screening
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Dillon Decicio Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
On the contrary, there is a ‘both’ here. It is a narrow mind that closes one of the ultimative forces of reasoning (in this case observational/deduction) to simply apt-out that which cannot be proven by what the un/standard forms of perception are.
You could neither prove, nor disprove creationism if you tried. With which you are ideologically struck with a paradox that you can only comprehend as much as one is willing to allow into their cognition.
You’re suggesting a closed-cultured system, I didn’t support a Christian method of it and I won’t endorse another method of it that is or is not religious bound.
The challenge is, ‘do these non-facts/historical views deserve to be published.’ I’d rather they are unless someone would be willing to eliminate Christianity and Secularism from History, the Alchemists from Chemistry, and the Shakespeare out of English. Then I will be open to closing such a deed in Biology.
And I do agree with you, evolution is an unfortunate name as I could simply sum it as ‘change’ and it’d be just as accurate of a name for a theory.
I don’t believe creationism should be taught as a science, I’m just saying I wouldn’t phase it out entirely. That’s a -1 Diversity for the forces behind such an act. (same goes for the Christian Right Wing behind the attempt to phase out Evolution as a respectable theory, and to some degree (I refuse to gauge I know to what level) Climate Change/Crisis as well.) Rather it should be something there for… “Nostalgia” and the hopefully earnest attempt at not alienating a cultural belief.
In short, I have little to contend with you; I may not understand how a rock proves that a life form existed millions of years before present day– But why should I need to? I’m just stating a blatantly fair and obvious point that concerns the students who would listen to you as well as the parents, and of course other community members.
Albeit I sound like I’m on a fence, I’m not. That’s the methodology of cultural-compromise. Even those with no faith in macro level evolution can learn science, so in the end that can be filed under my ‘belief’ file until I see indisputable evidence that one, or the other is true and doesn’t compromise the other’s integrity in doing so.
Dillon Decicios last blog post..Thanksgiving: A Day of Mourning
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Michael Doyle Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 am
Limiting what one presents as science is not tantamount to having a narrow mind.
“You could neither prove, nor disprove creationism if you tried.” Exactly–which is why it does not belong in science class.
I would argue, though, that if you are going to open up our origins to non-scientific beliefs, “both” is still wrong–there are stories too numerous to count toe explain how we came to be, and more than a few of them may be true.
I tried to avoid dogma in the classroom, leading to all kinds of confusion. The Creationists think I’m one of them, the empiricists claim me as well.
While teaching science, empiricism is the rule. Come sit with me by the ocean’s edge, however, and the story may well change.
(Yep, Clay, I’m just a muddle-headed 19th century man.)
Michael Doyles last blog post..One problem with drug screening
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Dillon Decicio Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 am
I think the point I tried to make with that (being the ability to prove or not on creationism) was slightly lost in translation. I’m saying there’s no means to reach an end to that at the moment, I believe it would be more than possible given the right person, the right tools, and the right skills. However, the fact remains no one fits that category at the moment.
Mendel was an example of this luck kind of luck.
I find it odd to believe that in Chemistry I’ll be taught a fair amount of dogmatism, but in Biology it’s unacceptable? Is it because this time it’s a direct opposition to the church itself? That’s a question that doesn’t need an answer, it doesn’t really matter what the case is the answer. To me, and perhaps a few others it doesn’t really matter, I don’t really care.
As for empiricism, I can respect that to a degree. Unfortunately I can’t experience the sight of something under an electron microscope without such, or Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle as it applies to Quantum Mechanics without first conducting such experiments. That’s the point at which… I can’t respect it. I can still… ‘Grasp’ a unified body of knowledge and concepts without having to experience them myself. The paradox that empiricism is supposedly God was met, God spoke, thus it happened. Going about scientific observation at the most abstract level of reasoning is not largely different for the proof and the result of the hypothesis an overly formal methodology of variables, and the fact it’d fall under a different type of logic to begin with. If a science report exists, was supposedly re-tested variable x amount of times by variable y amount of people, they decide that it’s true, it is accepted and I potentially come to learn it from their experience having never witnessed it. (fundamental difference: I can supposedly test all these former theories if I choose to be skeptical, with God’s creationism you cannot. How many of us have managed to replicate anything and to what degree of perfection? Few) Science and Religious views and reasoning have little to do differently for the end product for a massive population to reject or accept as a result. Hence my lack of care to take sides in a debate about the two clashing.
