Casey Luskin

Multiple choice quiz. Where did the following words first appear? “We need to move forward in our human evolution and not regress to the flawed passions of the crusades, the suppression of science by religion, or the intolerance of theocracy over freedom of the human spirit.” Was it:A. The latest blog post from PZ Myers?B. The bumper sticker on some 1968 VW Bus owned by a hippie commune?C. The manifesto of the Allied Atheist Alliance?D. The latest Dean’s newsletter from Philip A. Pizzo, Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine? If you guessed… …D, you’re correct. As I reported recently, Dean Pizzo’s latest December 1, 2008 newsletter extols those who would make scientific research “free” by keeping it “protected Read More ›

The recent Dean’s Newsletter from Philip A. Pizzo, Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, announces a statement from the “Scientific Advisory Board” of the Koch Foundation that recommends creating a brave new world of censorship. According to Dean Pizzo’s newsletter, when giving an award recently to a biology researcher, the Koch Foundation’s “Scientific Advisory Board” stated: “Research must remain free and therefore has to be protected from non-scientific influences such as ‘Creationism,’ ‘Fundamentalism,’ ‘Intelligent Design,’ or other non-scientific ideas or religious convictions.” Ignoring their inappropriate lumping of intelligent design with “creationism,” “fundamentalism,” “non-scientific ideas” and “religious convictions,” it seems that in the Koch Foundation’s vision of the future, being “free” means that ID cannot have any influence upon Read More ›

Recently I went to a public library to do some work, and I saw a book featured on top of a reference desk titled Life on Other Planets (by Rhonda Lucas Donald, Watts Library, 2003). The title page featured little green men with big alien bug-eyes, the kind of picture you might see on some nutty UFO website. The book and its display were clearly aimed at students — perhaps junior high or high school-aged. Fun and silly pictures don’t bother me if they get kids interested in reading about science. The problem here was that when I opened the book, what I found was not science, but science-fiction. Where Does Your Information Come From?The second page of the first Read More ›

Three of the six reviewers of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) are recommending that students apply less, rather than more, critical thinking when studying evolution. In Part 1 I discussed the recommendations of David Hills, and in Part 2, I discussed the recommendations of Ronald Wetherington. Like Wetherington and Hillis, TEKS reviewer Gerald Skoog wants the TEKS to include many more standards on evolution which dogmatically only present the evidence for evolution. Here are some of the new standards he wants the TEKS to include: “EXPLAIN HOW NATURAL SELECTION AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY CONSEQUENCES PROVIDE A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION FOR THE FOSSIL RECORD OF ANCIENT LIFE FORMS, AS WELL AS FOR THE STRIKING MOLECULAR SIMILARITIES OBSERVED AMONG LIVING ORGANISMS.” and Read More ›

In Part 1 I discussed how some Darwinist reviewers of the Texas Science Standards are opposing giving students the opportunity to use critical thinking skills when learning the modern Darwinian theory of evolution. One glaring difference between the reviews submitted by those opposing critical thinking on evolution and the reviews of those supporting it is the lengths of the respective sets of reviews. The TEKS reviews submitted by Stephen Meyer, Ralph Seelke, and Charles Garner in support of students applying critical thinking skills to evolution were each over 25 pages in length. In contrast, two of the three Darwinist reviewers submitted reviews that were 8 pages or less. It seems that some of the Darwinist reviewers didn’t take much time Read More ›

In Origin of Species, Charles Darwin famously wrote, ”A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” One might think that modern proponents of Darwin’s ideas would endorse his approach to scientific thinking within evolution education, but it’s not so. The Texas State Board of Education recently received reviews of the proposed Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) from six science reviewers. Three of those reviewers–who are scientific skeptics of Darwinian evolution–support TEKS that would give students a strong grounding in critical thinking skills by asking them to “analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence Read More ›

This is the seventh installment of a series responding to John Timmer’s online review of the supplementary biology textbook Explore Evolution (EE). The first part is here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, and the fifth here, the sixth here. 7. Timmer’s Mis-Aimed Critique of Inquiry Based LearningTimmer calls Explore Evolution‘s use of Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) a “sham” because he asserts the textbook “abdicates the responsibility for reasoning entirely.” But his criticism is bogus. EE contains multiple sections that encourage students to weigh the evidence and consider open-ended questions about the evidence like, “Which picture best illustrates the history of life?,” “Do all living things, past and present, share a common ancestor?,” “Can natural selection produce Read More ›

MSNBC recently had an article titled “Fine-feathered dino sported bizarre bird tail,” reporting on the find of Epidexipteryx hui, a “pigeon-sized dinosaur that lived more than 100 million years ago [that] sported four ribbon-like tail feathers.” (See right for an artist’s imaginative interpretation of the fossil.) One of the original paper’s authors states, “Although this dinosaur cannot be the direct ancestor for birds, it is one of the dinosaurs that have the closest phylogenetic relationship to birds.” The article also contains other quotes with typical Darwinist rhetoric like, “[t]his find confirms the link between dinosaurs and birds.” But are other interpretations possible? Unreported in the media is the fact that the paper contains language directly hinting that Epidexipteryx hui could Read More ›

This is the sixth installment of a series responding to John Timmer’s online review of the supplementary biology textbook Explore Evolution (EE). The first part is here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, and the fifth here. 6. Timmer’s Double Standard on Textbook Treatments of EvolutionTimmer repeatedly attacks EE for allegedly trying to “divide and conquer” evolution because it discusses the different lines of scientific evidence (i.e. fossil, anatomical, molecular) regarding common descent in separate sections. Timmer’s criticism reveals either his gross ignorance of how contemporary biology texts cover evolution, or that he’s using a blatant double standard. EE was written to complement the coverage of evolution in standard biology textbooks, and so it follows the approach Read More ›