South Carolina Fossils

Christopher Hitchens was right: Religion Poisons Everything.

From The Daily Beast:

When eight-year-old Olivia McConnell was perusing a menu at a restaurant that features all 50 of the official symbols of her home state of South Carolina, she noticed a glaring vacancy. South Carolina has a State American Folk Dance, a State Grass, a State Opera, even a State Lowcountry Handcraft, but—no offense to square dancing, Indian grass, Porgy and Bess, or sweet grass baskets intended—McConnell thought something was missing: a state fossil.

Let me stop right there.  Along with those official state symbols there are some others:

• Official State Reptile: the Loggerhead Sea Turtle
• Official Hospitality Beverage: South Carolina Grown Tea
• Official State Dance: The Shag

An official Hospitality Beverage?  Ok, let's get back to The Beast:

The third grader at Carolina Academy wrote a letter to her state lawmakers, Rep. Robert Ridgeway and Sen. Kevin Johnson, in a bid to give the woolly mammoth that honor. Olivia has sound reasons behind her nomination: One of the first discoveries of a fossil in North America was that of a woolly mammoth’s teeth, dug up by slaves on a South Carolina plantation in 1725; all but seven states have an official state fossil; and, most adorably, “Fossils tell us about our past.”

Sounds like Ms McConnell is an intelligent, insightful third grader.  Ridgeway and Johnson's bill passed the House 94-3 but it was stopped in the Senate and that ole time religion:

Sen. Kevin Bryant, a pharmacist and self-described born-again Christian who has compared President Obama with Osama bin Laden, voted to sustain a veto by Governor Nikki Haley of funding for a rape crisis center, and called climate change a “hoax,” proposed amending the bill to include three verses from the Book of Genesis detailing God’s creation of the Earth and its living inhabitants—including mammoths.

Of course he's a climate science denier.  Anti-science in one direction inevitably leads to anti-science in many others.  According to the Senate Journal, these are the verses from Genesis:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

That's Genesis 1:30-31, I believe.

After the bill was ruled out of order by the state's Lt Governor, another Senator objected to it.  Of course he's in not favor of teaching evolution unless you "teach the controversy" along with it From the Post and Courier:

The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee met Monday to review and approve the new set of science standards that the Department of Education will begin implementing by the fall of 2014 for students. Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, argued against teaching natural selection as fact, when he believes there are other theories students deserve to learn.

"Natural selection is a direct reference to Darwinism," Fair said after the meeting. "And the implication of Darwinism. is that it is start to finish."

Fair argued South Carolina's students are learning the philosophy of natural selection but teachers are not calling it such. He said the best way for students to learn is for the schools to teach the controversy.

"To teach that natural selection is the answer to origins is wrong," Fair said. "I don't have a problem with teaching theories. I don't think it should be taught as fact."

Oh, so he's one of those guys.

So instead of celebrating a historical fact (that one of the first fossils found in North America was in deed found in South Carolina) and a scientific one (need I elaborate on this point?), and in doing so encourage an insightful 8 year old, faith poisoned the prospect - all to defend a scientifically indefensible position (that "evolution is 'just a theory'.")

Hitchens was right.

Equal Time For What?

Have you been watching Cosmos?

It's a reboot of sorts of the Carl Sagan series originally broadcast in 1980.

So far the host, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, has talked about how old the age of the universe is (13 billion years or so) and the truth about the theory evolution (uh-oh).  Both of which have gotten him into trouble with the defiant, faith-based anti-science folks among us.  Tyson actually said, "The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact."

From Mother Jones:

In the first episode of Cosmos, titled "Standing Up in the Milky Way," Tyson dons shades just before witnessing the Big Bang. You know, the start of everything. Some creationists, though, don't like the Big Bang; at Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis, a critique of Cosmos asserts that "the big bang model is unable to explain many scientific observations, but this is of course not mentioned."

At that link, we find a criticism of the now-famous saying of Sagan's, that "The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be."  Uh-oh.  That's a problem.  Why?  Here's why:

It is denial of the supernatural, saying the only thing that exists is the physical world, the natural world. But to say that with any certainty Sagan had to get outside the physical universe and see that the physical universe is all that there is. And he would have had to do that in eternity past and in eternity future in order to say that. If he could really see that, then he would be god. It’s a very bold, metaphysical statement. It’s an assertion. But it’s not science. It’s not a scientific statement.

The only thing scientists have physical evidence for is the physical world.  So unless it's "balanced" with stories of some other world (which by definition would leave no physical evidence for scientists to study) any purely physical assertion of a purely physical universe is biased.

And for that, they're demanding equal time (or at the very least some mention that their non-science is in some what science):

[S]ome creationists believe the show lacks balance because it doesn't offer equal airtime to religious fundamentalists.

"Do they ever give a creationist any time?"

"Creationists aren’t even on the radar screen for them, they wouldn’t even consider us plausible at all." (Via The Janet Mefferd Show)

There's a reason creationists aren't considered plausible on a science program: it isn't science.

Just saying it is, doesn't make it so (this should be a note to all my friends at the Trib who continue to assert - without any plausible evidence - that Climate Science isn't settled.  Just saying it isn't doesn't mean it isn't).