However, I stand by since Alchemy was a large… How shall I put this? ‘practice of stuff’ (however closer to science than religious belief is) then why not have room for the larger dogmatisms that still exist? To at the very brief, point out the difference in a mild mannered attempt to… Disarm what is often times a social bomb waiting to go off when student A, a friend of mine is confronted by student B over how he is some negative existence for his fundamental understanding of descent and other evolutionary concepts and his accepting it as scientifically valid. If both parties aren’t taught to respect each other without force and then a bias representation of the other in a classroom when a figure of authority is speaking, I don’t see that bomb being disarmed.
It is possible to cover the material without adding in a ‘debate’ factor, and is a far more open process than censoring it’s ever present existence. That’d be a function of what’s been dubbed ‘Schooliness.’ The thought of shunning former major accepted ‘facts’ is skipping over the development of… Scientific belief, if you will. Put brief, this is ‘square 0′ that I feel is skipped. Perhaps that’s wrong, because creationist thoughts didn’t contribute to scientific advancement. However, it’s still square 0 in that it was the generally accepted ‘fact’ of the community until new information was found and conclusive.
Then again, I could be countered by someone pointing out that the difference between the concept of Alchemy and Creationism is so indifferently non-cohesive that it’s not comparable to begin with.
Excuse the continued wall of text, linguistics has and always will be my least favorite subject. (Especially when directly pertaining to books, and even worse, fictitious ones.) Thank you for reminding me of a few thoughts cataloged somewhere in the convolutions of my brain, however. I haven’t thought about some of the things you’ve reminded me about in a while, and it was interesting to reflect on.
Dillon Decicios last blog post..Thanksgiving: A Day of Mourning
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No. 3 — December 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
If schools taught how to think instead of what to think there wouldn’t be much of an issue. If the theory of evolution is what it is then it should stand on its own two legs (if they’ve evolved to that point). Truth is truth is truth and it’s in everyone’s best interest to seek it regardless of the outcome. Theories are ideas open to criticism and evaluation. Without the freedom to look at different ideas it becomes rather difficult to think critically.
Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Employee Benefits and Staff Retention
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No. 4 — December 2nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
The sadness is that I even see otherwise intelligent people proposing that creationism be taught as an “alternative” even in this comment thread.
By all means, the study of creationism (in its many forms) does belong in schools – in social studies and history classrooms. Science classrooms should be dealing with scientific theories, not cultural fantasies or philosophy.
The fact is: evolution is a scientific theory with credence, while creationism has almost none. Dillon is write in that you can’t disprove creationism, but you also can’t prove it. We shouldn’t be teaching a hypothesis (which is all creationism is) as a legitimate theory.
The “alternatives” logic is utter BS, because if you were to teach every hypothesis (which lacked credence) teachers should also be teaching about the secret race of aliens that periodically brings new species to the planet. Or, we’re in a virtual reality simulation. Throw in a chapter about that. Or maybe mice are secretly experimenting about our reactions to various species. Or maybe there was a creator. If you are going to teach hypotheses which lack scientific rigor, teach them all… but then you’ll have to spend the entire year and more teaching “alternatives” to evolution just to get through them.
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Dillon Decicio Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Criticism appreciated, my reasoning for adding creationism to Biology, not as an alternative but as something of historical significance to some formerly major level to the science community… It’s not an uncommon practice for such to be done.
I am even taught about Aristotle (fairly confident he was the one ranting on about earth, wind, fire, and water). Of all the people to be taught about, from the ancient Greeks in Science? Perhaps we should move that to History solely as well, and perhaps I shouldn’t assume all schools somehow mix that into their Chemistry curriculum.
Getting into that is getting into proper semantics; Which when did school ever do… Exactly? (Not too often in my experience. Either way, the inter relation cause-effect is important and could also be brought up as an ‘ethical’ concern along with cloning, and everything else. To say creationism hasn’t affected or been important to Biology’s past development, is to cast out the burned documents of Mendel’s as largely insignificant.) I’m still waiting for the person who comes to realize and openly refers to us as the “United States” over the classic result of Manifest Destiny approach… “America.” I’m sure the Canadians, Brazilians, and others enjoy being… Americans too.
I wouldn’t call it ‘sad’ that someone would suggest ‘it’. (I don’t recall suggesting it as an ‘alternative’ I just suggested ‘teaching’ it, perhaps that’s the mistake due to ambiguity.) I would call it a challenge over any single group of person’s authority to decide on the subject matter to be taught in (and where in the curriculum; since if you teach creationism in Biology it can be in context by subject matter rather than location/time since that was relatively unimportant to the former acceptance) school. Perhaps, I haven’t made that quite clear yet, or the point to why it might be fair to appease the beast anyways… (Dangerous thinking considering what that gave Hitler, though.)
