PZ Myers bid farewell to Kansas yesterday as the Kansas Board of Education again made the state a laughingstock by changing the science standards to allow for creationism.
The proponents of these changes don't have any idea what the fossil and molecular evidence says, and they are misrepresenting it. There is no credible evidence against common descent and chemical evolution; those concepts are being strengthened, year by year. What does this school board think to gain by teaching students lies?
The editors of Scientific American magazine had their own take:
It wasn't enough for them to undermine the teaching of biology by falsifying a scientific controversy over evolution. No, the Board of Education went as far as to redefine what science is: it's no longer just a search for natural explanations for natural phenomena. Now it's a search for... well, that's a bit hard to say. Any sort of explanation, apparently. Pixies, ghosts, telekinesis, auras, ancient astronauts, excesses of choleric humor, they all seem to be fair game in the interest of "academic freedom." Oh, and God, of course. The Board might not say that because it could get them into trouble with the Supreme Court, but can anyone say with a straight face that getting God into the science classes isn't the goal of the people who pushed for these changes?
In a turn of events in Dover, PA, 8 Republican school board members responsible for introducing "Intelligent Design" into area classrooms lost their bids for re-election. From the Washington Post:
Voters came down hard Tuesday on school board members who backed a statement on intelligent design being read in biology class, ousting eight Republicans and replacing them with Democrats who want the concept stripped from the science curriculum.
The election unfolded amid a landmark federal trial involving the Dover public schools and the question of whether intelligent design promotes the Bible's view of creation. Eight Dover families sued, saying it violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
It's difficult to gauge exactly how much of an impact these developments will have. I mean, it's not like Americans have a particularly great grasp of science anyway. Take a look at this report on the public's understanding of science. Here's are some choice excerpts:
In 1990, approximately 24 percent of US adults were able to provide an explanation of DNA that included its role in heredity (see Figure 2). By 1999, the percentage of adults giving a response that clearly identified DNA as being responsible for heredity increased to 29 percent.
A whole whopping 29%! Not even a third. The other 71% are just the kind of people we want deciding issues such as those relating to, say, stem cell research.
During the last decade, national samples of adults have been asked to agree or disagree with the statement “Lasers work by focusing sound waves” (NSB, 2000). The percentage of American adults who where able to correctly identify that statement as false increased only modestly over the last decade, from 36 percent in 1988 to 43 percent in 1999 (see Figure 2). By the end of the twentieth century, a majority of US adults still did not understand the composition of a laser.
So that's how CD players work...
In 1997, 11 percent of US adults were able to provide a correct explanation of a molecule, and 13 percent were able to provide a correct explanation in 1999 (NSB, 2000).
National studies find that only half of US adults know that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each year (NSB, 2000). One in five US adults say that the Sun rotates around the Earth, and 14 percent of US adults think that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each day (see Figure 2).
OK, 20% of Americans have opted out of the Copernican Revolution. And these people should be voting - why?
Studies of US adults over the last decade have found that only one in 10 adults have a scientifically correct understanding of radiation (NSB, 2000).
Uff da.
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