Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education

(from AAAS) Florida’s legislative session came to a close on May 1, and with it the prospects of a bill that would have required teachers to present a “critical analysis” of evolution. This year’s anti-evolution bill seemed to have significantly less momentum than the so-called “academic freedom” bill from last year (which ultimately failed as well).

Tempest in Texas
New York Times, March 27, 2009
Defeat and Some Success for Texas Evolution Foes
By MICHAEL BRICK
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/education/27texas.html?scp=8&sq=&st=nyt

AUSTIN, Tex. — In an evenly split vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday upheld teaching evolution as accepted mainstream science.

But social conservatives on the board, using a series of amendments tailored to particular school subjects, succeeded in requiring teachers to evaluate critically a variety of scientific principles like cell formation and the Big Bang.

The debate over new curriculum requirements, to take effect in 2010, stands to influence educational standards nationwide. Once every decade, major textbook publishers revise their offerings to match the requirements newly set forth by Texas, which is one of their largest bulk customers.

More than 80 years after the biology teacher John Scopes was tried on charges of illegally teaching evolution in Tennessee, the controversy here has played out with more subtlety, involving political code words and efforts to undermine the theory itself.

The debate has centered on a longstanding clause that requires teachers to address the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Teachers quietly ignored the requirements for decades.

The board tentatively decided in January to drop the “strengths and weaknesses” language. On Thursday, Democrats and moderate Republicans on the board blocked a proposal by social conservatives to reinstate it. Even with one moderate board member missing, the measure was blocked with a preliminary 7-to-7 vote.

The full board is set to take a final vote on Friday.

Failing to overhaul the curriculum broadly, conservatives instead attached a series of measures specific to subjects like biology, where teachers would be newly required to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell.”

In the earth-science curriculum, conservatives weakened language concerning “the concept of an expanding universe” to address instead “current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe.”

With protesters on both sides of the issue carrying signs outside its meetings, the board has heard impassioned testimony from science teachers, parents and others.

A conservative board member, Bob Craig of Lubbock, expressed satisfaction with the overall changes.

“I personally believe that language is good language,” Mr. Craig said in an interview. “It allows for full discussion of all sides of the issue.”

Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit group that promotes the teaching of evolution, said the vote would not end the debate.

“If they don’t get the political strategy, they’ll go piecemeal,” Mr. Quinn said. “The State Board of Education pretty much slammed the door on ‘strengths and weaknesses,’ but then went around and opened all the windows in the house.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Science Friday Kids Connection, a resource for middle school teachers from the folks at National Public Radio

New resource for educators: Understanding Science

About Understanding Science
The mission of Understanding Science is to provide a fun, accessible, and free resource that accurately communicates what science is and how it really works. The process of science is exciting, but standard explanations often miss its dynamic nature. Science affects us all everyday, but people often feel cut off from science. Science is an intensely human endeavor, but many portrayals gloss over the passion, curiosity, and even rivalries and pitfalls that characterize all human ventures. Understanding Science gives users an inside look at the general principles, methods, and motivations that underlie all of science.

This project has at its heart a re-engagement with science that begins with teacher preparation and ends with broader public understanding. Its immediate goals are to (1) improve teacher understanding of the nature of the scientific enterprise, (2) provide resources and strategies that encourage and enable K-16 teachers to reinforce the nature of science throughout their science teaching, and (3) provide a clear and informative reference for students and the general public that accurately portrays the scientific endeavor.

The Understanding Science site was produced by the UC Museum of Paleontology of the University of California at Berkeley, in collaboration with a diverse group of scientists and teachers, and was funded by the National Science Foundation1. Understanding Science was informed and initially inspired by our work on the Understanding Evolution project, which highlighted the fact that many misconceptions regarding evolution spring from misunderstandings of the nature of science. Furthermore, research indicates that students and teachers at all grade levels have inadequate understandings of the nature and process of science, which may be traced to classrooms in which science is taught as a simple, linear, and non-generative process. This false and impoverished depiction disengages students, discourages public support, and may help explain current indications that the U.S. is losing its global edge in science. Even beyond the health of the U.S. economy, the public has a genuine need to critically assess conflicting representations of scientific evidence in the media. To do this, they need to understand the strengths, limitations, and basic methods of the enterprise that has produced those claims. Understanding Science takes an important step towards meeting these needs.

from the Dallas Morning News 1/23/09:
Texas Board of Education votes against teaching evolution weaknesses
In a major defeat for social conservatives, a sharply divided State Board of Education voted Thursday to abandon a longtime state requirement that high school science teachers cover what some critics consider to be “weaknesses” in the theory of evolution.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-evolution_23tex.ART.State.Edition2.4e8893c.html

From AAAS’ Policy Alert:
The Louisiana House of Representatives, by a vote of 94-3, last week passed an “academic freedom” bill that singles out evolution and other theories or fields of science and implies that they are controversial. Because of an amendment, the bill must now go back to the Senate, which previously passed it unanimously. Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is expected to sign it. AAAS had sent a letter to all House members last Tuesday, June 10, opposing the bill. Meanwhile, Gov. Jindal defended discussion of intelligent design in schools during a June 15 interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

WHY BRAINY ANIMALS NEED MORE REM SLEEP AFTER ALL
Biologists have struggled to find any satisfactory explanation for the bewildering variation in how much different mammals sleep. However, new studies that take evolutionary relatedness into account promise to revolutionize the field. New Scientist, 6/19.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14164-why-brainy-animals-need-more-rem-sleep-after-all.html

reprinted from
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2008/ZZ/868_emexpelledem_flunks_the_t_4_15_2008.asp

Expelled flunks the test

www.ExpelledExposed.com finds new creationist “documentary” lacking accuracy on many levels

Oakland, California, April 15, 2008 — Millions of dollars have been spent promoting Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed to fundamentalist church groups, but that money would have been better spent on fact checkers. www.ExpelledExposed.com, a website launched today by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), reveals the truth behind the creationist movie’s misrepresentations.