As for your ‘utter BS,’ perhaps that petty exception is justification to censoring subjects to the will of an odd majority controlling a few select radicals? Makes me think I should shut up (or perhaps not assume people can take something in context of the debate and… What’s the description I’m looking for? Relative size of the chosen subject matter for ‘support’ (however reluctant)) when I speak about the ‘American’ example and subjects pertaining to the special interest group that is Native Americans… And typical non-Christian/Chauvanist/European Descent(Caucasion)/other forms of majorities here.
… That’d be sad reasoning in my opinion. Darn im/moral obligatory reasoning.
Dillon Decicios last blog post..Thanksgiving: A Day of Mourning
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Morgante Pell Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
As I said, I fully agree that the teaching of different forms of creationism is a very important exercise for schools to take part. My problem is with it being approached as a scientific “alternative” to evolution. In fact, such a lesson might very well be done in biology… as a historical exercise (about the evolution of science).
Actually, this sounds like a great inter-disciplinary project… tracing the history of creationism from Samaritans up through Deists and the modern Christian Right and how the evolving religious doctrines affect(ed) scientific advancement and knowledge. The point is to approach creationism as a historical and philosophical exercise, not as a scientific theory. Similarly to how schools teach about non-heliocentric solar system models… important historically but not scientifically accurate in modern times.
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Dillon Decicio Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 am
I’m fine with it not being a scientific theory, see Democritus. I’m just pointing out that belief is commonly related interdependently where it affected the advancement of science. It’s one extra term to a curriculum, ho-hum. It’s better than it being gone completely and I’ll stand by that as note of conclusion on the subject. Knowing the difference between theory and unprovable hypothesis should be important and would make a great comparison in any scientific field. There’s a place for it in biology, however paradoxically small noted despite it’s significant affect on the advancing field.
Dillon Decicios last blog post..Thanksgiving: A Day of Mourning
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Doesn’t this discussion at times seem sort of provincial or ethnocentric, as if only Judeo-Christian creation myths should be taken seriously? That, at least, is what the “both” sides rhetoric suggests to me.
All Americans should be urged to not just travel abroad, but live abroad (or, by proxy, via books).
Then we might realize how silly we look when we ignore the countless other cultural beliefs in our discussions of “truth.”
Since none of them can be “proven or disproven,” Dillon, let’s throw in everything from Uranos/Chaos/Eros in Hesiod to the lice-infested corpse of Pangu, the Chinese creation myth. I like it better than Genesis when I’m feeling sardonic, because it tells us that those lice are our ancestors. That often seems closer to the truth than the “made in God’s image” stuff we pride ourselves on in the West. It’s definitely more humble, and humorously accurate, to boot.
Because, as the whole “creation science” oxymoron shows, we have a hard time thinking clearly about the most important things.
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Morgante Pell Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Exactly the point I was trying to make… and if we’re really going to teach “alternatives” we should be talking about non-religious ones too. See above.
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:29 am
I can see your point, Morgante, though many people worry about the time lost for learning science in classrooms by opening up too much time to talking about mythology. Maybe a history class is where this belongs?
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Morgante Pell Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:41 am
Please see above where I point out that this belongs predominantly in history class, where it is far more relevant. However, I think the science department should be involved to some extent, but the main time should be through history/social studies. Ideally, the lessons would be concurrent – while history studies varies religious philosophies, science would be studying evolution and the evolution of science.
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Dillon Decicio Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:40 am
Clay, normally I’d agree with you but there’s a context for the issue at hand. Western science (yes, I’m attesting I learned about very little about science from a multi-cultural view. If it wasn’t United Statesian or European, I maybe got a name mentioned and a comparison to the ‘western’ counterpart with the biggest emphasis on how much slower the other one was) isn’t open to eastern thought or anything outside the… Caucasian controlled Western Hemisphere. It is suited for History more so than science form a semantic point, but then you should make the campaign ideally to restoring science to what it is, rather than what it’s not.
You might try the idea of limiting science to ‘concept’ ‘value to society if any practical reason’ and call it good rather than ‘scientist x discovered concept y and was on this timeline of development of ‘our’ understanding of subject z’ ‘this is why it’s important.’
