University of California's Rejection of Creationist Textbooks Ruled Constitutional by a California Federal Court

The National Center for Science Education reported yesterday the defendants in Association of Christian Schools International et al. v. Roman Stearns et al. have prevailed. The lawsuit, originally filed on August 25, 2005, was focused around the Association of Christian Schools International's disapproval of the University of California system's policies and statements relevant to evaluating the qualifications of applicants for admission. The Association, along with Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California, and a handful of students at the school, sued the defendants, claiming the UC system unconstitutionally denied the applications of students from Christian schools. UC deemed the Christian high school course work inadequate preparation for college. The UC system claimed Christian school biology courses which used textbooks entitled Biology: God's Living Creation from A Beka Books and Biology for Christian Schools from Bob Jones University Press were, "inconsistent with the viewpoints and knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community."

On March 26, 2008, Judge S. James Otero ruled in favor of the defendants' motion establishing the constitutionality of the university system's policies and statements relevant to evaluating the qualifications of applicants for admission. However, the plantiffs' claim that UC policies and statements relevant to the specific cases cited in the lawsuit were unconstitutional was still unresolved. The defendants' motion for a judgment on the plantiffs' specific cases was granted in the ruling Judge Otero set down on August 8, 2008. The ruling ended: "Because Plaintiffs fail to raise any genuine issue of material fact to support their as-applied claims, Defendants' Motion is GRANTED" (emphasis in original).

The August 8 ruling addressed UC's rejection of a biology course submitted by Calvary Baptist school which used Biology: God's Living Creation as its textbook. The book was evaluated by Barbara Sawrey, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education, and faculty member in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at UC San Diego. Sawrey described the book as taking an "overall un-scientific approach to the subject matter." Expert witnesses for the defense Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, and Francisco J. Ayala, University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UC Irvine's School of Biological Sciences, had similar reactions to both Creation and Biology for Christian Schools. From the NCSE article:

"Kennedy wrote, 'the problem is not ... that the creationist view is taught as an alternative to scientific explanations, but that the nature of science, the theory of evolution, and critical thinking are not taught adequately.'"

A little more research on the books themselves turned up some interesting excerpts from each of them. On A Beka Book's website were Creation can be ordered, a snapshot of two pages describing the human skeletal system can be found. Here are two of eight questions offered to students as a section review:

" 7. In a paragraph, describe how the structure of the skull is an example of God's design and provision for man."

"8. Men and woman both have exactly twelve pairs of ribs. Why is this not a contradiction of Genesis 2: 21-22?"

Also, excerpts of Biology for Christian Schools found through a Wikipedia explanation of the case (I didn't rely solely on Wikipedia's description, the quoted text can be found on page 40 of the PDF of the ruling) prove Kennedy's description of the book is accurate. From the Wikipedia article:

" Plaintiff's evidence also supports Defendants' conclusion that these biology texts are inappropriate for use as the primary or sole text. Plaintiffs' own biology expert, Professor Michael Behe, testified that 'it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea. . . . Requiring a student to, effectively, consent to an idea violates his personal integrity. Such a wrenching violation [may cause] a terrible educational outcome.' (Behe Decl. Para. 59.)

Yet, the two Christian biology texts at issue commit this 'wrenching violation.' For example, Biology for Christian Schools declares on the very first page that:

1. 'Whatever the Bible says is so; whatever man says may or may not be so, is the only [position] a Christian can take. . . .'
2. 'If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.'
3. 'Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible.' (Phillips Decl. Ex. B, at xi.)"

Intelligent design proponent Dr. Micheal Behe's testimony on behalf of the defendants did not prove convincing to the judge, even though he was the plantiffs' expert witness. Judge Otero wrote in his ruling:

"'Plaintiffs offer little admissible evidence to the contrary. Plaintiffs' Biology expert, Dr. Michael Behe, submitted a declaration concluding that the BJU text mentions standard scientific content. ... However, Professor Behe "did not consider how much detail or depth" the texts gave to this standard content. ... Therefore, Professor Behe fails to refute one of Professor Kennedy's primary concerns that the nature of science, the theory of evolution, and critical thinking are not taught adequately. Accordingly, there is no genuine issue of material fact as to this issue. Defendants had a rational basis for rejecting Calvary Baptist's proposed Biology course.'"

I'm sure it's obvious by now, and by my previous posts, that I whole-heartedly agree with Judge Otero's ruling. It's hilarious to me that the textbooks in question did not even pretend to be non-religious. No ambiguous "designer" mentioned there; the books unabashedly gave the Christian god credit for creation of the universe. A case like this shows how incredibly free private schools in this country are to teach pretty much anything they want. They really have no fear of any angry "evolutionists" coming in and trying to squelch their beliefs. However, if these private schools want their students to be accepted in the real world, like the UC system, they clearly have to do better. It's ironic that scientists never try to sue anyone to get evolution taught in these private schools, while the reverse is all too prevalent. If the theory of evolution is really this huge conspiracy to get "god" out of the classroom, as some fundamentalist Christians claim, wouldn't evolutionary scientists be trying their hardest to get their theory into the schools where it is least accepted?

