Bored of Education: Summary

Welcome to Texas, or as we are probably going to be called from now on, New Kansas.

Coming up with a summary of what happened last week is not as straightforward as I had hoped. It seems that both sides are claiming victory to some extent. The Discovery Institute reposted this blog from Bruce Chapman. And he seems to have understood the real difference between the old "strengths and weaknesses" language and the new "analyze and evaluate...all sides of scientific explanations":

"Perfect! A policy distinction without a difference! In fact, the new standards are just fine, an improvement, in fact."

Ugh. Discovery Institute mouthpiece Anika Smith quoted fellow DI creationist John West who said, "Texas now has the most progressive science standards on evolution in the entire nation"; that should pretty much tell you how bad things are.

Dan Quinn over at Texas Freedom Network said it best (and I paraphrase a bit) when he said the TXSBOE closed the door on creationism, then went running around the house opening all the windows.

Here is what was achieved (both good and bad) in this process:

• "strengths and weaknesses" got removed, but then replaced with seemingly narrower language of "analyze and evaluate / all sides of scientific explanations"
• The creationist amendments to biology remained, another was inserted. The supposedly pro-science SBOE members were utterly fooled into voting for these inane amendments
• We did remove one egregiously creationist amendment from Earth & Space Science, but apparently at a cost.

Here is what we learned about the SBOE in this process:

• No one on the SBOE can be trusted. People who said they were with us--right to our faces--turned around and voted against good science five minutes later
• I amend the previous statement: Mary Helen Berlanga is the only board member with integrity, and she deserves everyone's praise for holding up her end of the bargain, even while her husband is in intensive care.
• The stupidity of the SBOE members is not limited to the 7 young earth creationists.
• Compromise might be good for policy, but it is not how you craft good science, science education, or educational standards of any kind. Science and bullshit are not on equal footing, and both sides don't have something to offer our students.
  

What we don't know yet:

• How much of the fix was in. Was the "analyze and evaluate / all sides" language a last minute compromise, or was this orchestrated months in advance as part of a change in strategy?
• How will this play out with textbook selection in two years? If the same people are still on the SBOE, then they will repeat the same pattern of forcing textbook publishers to look at "all sides" just as they forced them to look at "weaknesses" of evolution in 2003.
  
• Will the rise in religious fundamentalism at the state level cost Rick Perry the election in 2010?
  

Frankly, I am disgusted by the whole process and with the majority of the SBOE. I have seen more organized parliamentary procedure in high school student council and more informed debate among the high school students at the summer camp where I volunteer. If these are the best people Texas can find to craft education policy in Texas, what does that say about the rest of us?

I have not ever been nor will I ever be embarrassed to be a Texan, but the TX SBOE has done a pretty good job of making us look like we are all inbred, Bible-thumping rubes. I actually heard a woman scream, "My grandfather was not a monkey!" during the TFN press conference on Wednesday. For a minute I thought I had a stroke and was an extra in "Inherit the Wind". It's 2009 as this is as far as some of us have come since the Scopes Trial in 1925?

One of my co-workers bourght her high school daughter to the SBOE meeting on Wednesday to testify, and unfortunately she did not get a chance to speak. What she and her mother did get was a first class education in Pseudoscience and Religious Fundamentalism 101. I've given talks and had numerous conversations with people about these attitudes, and what is clear to me now is that unless you experience this live and in person and hear these people for yourself, you will not understand the depth of ignorance and hubris these people can have. There is simply no way to convey these attitudes, any more than I can write words to describe Van Gogh's "Starry Night" or the music of King Crimson.

As I said to my coworker today, that first experience is a shocker. To us who are working scientists, it is difficult to comprehend a perspective that both fears and misunderstands science. We don't get you anti-science creationists, and we fully admit it. But very few scientists understand the implications of this; we leave the teacher to bear the brunt of this fight.

Ignorance and arrogance are bad; when you mix them together with religious zeal, it's dangerous. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, then let me simply describe what your first experience in a room full of anti-science creationsist will be like:

It's like getting unplugged from The Matrix, and there is no going back after that.

The next question is simple; knowing what you now know, what are you prepared to do about it?