Foundations

Scrappleface.com has skewered last week’s federal court ruling on Cobb Co.’s textbook disclaimers with a clever bit of satire. “U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that the old labels could “confuse” public school students, who are not accustomed to thinking critically.” Indeed! The Scrapplers report that the newly evolved stickers now in textbooks read: “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a fact, not a theory, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with childlike trust, accepted obediently and defended vigorously against the attacks of ignorant monotheists.” Read the entire ScrappleFace satire here (and yes, the Cooper quotations are pure fiction).

CSC writer in residence, Jonathan Witt had an op-ed published in the Albuquerque Journal Sunday commenting on PBS affiliate KNME’s censorship troubles. The thing that Witt’s op-ed nicely brings to light is the double standard about funding and editorial control that exists at PBS from the top down. He gives specific examples suggesting that KNME normally follows a very different (and much more sane) test for private funders, one that allows foundations who fund documentaries to have points of view and even worldviews. KNME proclaims that they must not let public get the “perception” that funders of a program “might” have had control over the content. “Indeed, no PBS affiliate consistently follows the smell test laid out by KNME. If Read More ›

The censorship issue has obviously struck a nerve in New Mexico, as evidenced by this cartoon from Friday’s Albuquerque Journal. Creationism evolves. How original. I think this is only about the 499th time that this has been in a cartoon or headline.

Sadness is the emotion that ABC’s Nightline tried to inculcate last night with its “War in Dover” episode and, if my reactions are any judge, they succeeded.

First is the sadness one feels for all the good people of Dover who have behaved badly toward one another. John Donvan showed that people in that little town really are afraid to talk to one another, and that everything anyone says has to be filtered through a legal screen (perhaps we need a set of Miranda Rights from now on that will be read to citizens who presume to express themselves on public policy).

Worst of all, Donvan demonstrated that any personal moral suspicion one has of his neighbor in Dover these days is fair game to bring into the combat over evolution. All of this is because of a rather tame and otherwise irrelevant statement about intelligent design. The culture wars have come to this.

So, I congratulate John Donvan and his producers for producing the insight that these evolution fights in localities are enormously divisive, leaving very hurt feelings all around.

The newest Accuracy in Media report takes PBS to task for liberal bias and viewpoint discrimination. The piece is particularly good on PBS’s deeply flawed treatment of the controversy over evolution in the public schools: Then, Moyers turned to another current topic, the ACLU’s lawsuits against school districts that want to “teach an alternative to evolution.” Romero insisted that, “teaching alternatives to evolution is about teaching religion in our public schools. And in a country as diverse as this one, and in a country where religious belief is such a core belief for so many Americans, you want to keep the government as far away as we can from involving itself in our most important and private institutions.” Romero’s statement Read More ›

The rather confusing “[e]volution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things” language proved a primary component in the undoing of the textbook sticker at issue in Selman v. Cobb County School District — decided yesterday in an opinion handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper. Pessimism about the outcome peppered my previous post about this case (see here, where you can also find the sticker’s text). Yet, a genuine understanding of the case requires attention to the details of the Judge’s opinion, and it is important to keep in mind some of the most positive aspects of the ruling. (Important critiques of portions of the Judge’s opinion will follow in a subsequent posting, and strong exceptions to the School District attorney’s defense have been several times.)

In light of Judge Cooper’s decision, it remains constitutional for students to critically analyze aspects of chemical and biological evolutionary theories. As has long been maintained by the scientific community challenging aspects of chemical and biological evolutionary theories, the academic freedom of teachers and students to be able to learn about such scientific controversies and to critically analyze the evidence supporting those theories is of primary importance. This freedom was put at risk by the arguments made by the ACLU in the Cobb County case, but the judge ultimately rejected many of the ACLU’s most far-reaching claims.

Judge Cooper allowed that, in the context of education in biological and chemical evolutionary theories, there IS a secular purpose in promoting critical thinking. Most Americans are probably unaware that critical thinking is itself a contested issue these days, but the ACLU took exception to such critical thinking as one of its arguments to the Judge. Fortunately, the Judge didn’t take the ACLU up in this regard. In his opinion, the Judge states the following:

Fostering critical thinking is a clearly secular purpose for the Sticker, which the Court finds is not a sham; the Sticker appears to have the purpose of furthering critical thinking because it tells students to approach the material on evolution with an open mind, to study it carefully, and to give it critical consideration. (Judge’s Opinion, page 24.)

It’s hard to argue with that. Not that the ACLU didn’t try. They did. But they didn’t succeed in persuading the Judge.

Beware Evolution Treatment Tonight from ABC News

This is being written before Nightline airs its program tonight (“The Origin of Life: A Battle Between Faith and Science”). I talked last month with the senior producer Jay LaMonica, producer Eliza Rubin and finally, in person, with the reporter, John Donvan, in Washington.

They expressed frustration that none of the scientists affiliated with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture would go on camera for Nightline unless they were presented live. Queried hard, I gave my own explanation: We don’t trust you. Put people on live and they will have a chance to correct reporting errors, but they will be defenseless if taped and merely left to the tender mercies of editors and commentators. It’s that simple. Unfortunately, the major media have earned this skepticism.

I pointed out, further, that Nightline often presents people of different views on their program live, and that the juxtaposition of differing live viewpoints is what makes the program worthwhile, in my opinion as a viewer. There is far too little of that in the media.

Go to Google and type in “Unlocking the Mystery of Life,” and see what pops up on the right hand side of the listing that comes up. It has a “Shop PBS Online” link. So apparently PBS pays Google to have this sponsored link. But when you click on the sponsored link, it goes to a page at PBS that says: “This product is temporarily out of stock.” Funny.

With nearly two months since closing arguments in Selman vs. Cobb County School District (North Atlanta, GA), the public awaits the decision of United States District Judge Clarence Cooper.

At issue in the case is the school board’s adoption of the following sticker (drafted by the school district’s attorney):

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

This seemingly innocuous, lawyer-drafted disclaimer may not be a satisfying statement about the scientific controversy over biological evolution and the chemical origin-of-life from a technical standpoint, yet it is bizarre to think that the sticker would amount to an evil and sinister threat to American liberty. But leave it to the ACLU: they sued the school district over it.

Saturday, the Albuquerque Journal ran a staff editorial chastising PBS affiliate KNME for its decision to ban UMOL. The Journal correctly pointed out that KNME’s censorship is nothing more than viewpoint discrimination writing, “refusing to air a program supporting the less popular point of view looks like a close cousin to censorship.” The Journal notes that KNME should have taken the high road and aired the film as an educational service to viewers. “Consumers are best served when given a full range of viewpoints and allowed to decide for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.” It’s obvious now that had KNME just aired the program the whole issue would be over and done with now and they wouldn’t Read More ›