Texas Science Curriculum Director Fired – State Looks Even Worse
December 1st, 2007
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Texas, a state which has really made a lot of American’s ashamed to have to admit that it is part of our country has now made itself look even more idiotic than before – a move I would have thought not possible. Chris Comer was the director of science curriculum for the Texas State board of education, but she was forced to resign after being put on administrative leave for a month and getting some severe reprimands. This basically amounts to being fired.
But what did she do that was so horrible? Well, apparently she forwarded an email which regarded a a presentation by Barbara Forrest, an author of “Creationism’s Trojan Horse.” The book regards Intelligent Design and the movement behind it, which has tried to get Creationism into schools under the auspices of science. Of course, it’s not and that’s nearly universally agreed upon by every established science organization. According to state officials:
“Ms. Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that T.E.A. endorses the speaker’s position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral”
Is it justified to fire an education director based on their position on a scientific issue? Well sure, if they have the position that the earth is flat or something else which demonstrates gross incompetence, but there are a couple of issues here. Science is not something which is “neutral” in the credibility given to varying claims. Sure, there are examples of hypotheses in science which are not entirely established or which there is legitimate debate on, but evolution is not one of them. It’s not even close. Evolution is established, tested scientific theory. It’s not only theory, it’s FACT. And Intelligent design is not scientifically valid.
Says who? Well in addition to the British Government, numerous other national governments, the AAAS, the NSF, The National Academy of Sciences, and almost every major educational and scientific body, there’s the fact that the US Federal Courts have found that Intelligent Design cannot be taught in school as it is unconstitutional and effectively the same as Creationism. Creationism, of course, was ruled unconstitutional in school instruction by the US Supreme Court.
So excuse me if this comes across as an “appeal to authority” but it seems that this is a rather one-sided “debate.” (Of course there’s no actual debate. That was silenced long ago.) Furthermore, the Constitution of the US is something you have to abide by as a state government. So there’s not really an issue here of “neutrality.” It’s scientific fact and the highest courts have universally agreed.
But what is at stake here is more than just the fact that ID is universally rejected by science. It’s rejected for a very good reason: it is entirely opposed to all principals of science. It is not based on evidence at all or even logical extensions of observations, it’s simply something which is invented based on a religious belief. The promoters of it disagree with this, but there’s a fundamental flaw in the logic behind the claims that it is based on scientific observation: The assumption of a designer is just that, an assumption which cannot be validated even if flaws in evolution are presented.
The “Intelligent Design” Way:
This organism does not appear to have come into existance by means of evolution.
Therefore
A designer did it.
The Scientific Way:
This organism does not appear to have come into existance by means of evolution.
Therefore
I will look again at the organism and theory and try to see if maybe I have missed something or did not account for something.
If I do not see this…
I will present this to other scientists to see if there is any solution to this apparent problem
If there is not one…
The theory will need to be reexamined and the organism looked at more closely. Perhaps the theory needs to be revised.
But this does not allow you to simply say “God did it” unless you can find a logical reason or observable evidence to point to that conclusion and a way by which it can be explained and tested as a theory should be. Of course, in reality, the fact that something looks like it could not have evolved independently at first glance does not mean that the theory is wrong. All the claims against the theory of evolution have been refuted to death.
For the Bible literalists who deny obvious facts of reality and choose to live life pretending that there is evidence to support their belief, which they hold so dear but seem so deeply concerned about…. Well, they can go ahead and believe what they want, but don’t go teaching lies in public school. And since Texas seems to think they’re not party to US Law or federal court decisions, can we agree and kick them out? Think Mexico will take them back?
Oh and also…
Alison, get the hell out while you can!
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Education, Politics, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 1st, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I honestly believe that those who espouse Intelligent Design/Creationism simply can’t wrap their minds around the concepts entailed in evolutionary theory. Not “won’t” — CAN’T. There really is no absolute wall between belief in God and embrace of the scientific method and scientific thinking, but somehow these idiots have convinced themselves there is, and labeled as “humanistic thinking” or “atheism” anything that doesn’t reject real science. One of those terrible “Left Behind” novels by LeHay and Jenkins describes “shooting stars” as a signal that the world is coming to an end, “explaining” the motion of the “stars” as having been initiated by God “thousands” of years before so their “end-times” motion would show up on Earth at the proper time. Well, guess what: every kid who’s ever been on an overnight camping trip of any kind knows that “shooting stars” are meteorites, hunks of rock in near-Earth space that streak down through our atmosphere and burn up, causing the display. And as fors “God setting those shooting stars in motion thousand of years ago,” an awful lot of the *real* stars are far enough away that that would have had to occur more than the 7,000 or so years allowed by fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible for the age of Creation, stars and all. It’s a wonder they didn’t say that the Earth is flat and the Sun and planets and stars go around it, the way many neolithic peoples did! People like that are the lame leading the blind leading the stupid leading the . . . Well, anyway, I can only agree with you that this whole Creationism thing is ridiculous. It never achieved national prominence until late in the 20th century, either — wonder how long it’ll take for most people to lose interest in it?
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December 1st, 2007 at 7:32 pm
There’s nothing “Atheist” about accepting evolution. That’s just the way it is. It’s fact. If your idea of being a “Christian” is taking the story of creation as meaning literally 24 hour days and the bible as being factually accurate records then you run into some problems with the whole age of the earth and the obvious fact that it would seem to be a few billion years old.
You constantly hear from Christians like that, but I have to think they’re not the majority, at least I hope not. The Catholic Church gets a lot of flack (much of it deserved) for being extremist. But Catholic dogma is that the Bible is not something that needs to be taken literally, it is the message which is more important than the details of the stories and every person is free to intemperate it as they see (be it fable or literal). Also they say that no human can say with assuringly that they know exactly what the bible means to the exclusion of everyone else.
Now I tend not to agree with the Vatican in general, and I don’t consider myself a member of that religion, but to me… that sounds pretty damn reasonable. Even Pope John Paul II said that evolution was not exclusive of Christianity and many theologians agree. Although the new pope seems to be opening that can again with some previous statements.
Anyway, I can’t help but think that there are at least a few Christians left who think something like that. I think we’d be better off if they just said “I’m going to just try to go with the whole forgive others and be humble and generous to those in need and that whole general stuff and I won’t go obsess over the details of every passage”
And again… I’m not even saying that’s what I believe. I’m just saying that’s basically reasonable. Like to the point where it doesn’t go around denying the obvious.
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December 1st, 2007 at 9:17 pm
[...] Depleted Cranium added an interesting post on Texas Science Curriculum Director Fired – State Looks Even Worse [...]
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November 2nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
God help..as this is wrong…every person has the right to have his own views..its disgusting to be a citizen of texas..they should take their decision back.
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May 29th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Every person has the right to have his own views. so does the Ms. Comer. Plus she just forwarded the email and did not write more in it, also forwarding email does not mean that u are fully agreed with it. the more is, she did not forward it as the representative of Department.
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June 11th, 2010 at 9:25 am
everyone has the right to express his views and if someone is not saying anything publically at the behalf of his company or the office, than he should not be got punished.
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