Freshwater supporter claims "teach the controversy" as defense

"Teach the controversy" = ID trojan horse
ID = creationist trojan horse
creationism = religion's trojan horse

Seems like a russian-doll-trojan-horse to me ..

I’ve read some of the materials that Freshwater used and I’ve talked with his students. Freshwater was feeding them the worst of creationist trash and through his spokesman is now claiming that he was following state standards that explicitly disavowed the teaching of intelligent design!

— Richard B. Hoppe

First, around the country, science teachers are being harassed, intimidated, and sometimes fired for trying to present scientific evidence critical of Darwinian theory along with the evidence that supports it. Second, many school administrators and teachers are fearful or confused about what is legally allowed when teaching about controversial scientific issues like evolution.

— The DI

Matryoshkas are often designed to follow a particular theme, for instance peasant girls in traditional dress, but the theme can be anything, from fairy tale characters to Soviet leaders.

Matryoshkas are also used metaphorically, as a design paradigm, known as the "matryoshka principle" or "nested doll principle". It denotes a recognizable relationship of "similar object-within-similar object" that appears in the design of many other natural and man-made objects. Examples include the Matryoshka brain and the Matroska media container format.

The Dishonesty Institute is a fan of George Orwell's book, 1984. They use a lot of Doublespeak.

Intelligent Design=creationism

Teach both sides=creationism

Teach the controversy=creationism

Academic Freedom=creationism

Strengths and weaknesses=creationism

Next scam=creationism

And of course:

Lies are Truth and Freedom is Slavery

We fully expect an Academic Freedom bill in Texas, especially if the fundies do not get their way on the revision of the state science standards. The scary part, if such a bill passes, and there is a legal challenge, the courts in Texas might uphold the bill as constitutional.

We fully expect an Academic Freedom bill in Texas, especially if the fundies do not get their way on the revision of the state science standards.

Richard, thanks for the link and your kind words!

The Dishonesty Institute wishes to balance teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Let's see how their suggested supplementary biology text, "Exploring Evolution," balances out:

Strengths = 0
Weaknesses= 2,2387

What a surprise.

According to a recent poll 16% of high school biology teachers in the U.S. are young earth creationists who believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”

These findings strongly suggest that victory in the courts is not enough for the scientific community to ensure that evolution is included in high school science courses. Nor is success in persuading states to adopt rigorous content standards consistent with recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations. Scientists concerned about the quality of evolution instruction might have a bigger impact in the classroom by focusing on the certification standards for high school biology teachers. Our study suggests that requiring all teachers to complete a course in evolutionary biology would have a substantial impact on the emphasis on evolution and its centrality in high school biology courses. In the long run, the impact of such a change could have a more far reaching effect than the victories in courts and in state governments.

While we're at it let's teach the controversy over burning a cross onto a student's skin.

Flint said:

According to a recent poll 16% of high school biology teachers in the U.S. are young earth creationists who believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”

One would think it might be possible to disqualify anti-science fanatics from teaching science, on grounds of simple merit. Churches somehow manage to weed virulent atheists from achieving positions where they can preach it to congregations. Why can't public education achieve even close to that level of due diligence?

Don’t we wish. Unfortunately religious and public institutions operate under different laws.

It seems to me that the case against this doofus should be split into at least 3 seperate cases:

1) Improperly proseltizing for a specific religion in a governent orginization

2) Insubordination in the defiance of school board rules, policies and specific directives

3) Child abuse

Any one of these should be sufficient to justify the termination of this teacher, and the last should be enough to have him listed on the child abuse registry, preventing him from EVER getting a job teaching children.

Likewise, the school board should be held accountable, since Freshwater's abuses had apparently been going on for several years, with the knowledge of the board, and the board did little to correct the situation, other than making impotent directives, but failing to monitor and enforce its will.

I did a search of Uncommon Descent for "Freshwater," and then for "John Freshwater," using the on-site search field. Several search results turned up a snipped of text, "Preferably like soon to be EXPELLED John Freshwater did. magnan: I would summarize and restate this for clarification, if just for myself. ..." but following those results didn't yield anything.