Texas State Board of Education Starts Hearings On Evolution

According to a recent editorial in The Austin Chronicle, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has begun hearings to decide whether or not Texas public school curricula should include material balancing the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of evolution. SBOE chairman Dr. Don McLeroy D.D.S. (that means he's a dentist) believes that there is not enough evidence to support evolution. The self-proclaimed creationist is quoted in the editorial:

"this year's 'battle is to bring in some of the weaknesses of evolution,"'to ninth- and 10th-grade biology classrooms, retaining language requiring that teachers instruct students in the 'strengths and weaknesses' of scientific theories."

While McLeroy speaks of "scientific theories" in the plural, Dan Quinn, communication director for the Texas Freedom Network, a statewide organization that works to mitigate the influence of fundamentalism on state policy, claims the only theory of which McLeroy and the six other conservative members of the Texas SBOE remain unconvinced is evolution.

McLeroy claims there are three major weaknesses of evolutionary theory about which Texas students should be taught: "gaps" in the fossil record, there not being enough time for evolution to happen and the complexity of life. The author of the editorial Andrea Grimes asked University of Texas integrative biology professor David Hillis, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, about McLeroy's list of "weaknesses." His response was as follows:

"Hillis said McLeroy was simply denying facts. 'There is indeed a vast record of transitional fossils,' wrote Hillis, saying McLeroy's fossil record claims are 'completely at odds with the experts in the entire field of paleontology.'"

As for McLeroy's second assertion regarding length of time required for evolution to have taken place, Hillis wrote that the position 'demonstrates an extraordinary ignorance of biology,' since rates of evolution observed in laboratory tests have been 'more than sufficient' to prove natural rates of genetic change that coincide with the fossil record."

Finally, McLeroy's cell-complexity argument does not even belong in a scientific discussion, wrote Hillis: 'The argument that 'It is too complicated, so God must have done it' is not a scientific argument.'"

These three perceived "weaknesses" should sound familiar to anyone even remotely interested in the evolution/intelligent design creationism debate. I.D. proponents have been bringing up these same issues for decades.

Grimes cites the case of Chris Comer I wrote about here as evidence that anti-science conservatives have more than enough power to affect Texas SBOE policy. Grimes comments on the effect the anti-evolution school board could have on education in Texas:

"It's worth noting that part of the TEA and SBOE's duty statement includes a goal to "prepare today's schoolchildren for a successful future." If the weak-evolution curricula passes, Texas schoolchildren will be able to achieve that success in one of two ways: fly out of state for biology class and be back in time for lunch or set their sights on excelling at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University."

In addition to the detrimental effect weak-evolution curricula will have on students in Texas, there is another aspect of this issue the editorial did not mention. Since Texas is the second largest U.S. state, it is also one of the country's biggest buyer of textbooks. If the Texas SBOE purchases textbooks teaching the "weaknesses" of evolution as McLeroy understands them, the textbook manufacturer will most likely opt out of producing books for the rest of the nation different from those sold to its largest customer.

Quoting the New York Times article cited above, "The ideas that work their way into education [in Texas] will surface in classrooms throughout the country."

I really don't have any snarky, sarcastic comments about this story. Issues dealing with the education of this country's young people are too serious to joke around about. This sort of thing makes me truly ashamed to be a native-born Texan.

Woman Forced to Resign Over Evolution in Texas Fights Back

I have been wanting to write about this story since it first came to my attention on July 3, but other posts which seemed more pressing at the time forced themselves to the front.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit organization that follows the evolution/intelligent design debate across the United States. Its website keeps those interested, such as myself, up to date on the actions of school boards across the country which seem to be pro-creationism/intelligent design.

The story in question started in November of 2007 when Chris Comer, director of Science at the Texas Education Agency (TEA), was forced to resign because she forwarded an e-mail to her colleagues at the TEA alerting them to a talk scheduled to be given in Austin, TX. The talk was to be given by Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University and a member of NCSE's board of directors. The TEA cited the subject matter of the talk, the history of the intelligent design movement and Forrest's involvement in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, as a reason for Comer's requested resignation. The TEA said Comer's forwarding of the e-mail represented her endorsement of the speaker on a subject, the evolution/intelligent design debate, on which the TEA must remain neutral. Just to make that clear to everyone reading this, that's a state-run educational agency choosing to remain neutral on the subject of evolution through natural selection.

Eight months later, Comer has now, thankfully, filed suit against the TEA in Federal District Court for redress. From this NCSE article, Comer seeks:

• a declaratory judgment that the TEA policy of being "neutral" on the subject of creationism violates the Establishment Clause;
  
• a declaratory judgment that Comer's firing was unconstitutional;
  
• an offer from the TEA of reinstatement of Comer to her previous position as Director of Science;
  
• an injunction against TEA "having, expressing, or imposing through any means, a policy of 'neutrality' with respect to the teaching of creationism in the Texas public schools, or a policy that expressly or implicitly equates evolution and creationism, or that in any way credits creationism as a valid scientific theory"
  
• legal fees

It is my sincere hope that Miss Comer gets fully reinstated and once there, brings some much-needed common sense and rationality to a public agency clearly devoid of even the smallest shred of either. If this issue did not affect so many young people, it would truly be laughable. How can any member of the TEA, an elected board of 15 people, claim the agency must remain neutral on a subject as fundamental as evolution, and keep a straight face?