After hearing from about 30 of the more than 100 people packed into the board room, the board deleted the phrase from the original policy
and replaced it with this one, taken directly from the New Mexico Science Standards, Benchmarks, and Performance StandardsWhen appropriate and consistent with the New Mexico Science Standards, Benchmarks, and Performance Standards, discussions about issues that are of interest to both science and individual religious and philosophical beliefs will acknowledge that reasonable people may disagree about the meaning and interpretation of data.
This is a real improvement over the original language of Policy 401, of which the New Mexico Academy of Science wrote"Students shall understand that reasonable people may disagree about some issues that are of interest to both science and religion (e.g., the origin of life on earth, the cause of the big bang, the future of the earth)."
The new wording, which also appears in existing state standards, was originally intended to help teachers having trouble with irate creationist parents. Such wording has been used successfully in the past to defuse classroom strife. Elaine Briseño of the Albuquerque Journal reported on April 11th thatIf scientists simply agreed to disagree about "the meaning and interpretation of data," scientific progress would cease. Science is about testing ideas and claims, not pretending that all "interpretations" are equally valid.
"The Rio Rancho school board voted Monday to amend a controversial science policy, which opponents said was a ruse to insert intelligent design into the science classroom. The board removed a sentence from the policy that deviated from state standards, and replaced it with language taken verbatim from the standards. The sentence that was removed was seen by many opponents as a way to slip religion into the classroom whenever teachers were discussing evolution. The two board members who introduced the policy, Don Schlichte and Marty Scharfglass, also apologized to the science teachers at the high school for not consulting them before proposing and then adopting the policy last summer. "When we brought the policy forward, we should have talked to the science staff," Scharfglass said. "It was a mistake not to do that." An opponent of the original policy, Rio Rancho High School SciMatics Academy head Dan Barbour, lauded the board's action after the meeting. 'It's a decision that brings the community together,' he said. 'It's a victory for both sides. It retains the emphasis on critical thinking and removes the language with religious undertones.'
Science teacher Dan Barbour addresses the board. Attendees spilled over into two adjacent rooms.
While this victory is a significant battle, the war is far from over. Look for Intelligent Design pundits to continue spreading The Lie that New Mexico's standards are "Intelligent-design friendly."
Sadly, this misconception is furthered by Briseño's interview with board member Scharfglass:
I'm not sure if Scharfglass was misinformed, or if reporter Briseño just doesn't know what's in NM standards. Nowhere do New Mexico's standards call for presentation of alternative ideas to evolutionary theory. If you are curious what New Mexico's science standards really say, please read "Do NM's Science Standards Embrace Intelligent Design?" at NMSR, and "New Mexico Science Standards Do Not Support ID's Concept of Teach the 'Controversy'" on the Thumb for all the lurid details.Scharfglass said after the meeting that although the amended policy just restates exactly what state standards say, it is necessary to make sure the standards are being enforced in class. That standard is that students be allowed to discuss alternative ideas to evolutionary theory.
32 Comments
RBH · 11 April 2006
Cobb County, Dover, Ohio, Rio Rancho. Nice!
RBH
David B. Benson · 11 April 2006
"understand that reasonable people may disagree" --- Then I fear that students in New Mexico are not going to understand a usual meaning of "reason" and "reasonable". If the word had been "polite" or "thoughtful" instead of "reasonable" I suppose I would not care quite so much.
Well, I suppose this wording change in the school district document is a small step in the direction of "reason", even if if does bend the language, engendering confusion.
Bruce Thompson GQ · 11 April 2006
Congratulations, free beer for New Mexico, at least those in favor of the policy change.
Delta Pi Gamma (Scientia et Fermentum)
secondclass · 11 April 2006
Certainly reasonable people can disagree on basic scientific facts, but I wonder if that's true of people who are both reasonable and informed? For instance, most of us consider flat-earthers to be unreasonable or grossly uninformed.
Steviepinhead · 11 April 2006
...Or all three: unreasonable, gross, and uninformed.
harold · 11 April 2006
Reasonable people can indeed disagree about the origin of life on earth, the "cause" of the "big bang", and the "future of the earth".
Indeed, you'd have to be quite unreasonable to have a dogmatic opinion on any of these, regardless of your religion or lack of religion.
Bill Gascoyne · 11 April 2006
That's no doubt "reasonable" in a legal sense (roughly analogous to "sane"), not "reasoning" in a scientific sense.
David B. Benson · 11 April 2006
Well, sane people might have conjectures about these subjects, but it does seem to me that every reasonable person ought to say "I don't know, and as far as I know, no one else does either."
Carsten S · 11 April 2006
Is there any scientific theory that states that the big bang was caused by something? This would seem quite nonsensical to me. So "the origin of life on earth, the cause of the big bang, the future of the earth" lumps together an event that has happened between the beginning of time and now (actually quite near to now) with something before the beginning of time and something after now. Quite a big qualitative difference, in my opinion.