Then I went to the Discovery Institute's search page, entered "John Freshwater," set the option to search the bodies of the articles, find all keywords, and include blogs.
Nada. When that didn't work, I tried the Search w/Google option. Still nothing.
No word for, no word against. This, being fairly widespread news about sacking a public school teacher who claimed "viewpoint discrimination/teaching the controversy," might have been a good opportunity for them to at least weigh in on some aspects of the story.

I think the burning of crosses into students' forearms might be scaring them off. The abuse makes it too dangerous to hold up Freshwater as another "Expelled" martyr, despite the vocal minority of support for him. So far (at least from what I've looked at), they aren't even trying to spin the issue. Rather than alienate a good chunk of their audience by leveling a pronouncement either way, they're keeping silent on it.

Flint said: I wouldn't give up quite so easily. There really ARE levels of merit public employees must meet.

Why not add the presumption that someone whose religious faith requires that they break the law, should not be positioned to do so?

It seems to me that the case against this doofus should be split into at least 3 seperate cases: 1) Improperly proseltizing for a specific religion in a governent orginization 2) Insubordination in the defiance of school board rules, policies and specific directives 3) Child abuse

Flint said: And they recommend more education?

Apparently it's not only UD. Our trolls are suspiciously absent.

Maybe we should point them to this thread?

What you do, is ask the person interviewing for the job if they - the individual - will do the job. If they say yes, you hold them to it, and you fire them if they turn out to be a liar.

Our trolls are suspiciously absent. Maybe we should point them to this thread?

Rather than alienate a good chunk of their audience by leveling a pronouncement either way, they’re keeping silent on it.

— Wheels

When the course includes materials that inhibit the ability of the students to succeed at a next level of education, or for all intents and purposes demand remediation, why is the course being credited towards graduation?

Would the community put up with a teacher (or a school board) for long if their students had to repeat courses because they couldn't earn their credits - couldn't graduate - couldn't be admitted to college?

Torbjörn Larsson, OM said: For example, Sweden has national standards and school inspections. And it seems to me those certification standards must be national to be effective. So, um, does US has any national regulation, besides the constitution?

I would add that although there isn't much in the way of national regulation, there are national mandates, usually tied to the minimal national funding of education. (ie, Bush's infamous "No Child's Behind Left" program.) This program in particular has been criticized (correctly, IMO) as promoting a "teaching to the test" mentality in public education at the expense of actual learning. There have been a few cases where states and/or districts have decided to "opt out" of the program, which means they lose the associated funding. Unfortunately, with the sad state of K-12 funding in general, this simply isn't a practical alternative for most schools.

As a result, University and College admissions offices become the defacto standards enforcers. When viewed in the light of the increasing number of fundie founded and funded institutions at the college level, this has some truly frightening implications for the future. But at least I got in some alliteration. :P

Flint said: If there are effective ways to try to head creationists off at the pass successfuly used in other countries, before they spend years preaching in public schools, I agree they should be adopted, mutatis mutandis.

So to answer the question, yes, I would impose such a litmus test. Lack of ability to accept the validity of what you're teaching should disqualify you just as surely as lack of knowledge of that material...If this cure happens to disqualify a few percent of Believers who would still teach biology properly, then this is a very cheap price to pay.

Incidentally the 2nd part of the Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey is out.

http://religions.pewforum.org/?sid=ST2008062300818&pos=list

Among other things it shows that people don't articulate consistent beliefs when asked simple questions on religion. Check out the nonzero yet siginificant % of athiests who say they pray; who believe in hell; who say they "completely" believe in angels!

Maybe the survey was Pharyngulated...

Eric said: I don't agree with that in principle. But to quibble, the PLoS research article from which the 16% number comes also says that slightly less than 12.5% teach it (creationism/ID). So about a quarter of that 16% don't. Banning from a job a quarter of a large religous group based on the actions of the others sounds like fairly awful discrimination to me. It's not just "a few percent" of babies you're throwing out with the bathwater there - you're advocating a public policy that wrongly discriminates 25% of the time.