Last I checked, creationism by this since is relatively Judeo-Crhistian-Islamic centric, and since I don’t remember anything behind it that ‘God created the world’ left the concept so vague and ambiguous, it could be applied to most cultures assumptions. (without a select few neononcomformist beliefs.) Which essentially I’m saying… 9x% > y%
Those deviants belong perhaps not even in a history class, I don’t see historical value in most of them. ‘Popular culture’ or something similar are better suited to the ones that aren’t a generally recognized religion. (In other words, Tom Cruise styled ‘religions’ don’t have much of a place in school.)
As I stated before, the idea of this campaign in it’s start needs to have it’s energy re-directed. The wording as it is now is too bigoted (I don’t care if you’re a radical or not looking at it; it quite clearly is). ‘Group X vs. Group Y’ is not a mode of thought I’d openly endorse, in fact it’s one I’d openly oppose. How you commence change is/can be just as important as the change you commence. That’s all I have left to say, because otherwise it’s going to go into ‘broken record’ mode real fast.
Dillon Decicios last blog post..Thanksgiving: A Day of Mourning
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Morgante Pell Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:53 am
That is a distortion of the facts. The whole idea of “creation” by a [single] creator is overtly Judeo-Christian.
The idea that we should teach it in science because most students in Texas schools share that belief promotes a very limited worldview. Vast swathes of the world population (including much of Asia) have divergent views which don’t fit neatly into this label.
Furthermore, I think you cheapen religion by attempting to integrate it all under the vague heading of “creationism.” Religion should be studied with the respect and context it deserves, not some bastardized form. This study belongs in a) places of worship and b) history – not science.
The root of the matter is, creationism is not a science. It is a belief, and should be treated as such.
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Dillon Decicio Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:57 am
Glad to hear that someone agrees with the current portrayal of the world by what I interpret as a fair amount of U.S. (and to my knowledge, other countries as well) Schools promotes. Albeit a present difference in… ‘enthusiasm.’
However, to say I’m distorting the facts it to both distort the context and to admit that the context in question has a distorted sense of reality. (which is fine by me, it’s no skin off my back.)
Schools typically serve an ethnocentric force as it is; what with being one of the strongest standing still alive unified social bodies left. Why wouldn’t it be?
Something good could come of this campaign, but I doubt shifting the taxonomy of bodies of knowledge in this fashion will be the cause to the aforementioned effect. Quite simply put, this would be the ‘burning foundation of Rome.’
Dillon Decicios last blog post..Thanksgiving: A Day of Mourning
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Morgante Pell Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:12 am
Or, maybe, some people are still living in Rome while the rest of us have moved to Florence. Maybe we can finally strike the final match which ignites the smoldering fire within the Roman empire.
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No. 5 — December 2nd, 2008 at 10:45 am
Oh, and I definitely think some sort of tipping point group is the best way to go. Ideally, we could get some of the liberal net roots involved as well.
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
That would be a really interesting project to push. Especially if a student spearheaded it on the youth side, and an adult on the adult side.
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No. 6 — December 2nd, 2008 at 11:37 am
And on -one- final note, Clay. Some of the steps to your goal here, I support. Particularly the requirement of board members to be competent on the content to be taught in the first place.
However, with the current wording and presentation of the campaign, it is not something I would affiliate myself with or support. (Largely because I know it’d cause me grief later on.)
If the connotative weren’t there, or the energy was re-directed slightly however I’d change my mind. Not that it matters whether I help or not in the long run of things. I’m just saying, a non-confrontational approach may meet less resistance (or at least the resistance met could be struck down by moral obligation by the strength of powerful minorities.)
Just my attempt at some brief and hopefully helpful constructive criticism.
Dillon Decicios last blog post..Thanksgiving: A Day of Mourning
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No. 7 — December 2nd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
“Strengths and weaknesses” discussions as a standard for high school science is discussed well here, but here’s the meatiest part of the argument:
Ken Mercer is one of the Creationists on the Texas BOE. A man named Schafersman, founder of Texas Citizens for Science, stood up to speak at the hearing:
Hope that helped.
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No. 8 — December 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
There’s a huge, and potentially consequential, difference between the 2 chron.com items linked from your post. See
http://curricublog.org/2008/11/23/fair-or-balanced/
I expect the troubling Castro AP piece was also in the print edition, and the more accurate Scharrer blog post was not.
For the November 19 SBOE meeting, there are now audio files of the whole thing (in seven parts, coordinated with the TFN blog pages) posted at
http://curricublog.org/2008/11/26/texas-sboe-evolution-2008nov19/
with linked wiki pages for building up an annotated review of the proceedings, indexed by speaker.
Tony Whitsons last blog post..Great Summary of Texas Evolution developments
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No. 9 — December 8th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
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No. 11 — December 20th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
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