Steviepinhead · 11 April 2006
Re "the future of the earth":
I'd go so far as to say that no reasonable person could plausibly claim to know for sure what's going to happen very far into the future...
David B. Benson · 11 April 2006
On arXiv one can certainly find papers by physicists conjecturing, based on certain "physical" principles, that the cosmos has existed forever, and that the Big Bang was the freezing (and re-expansion) of a formerly existing highly compressed "hot" state.
While an interesting conjecture, such ideas are not in of themselves a testable hypothesis. These ideas hang around the 20+ year attempts to correctly formulate quantum gravity. AFIAK, none of this work has led to a testable hypothesis, but those guys keep saying any day, week, month, year, decade now...
David B. Benson · 11 April 2006
Ah, I missed "the future of the earth". Far enough in the future, the outcome is essentially certain: the sun goes into its off-main-sequence red giant phase and swallows the earth. But that's about 2 billion years from now...
Steviepinhead · 11 April 2006
Assuming anything remotely like our current species--or a continuation/augmentation/enhancement thereof--is around for two billion years (ha! when the last billion has seen animal life evolve from single-celled eukaryote to the proliferation of body plans with which every niche now swarms!), it's not beyond the realm of possibilty that "we" (our furthest offspring) might well be capable of engineering on the grandest scale. So, assuming it even made sense to care at that point what was going to happen to this particular star or this particular planet, it might be possible to intervene in stellar evolution, open a wormhole along the earth's orbit and spirit it elsewhere, whatever...
I assume--without knowing for sure--that the phrase was intended to allow a fudge-factor for fundy-conservative concerns about extinction of species, global warming, the ever-expected anyday-now Rapture or Apocalypse, that minor sort of quibble. And not "really" intended to look as far forward into the fate of the solar system as the phrase itself seems to suggest.
But that's no reason to let their feeble imaginations or petty concerns trump our unconstrained conceptualizing.
buddha · 11 April 2006
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 11 April 2006
I've heard that Dembski is now endorsing some American Spectator piece blithering about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
So much for that whole "ID isn't creationism" thingie, huh. But then, I guess once you've already lost the court case, there's no longer any need for the pretense, is there.
David B. Benson · 11 April 2006
Well, one way to counter nonsense regarding the second law is to point out that the earth is an example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics (NET), about which more can be read in the highly accessible, and to me informative and exciting book, "Into the Cool".
(I wish more biologists more read it and offer some informed opinions...)
Jeff McKee · 11 April 2006
Anybody else smell the next law suit coming? Better there than here in Ohio.
Better nowhere, actually ... Rio Rancho needs a wake-up call.
Cheers,
Jeff
Tim Tesar · 11 April 2006
great evolutionary biologistmathematician Granville Sewell from thatwidely respected peer-reviewed biology journalconservative political rag The American Spectator. Does anyone care to take a shot at deconstructing it? Sorry, it's way beyond my competence.Glen Davidson · 11 April 2006
RBH · 11 April 2006
Jason Rosenhouse has addressed the latest Sewell ... um ... thing.
RBH · 11 April 2006
I should add that Mark Perakh has also eviscerated Sewell.
Tim Tesar · 12 April 2006
Many thanks to Glen D and RBH for the links to the analyses of the Sewell article. I will read them with pleasure, and next time I'll do a little Googling before concluding that such work had not yet been done.
Dave Thomas · 12 April 2006
W. Kevin Vicklund · 12 April 2006
Whacko-Troll!
Dave, J. Mahoney is the banned Larry Fafarman, continuing the practice that got him banned, posting under a fake name (the ban was enforced after he posted as a PT regular, and he has since threatened to post as other regulars, such as myself, in order to get some of out posts banned). You can tell it's him because of the contents of his Selman v. Cobb argument. Please deal with his posting as you see appropriate (deleting, moving to the Bathroom Wall, disemvowelling, etc.)
(NB - although he will claim otherwise, he was not banned due to the contents of his posts or his views)
Sir_Toejam · 12 April 2006
Larry:
Two-Face says:
"Why won't you just die!!??"
Dave Thomas · 12 April 2006
Dave Thomas · 12 April 2006
The Albuquerque Journal's Trever has a great cartoon about the Rio Rancho decision.
Dave
Anton Mates · 13 April 2006
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 13 April 2006
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 13 April 2006
Dave Thomas · 13 April 2006
Dave Thomas · 13 April 2006
Author's Note
It seems "Chuck Mack," while possessing a valid e-mail address, has refused to reply to my query as to his reality.
Therefore, "Chuck" is consigned to the dustbin of unpublished comments, along with Larry and J. Mahoney.
"Chuck," if you think this is unfair, then respond to my e-mail of yesterday* and explain why.
Cheers, Dave
* And if you can't respond to my e-mail, why should I allow you to mis-use someone else's valid e-mail address?