Just in case the other thread on which I belatedly posted this info is kaput:

Daubenmire's web site at coachdavelive.com now offers a "John Freshwater Investigation Report" (in pdf format), which was announced earlier today as "light on the real reason they are after John Freshwater."

I'm too wiped out to read it, never mind deliver a coherent report (if such is even possible), but surely others here are not so wimpy.

The pdf referred to is the report to the board by the outside investigator. There's no new content on "Coach" Dave's site yet.

I must say that this whole affair sickens me.

That the parents tolerate an incompetent science teacher because he shares their misconceptions and wrong-headed YECism does not surprise me greatly. That they tolerate - nay, approve of - his proselytising in the classroom in direct violation of the first amendment does surprise me a bit.

But that they tolerate (and, seemingly, approve of) direct physical abuse of a child (or children) in the classroom astonishes me. If this same thing had happened in England, Freshwater would need round-the-clock police protection to ensure that he is still alive to go on trial. If found guilty, he would get a permanent criminal record; would never again be permitted to hold any position of responsibility over other people's kids; and would probably suffer a significant amount of physical and verbal abuse while in prison (from the other inmates, not from the guards).

IMO, deliberately teaching misconceptions instead of science also counts as child abuse, because it inhibits the ability of the child to learn about the world in which we live.

Eric:

OK, I understand. You're opposed to preventive measures, but not to corrective measures. I can understand this. I should point out that ANY qualifications required before being permitted to teach are preventive measures. I see the careful distinction between a religious and an educational qualification as being a rather fine line - plenty of people (unfortunately) teach high school science who are nominally unqualified by education or training, yet do an adequate job of preparing students.

Which means qualifications are a probabilistic exercise. If your nominal qualifications are 75% accurate in identifying problems, this is a spectacularly high success rate compare to current credentialing results.

Monitoring performance (with cameras, for example) sounds like a fine idea in principle. In practice, the cameras are expensive, might have some legal barriers, someone must be paid to watch this material - AND that someone must himself be vetted for religious suitability, or the monitoring is useless. Still, the school administration had known about Freshwater's preaching and terrible (worse than nothing) "science" classes for a decade yet did nothing (except keep their kids out of his class). So in practice, monitoring is prima facie an expensive exercise in futility. Once the creationist is given his pulpit, it is DAMN difficult to dislodge him. He's gotta do something like burn brands into children to get removed.

RBH makes a point that must be addressed: Freshwater enjoyed solid, enthusiastic, overwhelming majority local popular support. The mayor's son will get a speeding ticking before the local rag will notice the law is being broken in the local school. If 12% of biology teachers are preaching creationism nationwide, clearly correction after-the-fact ain't working. The very real, very high costs of blowing the whistle (which probably accomplishes absolutely nothing but grief for the whistle-blower most of the time) is a risk few people will take.

Actually, Flint, there is a simple way to test a teacher's performance - test his students.

If the students mostly know what they are supposed to know, then the teacher is doing a good job. If they are mostly incapable of answering even fairly basic questions, then the teacher has performed poorly. Poor performance would then trigger close monitoring of the teacher's lessons (perhaps even to the extent of having another teacher sit in on some of that teacher's lessons).

When I was at school 20-odd years ago, we had annual exams. Not only did this give the school a clear idea of how all the students are performing, it could (at least in principle) also be used to measure a teacher's performance against his or her peers.

I recognise that there are certain objections against examinations as a measure, but they can still be valuable for three reasons:

(1) They can at least provide a crude measure of a teacher's performance (which surely is better than no measure at all);

(2) They prepare the students for subsequent exam situations in an environment where sub-optimal performance is not so critical;

(3) They allow the school to "stream" students so that everyone gets taught at an appropriate level (yes, this is elitist, but this is a positive thing - for instance, sports are elitist, too, but no-one whines about that).

Flint said: I see the careful distinction between a religious and an educational qualification as being a rather fine line - plenty of people (unfortunately) teach high school science who are nominally unqualified by education or training, yet do an adequate job of preparing students.

