Texas

What do hox genes, gene duplication, evo-devo and ontogenetic information all have in common? They were among the subjects raised–in some detail–by audience members during the Q&A portion of 4 Nails in Darwin’s Coffin: New Challenges to Darwinian Evolution event at SMU last night. The evening started with a screening of Darwin’s Dilemma:The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record for a standing room only crowd in the theater of the Hughes Trigg Student Center, and was rounded out by four presentations and a question and answer period with the speakers. CSC’s Stephen Meyer moderated the discussion after the film which included four serious challenges to Darwinian evolution. The first speaker was evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg, who presented the challenge of Read More ›

Since early this morning, the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute has faced repeated denial-of-service attacks on its server in an effort to shut down the Institute’s various websites. The attacks coincided with the scheduled appearance tonight of Institute-supported scientists at the “4 Nails in Darwin’s Coffin” event at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas. Want to bet there is a connection? Because of the cyber attacks, the web page providing information about tonight’s event was unavailable several times today. Last fall, Darwinist cyber bullies similarly attempted to close down the website for a conference on intelligent design in Colorado in order to prevent people from registering for the event. Fortunately, more than a thousand people showed up anyway. Regardless of one’s view of Darwinism, this sort of cyber censorship ought to be out of Read More ›

In 2007, Chris Comer was forced to resign from her job at the Texas Education Agency (TEA). She then filed a lawsuit alleging she was forced to “stay neutral on creationism,” and claimed that TEA’s “neutrality” policy violated the First Amendment. We reported last year when Comer lost on summary judgment at the federal district court level. Comer then appealed her case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which filed its ruling on July 2 upholding the district court’s decision and tossing Comer’s case. The Fifth Circuit held, “we find no evidence to support the conclusion that the principal or primary effect of TEA’s policy is one that either advances or inhibits religion, we conclude that the policy does Read More ›

In a recent article in Science titled “Arguing to Learn in Science: The Role of Collaborative, Critical Discourse,” education theorist Jonathan Osborne explains the importance of using debate, argument, and critique when teaching science. In fact, he laments that these teaching strategies not employed more often: Argument and debate are common in science, yet they are virtually absent from science education. Recent research shows, however, that opportunities for students to engage in collaborative discourse and argumentation offer a means of enhancing student conceptual understanding and students’ skills and capabilities with scientific reasoning. As one of the hallmarks of the scientist is critical, rational skepticism, the lack of opportunities to develop the ability to reason and argue scientifically would appear to Read More ›

In the Texas Republican Party primary this week, voters in one part of the state narrowly rejected pro-teach-the-controversy State Board of Education member Don McLeroy. At the same time, voters in another part of the state (Dallas) dumped anti-teach-the-controversy Board member Geraldine Miller in favor of a candidate who has expressed support for teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution.

The most interesting thing about incumbent Geraldine Miller’s remarkable defeat by newcomer George Clayton is the unintentional role the pro-Darwin Dallas Morning News may have played in her downfall.

A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article from last month, “Education Board in Texas Faces Curbs,” revealed how the Texas evolution-lobby has been seeking to use both censorship and power grabs to promote their agenda.  First, they sought to censor from Texas students any instruction on scientific weaknesses in evolution. Having lost that fight before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE), they have tried to use other tactics to punish the board for adopting science standards that teach evolution objectively, or to grab power away from the democratically elected board. In a move that can only be attributed to political retribution, today Texas evolutionists successfully blocked the reappointment of Dr. Don McLeroy as chair of the TSBOE.  Practically speaking, this Read More ›

Last week I did an interview with an NPR reporter, Bob Garfield, for his NPR show “On the Media” about the recent decision of the Texas State Board of Education to require critical analysis of evolution. I am used to hostile and skeptical questions from the media–and in fact I generally welcome good, hard discussions from reporters. But this reporter was particularly hostile and seemed to have an agenda to paint Darwin-skeptics like crazy religious fanatics. The final story lived up to its expectations. The Interview: A string of False Accusations and “How Dare You?” Type Questions The interview started with benign questions about the recent decision of the Texas State Board of Education to welcome scientific critique of evolution Read More ›

As a final installment in my “Texas Hold ‘Em” series calling the bluffs of Texas evolutionists, I’d like to highlight one section from Discovery Institute’s rebuttal to Ronald Wetherington’s Testimony before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE). Wetherington, who is a professor of anthropology at SMU, testified extensively to the TSBOE about human evolution, his area of expertise. Wetherington stated regarding human origins that we have “arguably the most complete sequence of fossil succession of any mammal in the world. No gaps. No lack of transitional fossils. … So when people talk about the lack of transitional fossils or gaps in the fossil record, it absolutely is not true.” But a close look at the evidence, as reported in Read More ›

David Klinghoffer has recently posted some excellent (and entertaining) summaries of the highlights of Discovery Institute’s responses to the testimony of evolutionist experts David Hillis and Ronald Wetherington before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE) on January 21, 2009. (See also Ralph Seelke’s response to Hillis.) One part of the response to self-proclaimed tree of life “expert” David Hillis that should not be missed is Discovery’s response to his bluffs and misrepresentations regarding the congruence of molecular and morphological phylogenies within the tree of life. Specifically, Hillis told the board that there is “overwhelming agreement correspondence as you go from protein to protein, DNA sequence to DNA sequence” when reconstructing evolutionary history using biological molecules. But anyone accurately testifying Read More ›