“Creationists have been making the same arguments for decades,” says Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. “They’ve gotten better at marketing these claims, but they’re no more valid now than during the Scopes trial of the 1920s. Creationists have been predicting the death of evolution for over a century, yet it is constantly affirmed by evidence from fields Darwin could never have imagined.” Given the damning assessment at www.ExpelledExposed.com, Scott adds, “Perhaps the filmmakers should have spent more time hitting the books, instead of beating up on hardworking scientists.”

Throughout the movie, Ben Stein claims that “Big Science” represses intelligent design to advance an atheistic agenda, but Peter Hess, from NCSE’s Faith Outreach Project, doesn’t buy it. “There are many successful evolutionary biologists who are also people of faith,” he observes, “and a host of people of faith who regard intelligent design as a misconceived and harmful rejection of science. In attempting to pit Christianity against science, Expelled misrepresents both.”

“We reviewed public records and reports on the intelligent design promoters who were supposedly discriminated against, and we discovered that the claims that they lost their jobs over intelligent design are unsupported,” explains Josh Rosenau, a biologist at NCSE. “That said, professors who aren’t making advances in their field, editors who disregard their journal’s established practices, and lecturers who repeat creationist falsehoods shouldn’t be surprised if they have trouble holding jobs. These people weren’t expelled; they flunked out.” www.ExpelledExposed.com contains information about the “martyrs” from Expelled, and also of real scientists who successfully challenged established science. “The difference,” NCSE researcher Carrie Sager observes, “is that real scientists back their challenges with experimental results. Results are what changed minds, forced textbook revisions, and earned Nobel Prizes.”

More insidious are the movie’s attempts to link evolution to the Holocaust. Susan Spath, a historian of science at NCSE, comments: “The implication that Darwin led to Nazism and the Holocaust is an irresponsible misrepresentation of a terrible history. Hitler abused many things, including science, and Expelled is wrong to shift blame off his shoulders and onto evolution.” www.ExpelledExposed.com quotes the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, who described similar claims in a previous creationist movie as “an outrageous and shoddy attempt … to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust.”

The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The NCSE maintains its archive of source material on the history of creationism at its Oakland, California, headquarters. On the web at www.ncseweb.org. www.ExpelledExposed.com is a resource for journalists, teachers, and curious moviegoers who want the full story behind Expelled.

By Maria Glod
Washington Post
Published on: 12/05/07 Washington —- American teenagers have less mastery of science and mathematics than peers in many industrialized nations, according to scores on a major international exam released Tuesday.

Education experts say results of the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment highlight the need for changes in classrooms and in the federal No Child Left Behind law. The average science score of U.S. 15-year-olds lagged that of students in 16 of 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that represents the world’s richest countries. U.S. students were further behind in math, trailing counterparts in 23 countries.

“How are our children going to be able to compete with the children of the world? The answer is not well,” said former Colorado governor Roy Romer, chairman of Strong American Schools, a nonpartisan group seeking to make education prominent in the 2008 presidential election.

The PISA test, given every three years, measures the ability of 15-year-olds to answer math and science problems. About 400,000 students, including 5,600 in the United States, took the 2006 exam. There is also a reading portion, but the results for U.S. students were thrown out because the tests were printed incorrectly.

Students in Finland earned top scores in science and math. Mexico was at the bottom of the pack.

The PISA results underscore concern in some quarters that too few U.S. students are prepared to become engineers, scientists and physicians and that the nation may lose ground to economic competitors. An expert panel appointed last year by President Bush is preparing to recommend ways to improve public school math instruction, with a focus on algebra.

PISA, first administered in 2000, covers reading, math and science, but each time the test is given it focuses in depth on one subject. Last year’s exam spotlighted science, covering concepts in physics, chemistry, biology, and earth and space science.

On the science portion, U.S. students, most of them 10th-graders, earned an average score of 489 on a 1,000-point scale, 11 points below the average of the 30 countries. Canada, Japan and Korea were among the countries in which students outperformed American counterparts. U.S. students were on par with eight countries and outperformed five.

In math, only four countries had average scores lower than the United States. Students in 23 countries earned a higher average score, and those in two countries did about the same as the Americans.

The ranking of U.S. students in math and science is about the same as it was in 2003.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings called the results disappointing but noted that the National Math Panel and other initiatives are in motion to improve math and science education. The ranking “speaks to what President Bush has long been advocating for: more rigor in our nation’s high schools; additional resources for advanced courses to prepare students for college-level studies; and stronger math and science education,” she said in a statement.

HERE’S THE COMPETITION

Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has analyzed skills of 15-year-olds in 43 countries. Here’s a snapshot of the Top 10.

MATH

1. China

2. South Korea

3. Hong Kong

4. Switzerland

5. Belgium

6. Finland

7. Czech Republic

8. Liechentenstein

9. New Zealand

10. Netherlands

24. United States

SCIENCE

1. New Zealand

2. Finland

3. U.K.

4. Australia

5. Japan

6. Canada

7. Liechentenstein

8. Slovenia

9. Hong Kong

10. Ger., Czech.

14. United States

A new journal, Evolution: Education and Outreach, seeks to promote the understanding and teaching of evolutionary theory by exhibiting cutting-edge, peer-reviewed articles that have been adapted for classroom use by students of all ages. The print version made its debut Wednesday, Nov. 28, at the 2007 National Association of Biology Teachers conference. The journal will be available free online at http://www.springerlink.com throughout 2008. Visit Evolution: Education and Outreach at
http://www.myspace.com/springer_evoo.