Which means qualifications are a probabilistic exercise. If your nominal qualifications are 75% accurate in identifying problems, this is a spectacularly high success rate compare to current credentialing results.

Monitoring performance (with cameras, for example) sounds like a fine idea in principle. In practice, the cameras are expensive, might have some legal barriers, someone must be paid to watch this material - AND that someone must himself be vetted for religious suitability, or the monitoring is useless.

Still, the school administration had known about Freshwater's preaching and terrible (worse than nothing) "science" classes for a decade yet did nothing (except keep their kids out of his class). So in practice, monitoring is prima facie an expensive exercise in futility. Once the creationist is given his pulpit, it is DAMN difficult to dislodge him. He's gotta do something like burn brands into children to get removed.

Nigel D said: Actually, Flint, there is a simple way to test a teacher's performance - test his students. If the students mostly know what they are supposed to know, then the teacher is doing a good job. If they are mostly incapable of answering even fairly basic questions, then the teacher has performed poorly. Poor performance would then trigger close monitoring of the teacher's lessons (perhaps even to the extent of having another teacher sit in on some of that teacher's lessons). When I was at school 20-odd years ago, we had annual exams. Not only did this give the school a clear idea of how all the students are performing, it could (at least in principle) also be used to measure a teacher's performance against his or her peers. I recognise that there are certain objections against examinations as a measure, but they can still be valuable for three reasons: (1) They can at least provide a crude measure of a teacher's performance (which surely is better than no measure at all); (2) They prepare the students for subsequent exam situations in an environment where sub-optimal performance is not so critical; (3) They allow the school to "stream" students so that everyone gets taught at an appropriate level (yes, this is elitist, but this is a positive thing - for instance, sports are elitist, too, but no-one whines about that).

I suppose the law could pull a "Discovery Institute gambit" and test for nominally scientific topics that just by coincidence happen to be standard creationist misrepresentations, distortions, and lies. Then the testers could say "religion? Who, us? These are strictly questions about scientific facts."

I do understand that it's not religion per se that disqualifies creationists, it's teaching idiotic nonsense in class (technical incompetence) and waving bibles around while preaching in class (violation of law).

But my point was, as everyone seems to recognize, when you have a poorly educated and highly creationist community, weeding even the likes of Freshwater out of teaching positions quickly becomes a vicious and dangerous exercise. Experience shows those who think their god is being served, are incapable of policing their own behavior. It by definition cannot be wrong.

In terms of efficiency, I hope we all agree that preventing creationists from becoming preacher/teachers in the first place is both least expensive and least damaging to the children. But the presumption of innocence until actual commission of error is inherently inefficient.

Public education is a world of standards - standards of teaching performance, learning performance, credentialing, merit. The most serious problem we can face is community-sanctioned flagrant incompetence. Religion is a vehicle ideally suited and positioned to produce it. They not only believe nonsense, they believe they are saving souls if they get kids to believe nonsense also. These are teachers!

So we end up pleading for more parents to place themselves in harm's way in the hopes that someday someone else might benefit. And experience suggests that the harm is likely to happen, and likely to be significant, while the probability of eventual benefit is low (and external). Regretting the shortage of volunteers is safe and legal, so we wring our hands while 12% of biology teachers preach anti-science crap.

Flint said: In terms of efficiency, I hope we all agree that preventing creationists from becoming preacher/teachers in the first place is both least expensive and least damaging to the children.

But the presumption of innocence until actual commission of error is inherently inefficient.

Eric,

Not sure we're quite communicating here. My goal is to do whatever is legally possible to prevent people from becoming teachers (really, of any subject) if they sincerely believe the curriculum they must present is in serious error. I personally think the inevitable bias in such a situation should constitute cause to take preventive action.

I certainly agree with you that the efficiency tradeoff we make is a bargain. I wouldn't like to be presumed guilty of something I haven't done yet, on the grounds that someone doesn't trust me. We certainly need something more concrete.

