Education in a backward, Third World country named Texas

You'd think that the previous removal of arch-cretin Don McLeroy from the Texas State Board of Education in a primary election might count for something in this day and age, but apparently it didn't. From the Texas Freedom Network:

It looks like the Lone Star State’s reputation as a hotbed of anti-science fanaticism is about to be reinforced. At least six creationists/”intelligent design” proponents succeeded in getting invited to review high school biology textbooks that publishers have submitted for adoption in Texas this year. The State Board of Education (SBOE) will decide in November which textbooks to approve. Those textbooks could be in the state’s public school science classrooms for nearly a decade.

Among the six creationist reviewers are some of the nation’s leading opponents of teaching students that evolution is established, mainstream science and is overwhelmingly supported by well over a century of research. Creationists on the SBOE nominated those six plus five others also invited by the Texas Education Agency to serve on the biology review teams. We have been unable to determine what those other five reviewers think about evolution.
Although 28 individuals got invites to review the proposed new biology textbooks this year, only about a dozen have shown up in Austin this week for the critical final phase of that review. That relatively small overall number of reviewers could give creationists even stronger influence over textbook content. In fact, publishers are making changes to their textbooks based on objections they hear from the review panelists. And that’s happening essentially behind closed doors because the public isn’t able to monitor discussions among the review panelists themselves or between panelists and publishers. The public won’t know about publishers’ changes (or the names of all the review panelists who are in Austin this week) until probably September. Alarm bells are ringing.

The TFN link has a full list of the intellectual lightweights in question, but it's entirely unsurprisingly that most of them are either shills for Intelligent Design (one of them - namely, Raymond Bohlin - is a research fellow of the Discovery Institute) or are avowed, open creationists. Only one (Richard White) seems less than enthusiastic about jumping up and down about his ID/creationist affiliations despite advocating the same "teach the controversy" nonsense that his comrades in arms are far more open about.

As it is, this is going to be a long, hard march to November. Then the real silliness begins.

(Also on WTTFTG)

Smokin' the creationist bluegrass

It used to be that you had to make stuff like this up, mostly for the sake of parody or research for a play (a point to be brought up later). Not anymore, though:

Supporters and critics of Kentucky’s new science education standards clashed over evolution and climate change Tuesday amid a high-stakes debate on overhauling academic content in public schools.

The article (quoted from the original at cincinnati.com, by the way) continues:

"Students in the commonwealth both need and deserve 21st-century science education grounded in inquiry, rich in content and internationally benchmarked,” said Blaine Ferrell, a representative from the Kentucky Academy of Sciences, a science advocacy group that endorses the standards.

 Dave Robinson, a biology professor at Bellarmine University, said neighboring states have been more successful in recruiting biotechnology companies, and Kentucky could get left behind in industrial development if students fail to learn the latest scientific concepts.

Now, those are perfectly reasonable points made by perfectly reasonable people working in academic fields (or advocating for them) that have considerable relevance to the subject of science education.

Now comes the bad part.

But the majority of comments during the two-hour hearing came from critics who questioned the validity of evolution and climate change and railed against the standards as a threat to religious liberty, at times drawing comparisons to Soviet-style communism.

One parent, Valerie O’Rear, said the standards promote an “atheistic world view” and a political agenda that pushes government control.

Matt Singleton, a Baptist minister in Louisville who runs an Internet talk-radio program, called teachings on evolution a lie that has led to drug abuse, suicide and other social afflictions.

“Outsiders are telling public school families that we must follow the rich man’s elitist religion of evolution, that we no longer have what the Kentucky Constitution says is the right to worship almighty God,” Singleton said. “Instead, this fascist method teaches that our children are the property of the state.”

At one point, opponent Dena Stewart-Gore of Louisville also suggested that the standards will marginalize students with religious beliefs, leading to ridicule and physiological harm in the classroom, and create difficulties for students with learning disabilities.“The way socialism works is it takes anybody that doesn’t fit the mold and discards them,” she said, adding that “we are even talking genocide and murder here, folks.”

Yep, all of the usual bizarre fundamentalist/YEC/Tea Party tics are there for the taking, if you actually want them: misused snarl words like "fascism" and "socialism", unverified anecdotal assertions about how evolution leads to "drug abuse, suicide and other social afflictions" (and I'm sure that Mr. Singleton actually has case studies in his possession that can actually prove those anecdotes, right?) and a whole slew of  accompanying gibberish that makes me wonder if any of the aforementioned speakers  have cracked open a book on science past the age of 18, much less read any of it.

Speaking of gibberish:

At one point, opponent Dena Stewart-Gore of Louisville also suggested that the standards will marginalize students with religious beliefs, leading to ridicule and physiological harm in the classroom, and create difficulties for students with learning disabilities.“The way socialism works is it takes anybody that doesn’t fit the mold and discards them,” she said, adding that “we are even talking genocide and murder here, folks.”

What?

That's the way socialism works?  Funny, but what that mushwit just described is pretty much how something like bullying works. Of course, Ms. Stewart-Gore is one of those people who probably thinks it's perfectly okay if non-Christian students are bullied for their religious beliefs, but that thought probably never popped into her head when she used the term "religious".

Likewise, the assertion that teaching real science will "create difficulties for students with learning disabilities" seems to be based on the singularly odd belief that students with learning disabilities (a dangerous, one-size-fits-all term of convenience if there ever was one) are one uniform blob of stereotypical mentally challenged gimps who can't learn anything, whether it has to do with biology or tying their own shoes. It's as if the kids who are wheelchair-bound are being thrown in the same room with those suffering from dyslexia, hyperactivity or ADD and are all classified as uneducable as a result.

Yes, people actually believe this shit. And no, I couldn't think of a word more poetic than "shit", since that's the most straightforward way of classifying this nonsense.

As mentioned before, this stuff could be the subject of a play. It has been in the past. Reading the original version of Inherit the Wind is entirely relevant. Inherit, incidentally, came out back in 1955, at the tail-end of the McCarthy era.

Feeling intellectually threatened, yet?

(Also on WTTFTG)

Fossils, fossils and yet more fossils

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Nasutoceratops to the fold:

This year's sensation from Utah might well be another ceratopsian, Nasutuceratops titusi, known from an almost complete skull and an associated left forelimb, as well as skull fragments from two other individuals. Some skin impressions were also found with the forelimb. Nasutuceratops is still a nomen nudum (“naked name”), meaning it has not been officially and formally described in a published scientific journal yet. It has been named by Eric Karl Lund (advisor: Scott Sampson) in his Master of Science Geology thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Utah in 2010. In a comprehensive phylogenetical analysis, this short snouted long horned centrosaurine ceratopsian was found to be closely related to the contemporary Avaceratops lammersi from Montana.

Add to this the fact that there's new evidence that anyone trying to ride a T-Rex might've made a big mistake and the whole YEC "humans co-existed with dinosaurs!" idiot lobby might have to spend a whole thirty seconds or so wrestling with intellectual inadequacy issues before posting their next  non-response to actual scientific research.