Wednesday, March 08, 2006
South Carolina Board Debates "Critical Analysis"
The South Carolina Board of Education is debating the issue of whether teaching standards should require high school students to "critically analyze" evolution today. This is an intelligent design inspired standard. The Discovery Institute, along with State Sen. Mike Fair are in this one up to their elbows.
Over at the Panda's Thumb, Steve Reuland has posted an article about what's going on in South Carolina that's important for several reasons. We highly recommend it to our readers.
First, Reuland's post documents the extent to which the Discovery Institute is working behind the scenes in South Carolina -- as we must assume it is doing elsewhere. Witnesses who testified for "critical analysis" before the Educational Oversight Committee recently, at the behest of Sen. Fair, were shipped in from out of state -- Kansans will be familiar with that -- by the Discovery Institute.
Second, Reuland exposes the extreme lengths intelligent design activists are willing to go in order to punish academic supporters of science.
We often read complaints from intelligent design advocates that they are victims -- martyrs really -- of censorship or job reprisal. Most often these complaints are sparked by nothing more than other scientists going public to challenge the fallacies of intelligent design.
Such was the case with a letter posted by Red State Rabble earlier this week by colleagues of Dan Ely calling attention to his misrepresentations of evolutionary theory at the Kansas science hearings last May, and his interactions with other faculty members at the University of Akron.
In his post on the current situation in South Carolina, Reuland reprints a letter threatening funding for the College of Charleston because one of its professors, Dr. Rob Dillon, had the temerity to defend science education at a public meeting.
As with everything else about intelligent design, of course, the letter makes demonstrably false charges -- which Reuland easily rebuts.
Over at the Panda's Thumb, Steve Reuland has posted an article about what's going on in South Carolina that's important for several reasons. We highly recommend it to our readers.
First, Reuland's post documents the extent to which the Discovery Institute is working behind the scenes in South Carolina -- as we must assume it is doing elsewhere. Witnesses who testified for "critical analysis" before the Educational Oversight Committee recently, at the behest of Sen. Fair, were shipped in from out of state -- Kansans will be familiar with that -- by the Discovery Institute.
Second, Reuland exposes the extreme lengths intelligent design activists are willing to go in order to punish academic supporters of science.
We often read complaints from intelligent design advocates that they are victims -- martyrs really -- of censorship or job reprisal. Most often these complaints are sparked by nothing more than other scientists going public to challenge the fallacies of intelligent design.
Such was the case with a letter posted by Red State Rabble earlier this week by colleagues of Dan Ely calling attention to his misrepresentations of evolutionary theory at the Kansas science hearings last May, and his interactions with other faculty members at the University of Akron.
In his post on the current situation in South Carolina, Reuland reprints a letter threatening funding for the College of Charleston because one of its professors, Dr. Rob Dillon, had the temerity to defend science education at a public meeting.
As with everything else about intelligent design, of course, the letter makes demonstrably false charges -- which Reuland easily rebuts.