But what I suggested was to "test for nominally scientific topics that just by coincidence happen to be standard creationist misrepresentations, distortions, and lies." What I had in mind was constructing a qualifying exam where creationist doctrinal positions could be integrated into some questions in such a way that AiG-type answers would seem perfectly "reasonable" to a creationist. Is this a religious test, or a subject matter test? It just might filter our a few of the worst bozos.

Personally, I'm convinced that the most devout creationists are beyond deprogramming long before 9th grade biology. Freshwater's little victims were probably (for the most part) already familiar with what he taught them, or with sufficiently similar bullshit so that his additional material was easy to assimilate (it fit the framework) and no accommodation (changing the framework to fit the idiocy) was required at all.

Perhaps, then, another qualification might be asking an applicant how s/he'd handle a student primed and trained in AiG's recommended disruptive methods (such as asking "were you there" or "why do you hate god?"). Perhaps such a line of questioning would reveal a lot about the candidate.

I'm not totally insensitive to the protection and defense of people's rights. I'd just like to balance Freshwater's right to his faith, with his students' right to expect an education, and their right NOT to be lied to and crippled for life.

What would you suggest?

The most serious problem we can face is community-sanctioned flagrant incompetence. Religion is a vehicle ideally suited and positioned to produce it. They not only believe nonsense, they believe they are saving souls if they get kids to believe nonsense also.

Flint said: My goal is to do whatever is legally possible to prevent people from becoming teachers (really, of any subject) if they sincerely believe the curriculum they must present is in serious error. I personally think the inevitable bias in such a situation should constitute cause to take preventive action.

What would you suggest?

Eric said: If a judge can send someone to jail for years longer than they believe is right, I submit to you that a YEC teacher can be expected to teach a little evolution.

The point is that people can and do separate their personal beliefs from their job performance, even in areas of great conflict. I'm not saying everyone is good at it, I'm saying that your pre-emptive strike strategy prejudges a person's ability to do so based on their religion.

Stanton said: The only problem is that I only know of for this situation is that out of the 200 or Young Earth Creationists I've met, there were, at most 5 who bothered to make an effort to understand basic concepts of evolution and biology,

Eric said: And every profession has tools to deal with discipline problems

Stanton said:

Eric said: And every profession has tools to deal with discipline problems

Such as a scowling nun armed with a meter stick?

Stanton said: The only problem is that I only know of for this situation is that out of the 200 or Young Earth Creationists I've met, there were, at most 5 who bothered to make an effort to understand basic concepts of evolution and biology, or at least learn to not speak of evolution in the tone of voice normal people normally reserve for discussing ritualized murder+cannibalism. Do realize that Young Earth Creationists regard the idea of evolution as being a horrifyingly pernicious threat that springs forth from the Prophet of Satan, aka "Charles Darwin." To trust a Young Earth Creationist to accurately teach even a little evolution is a fairytale. [...]But, Young Earth Creationists have demonstrated time and time again that it is extremely unwise to trust them to contain their personal beliefs when placing them in a conflicting environment, especially when the matter of teaching evolution and biology is involved.

Eric said: Now, if the evaluation procedure is good (something I'd be in favor of ensuring), and a YEC doesn't know diddly about evolution, they fail. But maybe they know enough to teach it, and decide to "stealth it out" by teaching regular evolutionary theory for the probationary period. This is a much harder person to get rid of, however, they have done what Flint and you claim they can't do, to whit, they have demonstrated the ability, when properly motivated, to teach evolution accurately. Now its a matter of discipline, not ability. And every profession has tools to deal with discipline problems

I may not have written clearly, but I think my position is being misrepresented. Or maybe I've been persuaded to change my mind? I wouldn't really support a test that asks you what religious faith you belong to, and disqualify you if you belong to a proscribed faith! I fully agree that if someone is a Freshwater-level creationists, it shouldn't be difficult to ferret out this information and disqualify them strictly on the basis of merit. Religious faith should never ever disqualify someone from teaching biology; creationism only calls biological competence into question, to be assessed based on examination of specific merit.