I'll let Tyson explain why creationists won't get be treated with any sort of scientific plausibility in Science and why "equal time" is a bad idea for science: 

"I think the media has to sort of come out of this ethos that I think was in principle a good one, but doesn't really apply in science. The ethos was, whatever story you give, you have to give the opposing view, and then you can be viewed as balanced," Tyson said, adding, "you don't talk about the spherical earth with NASA and then say let's give equal time to the flat-earthers."

Did I ever tell you that he and I share a birthday?

A Message To My Good Friends At The FFRF.

Remember this blogpost?

I wrote about a guy named Joe Sohmer who, despite being entrusted by the good people of Altoona to teach their teenagers science, nevertheless undermines the validity of radiocarbon dating and, of course, evolution in his science classes whole "hold(ing) the Bible as the source of truth."

He's quoted:

"I'm entitled to my beliefs as much as the evolutionist is."

On the one hand, this is completely true.  He is entitled to his beliefs as much as anyone else is.  On the other, that does not, however, make them to be anywhere near true.

Well, the article that triggered my blog post also seems to have piqued the interest of our good friends at the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Unfortunately, while their overall point (that the teaching of creationism as science is unconstitutional) is completely correct, what they're using to frame their argument is simply a mess - so much that it could undermine their overall (and, let me reiterate, correct) point.

Take a look at the start of the FFRF's press release:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is responding to an alarming trend in Pennsylvania's science education, by sending a memo to every Pennsylvania public school district superintendent (nearly 500 of them) on July 25.

The memo follows the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's investigative journalism, recently uncovering that 20% of the state's public high school teachers teach creationism in their science classrooms.

And from the memo:

A recent story in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette (sic) surveyed 106 science teachers regarding the teaching of evolution in Pennsylvania public schools. This article revealed shocking statistics about the state of science education in public schools. A third of the science teachers surveyed identified themselves as believers in creationism or intelligent design. Of that number, teachers who identify themselves as creationists -- nearly 20% of those surveyed-- "spend at least an hour of classroom time on creationism in a way suggesting it to be a valid scientific alternative" to evolution.

I gotta point out the BIG errors in that paragraph.  I hate to, but I just gotta.  In order to do that, I have to start at the P-G (and please note, FFRF, where the dash goes) article.  Looks like the FFRF's memo writers mixed two separate bits of information.  The first is from the P-G questionaire:

The Post-Gazette questionnaire this spring drew 106 responses from science teachers. It asked them to choose one or more answers to a question of what they believe in: evolution, creationism, intelligent design or not sure/other.

Ninety percent chose evolution; 19 percent said they believe in creationism, not defined in the questionnaire; 13 percent said they believe in intelligent design; and another 5 percent answered "not sure/other." Teachers were allowed to list more than one option, so the numbers don't total 100 percent.

But the quotation is from another survey altogether:

The Penn State survey said the teachers identifying themselves as creationists spend at least an hour of classroom time on creationism in a way suggesting it to be a valid scientific alternative. "Between 17 and 21 percent [of teachers in the survey] introduce creationism into the classroom," he said.

And the Penn State survey wasn't a Pennsylvania survey at all:

Mr. Berkman and Eric Plutzer, a Penn State professor of political science and sociology, based their book on a national survey of more than 900 science teachers, which found 13 percent advocating that Earth was 10,000 years old or younger, as opposed to Earth's scientifically determined age of 4.54 billion years. [Emphasis added.]

The "20%" comes from the P-G survey while the quotation comes from the Penn State survey.  And the two data points refer to two separate ideas.  The P-G was asking about the teachers' beliefs while the Penn State survey is about what the teachers do.  Two separate issues.  Two separate surveys.  Apples, oranges.

Now it's quite possible that the reality of the situation is in complete agreement with what the FFRF says it is - but it's just not possible to establish that from what they present as facts.  And that's the mess.

And then there's this part from the FFRF's memo:

A third of the science teachers surveyed identified themselves as believers in creationism or intelligent design.

This isn't clearly true either (it might be BUT it might not be, and that's the point). Take a look at how the P-G describes their survey:

The Post-Gazette questionnaire this spring drew 106 responses from science teachers. It asked them to choose one or more answers to a question of what they believe in: evolution, creationism, intelligent design or not sure/other.

Ninety percent chose evolution; 19 percent said they believe in creationism, not defined in the questionnaire; 13 percent said they believe in intelligent design; and another 5 percent answered "not sure/other." Teachers were allowed to list more than one option, so the numbers don't total 100 percent. [Emphasis added.]

But note that since teachers could choose more than one option, you only get "a third" (or something very close to it) if none of the 13% who believe in intelligent design also designated themselves as creationists.  If they completely overlap, then the number's just 19% and the real number could be anywhere in between.

And need I point out that these look like they were surveys and not scientific polls?  How many surveys were sent out?  Relying on self-selected questionnaire returns to establish solid data is, well, questionable.  At best.

FFRF: I am one of your biggest fans.  I confidently and optimistically expect success in your lawsuits calling for the removal of the unconstitutional Ten Commandment monuments from two Pittsburgh area public schools.  But if you're going to issue press releases and memos to School Superintendents you have to do better than this.  You have to write something clearer than this.

You want respect from a School Superintendent?  Get all your facts straight, present your entire position clearly and don't don't DON'T misspell the name of one of your sources (as I alluded to above, it's the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, not the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette).

Other than that, you're completely correct - teaching creationism (or Intelligent Design) as science in a public school is unconstitutional.  Just do your homework better next time.