My observation was intended to convey that religion tends to lend itself to the fanatical and authoritarian among us, and provide a vehicle for some extreme behaviors. This isn't to condemn 75% of the population, only to suggest that if someone is known to be a member of a faith WAY WAY WAY overrepresented with whackjobs, extra attention and diligence might be advisable.

The problem, as I've tried to state in a variety of ways, is that the qualifying exams must match Constitutional standards rather than local standards. What good is a 3-year probationary period if the evaluators are also creationists, or at least comfortable tolerating creationist preaching in the classroom? Worst case, someone who DOES teach evolution effectively might flunk probation for being a potential community troublemaker!

Flint said: I may not have written clearly, but I think my position is being misrepresented. Or maybe I've been persuaded to change my mind? I wouldn't really support a test that asks you what religious faith you belong to, and disqualify you if you belong to a proscribed faith! I fully agree that if someone is a Freshwater-level creationists, it shouldn't be difficult to ferret out this information and disqualify them strictly on the basis of merit. Religious faith should never ever disqualify someone from teaching biology; creationism only calls biological competence into question, to be assessed based on examination of specific merit. My observation was intended to convey that religion tends to lend itself to the fanatical and authoritarian among us, and provide a vehicle for some extreme behaviors. This isn't to condemn 75% of the population, only to suggest that if someone is known to be a member of a faith WAY WAY WAY overrepresented with whackjobs, extra attention and diligence might be advisable. The problem, as I've tried to state in a variety of ways, is that the qualifying exams must match Constitutional standards rather than local standards. What good is a 3-year probationary period if the evaluators are also creationists, or at least comfortable tolerating creationist preaching in the classroom? Worst case, someone who DOES teach evolution effectively might flunk probation for being a potential community troublemaker!

Flint said: Religious faith should never ever disqualify someone from teaching biology;

...if someone is known to be a member of a faith WAY WAY WAY overrepresented with whackjobs, extra attention and diligence might be advisable.

What good is a 3-year probationary period if the evaluators are also creationists, or at least comfortable tolerating creationist preaching in the classroom?

Worst case, someone who DOES teach evolution effectively might flunk probation for being a potential community troublemaker!

Eric said:

Flint said: What good is a 3-year probationary period if the evaluators are also creationists, or at least comfortable tolerating creationist preaching in the classroom?

Well, again, such a situation will defeat pretty much any check/balance you have in place, so for public policy purposes its a somewhat irrelevant scenario.

Well, again, such a situation will defeat pretty much any check/balance you have in place, so for public policy purposes its a somewhat irrelevant scenario.

Flint said: The problem here is, laws that are not enforced or policies not observed, are worse than useless. Some way must be devised to directly tie state curricula (and court decisions) to classroom instruction. I'm guessing that unhappy parents haven't been complaining about these preachers because they figure the consequences of doing so are worse than the (correctable?) damage done to their children. So perhaps complaints must be raised by someone who isn't local, and thus less likely to be a target. Some sort of State ombudsman?

Emil said:

Flint said: ...Some way must be devised to directly tie state curricula (and court decisions) to classroom instruction...

Actually, several states do have similar state wide monitoring systems--at least nominally--in place...

As I understand it (and I could be wrong) a H.S. college preparatory program that doesn’t get enough approvals means that its students do not qualify under California’s “Top 12% of CA High School Seniors automatically get into University somewhere” program.

Flint said: What was of relevant interest is HOW the decisions are made about whether a course of instruction isn't given credit toward UC admission. Freshwater's students, even those that disgust RBH the most, would be fully admissable because Freshwater is presumed to be teaching to acceptable state standards, using acceptable standard means of testing and acceptable textbooks. Presumably (according to other studies) Freshwater's students could not only enter, but successfully satisfy the requirements for biology degrees. Education does not repair the damage folks like Freshwater do.

Nigel D said: While, on the one hand, Freshwater, being presumed to teach to the appropriate standards, would not disqualify his students from university entry, the very fact that the students don't know the biology that they are supposed to will flag up an issue once the first round of intake is at university.

FWIW, catching up on old threads:

Thanks Flint, Emil and Eric for an illuminating discussion.

And yes, I meant proficiency tests. It works, if I'm not mistaken. Uh, and in that case I'm fairly sure they aren't open to direct political intervention outside specifying that they should be used. In that case the details are drafted by experts. Here we have a specified and enforceable separation between government and state bureaucracy.

And we do have ombudsmän to check on areas where public influence (either too little or too much) is a problem. For schools that would be the Children's Ombudsman (BarnaOmbudsmannen, BO) I believe, because it is most important that the children themselves can safely report school problems. I assume parents use the same ombudsman.

I think its an interesting idea to try to come up with some sort of incentive based way to aid in quality control. We should remember though that Freshwater was teaching at the elementary school level. If we're trying to find some way to impose standards that far down the educational pipeline from college, I'm not sure how relevant the UC case is other than as an example of incentive based control. As Eric stated, the quality/cost factors of the California Uni system makes it unique, I'm not sure how many other state Uni systems can claim that advantage. Additionally such methods wouldn't really apply to most public high school admissions since attendance is typically geographically based.

In Chicago we have a system of magnet schools at the high school level that draw attendance region wide based on merit and/or interest areas. I believe there is a "science & math" magnet school in that system which would have increased academic standards for admission. Unfortunately, a magnet school system only makes sense in densely populated urban areas, whereas this case happened in a relatively isolated rural setting.

Torbjörn, I would be interested in hearing more about how, specifically in your country, politics is kept out of the process, if you know. Is it specifically in the mechanics of the government, or is it partially reliant on political clime? That is, if the general political climate were to shift to a fundie anti-science one (gods forbid!), would the standards remain as they are? And if so, how is that controlled?

Coach Dave gives a concise explanation of the biased "investigation" in the John Freshwater case. The pod-cast of last Monday's show is now available online!

Emil said: Torbjörn, I would be interested in hearing more about how, specifically in your country, politics is kept out of the process, if you know.

Emil said: Is it specifically in the mechanics of the government, or is it partially reliant on political clime?

Torbjörn Larsson, OM said: I believe the principle of independent public authorities is written into the guides for how the government should work. (But I assume it could easily be perverted without giving the control instances time to react if the political clime would change radically.) This would need a thorough check though. Some swedish public authorities are governmental, others (including the independents like Riksrevisionen) are formally administrated by the parliament [swedish]. I get the impression that there is a bulkhead between the departments, whose leaders are members of the government, and the public authorities they in turn formally administrate [swedish]. I assume it is much the same in US for practical reasons if not else. If not, well, then perhaps this makes all the difference.

Emil said: I appreciate the links, but as I don't read your language (to my shame) they were only of limited usefulness.

Emil said: In other words, it appears that there is a systemic difference as to how Sweden and the US handle the matter. You are lucky to live in what appears to be the most democratic nation on earth! So...is it hard to learn Swedish? How difficult is it to emigrate to your country? ;)

In the news that there's nothing new to report, I finally did (remember to) track down that John Freshwater comment. It was posted by sparc on June 20th. It seems to be the only place where Freshwater is mentioned on Uncommon Descent. Still no hits at all on the Discovery Institute proper. Even after two weeks after the story started circulating, neither the DI nor UD have anything at all to say about it, for or against.

Yeah, Wheels, what's up with that? Still nothing I've seen about this on UD, yet they are right up to date with the Chris Comer case and think what she did warrant firing! (well, to be fair, not everyone at UD thinks exactly that).

Let's see:

Guy teacher violates his students' 1st amendment rights by teaching creationism and 'denegrates' evolution, fails to teach science requirements such that his students have to be retaught at a later grade, has to be told by his superiors more than once to remove religious materials from his classroom, patently refuses to remove Bible from his desk while teaching, and makes cross marks on kids arms with an electrical device that the makers say should never come in contact with the skin.

versus

Gal working as an administrator in a science education capacity forwarding an e-mail about a science lecture involving Intelligent Design to other science educators.

If I had to choose between the two who I think should get fired, and who I think should just get a reprimand (or less), wow, that would be a real toughy ...