Creation and Science Chronicle

by Bud Kennedy
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas), page 2B
December 5, 2007

To heck with what’s in your wallet.

What’s in your kid’s science textbook?

If the ruling mullahs in Austin get their way, creation theology will be there, no matter whether we want religion mixed with classroom science.

Gov. Rick Perry already said that he supports teaching “intelligent design” — the belief that a higher power had a hand in creation.

He called it a “valid scientific theory.”

Perry, of course, has a Texas A&M University degree in science — animal science.

His degree certainly should help him identify the BS that came out of the Texas Education Agency recently.

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by Rick Casey
The Houston Chronicle (Texas), page B1
December 5, 2007

A recent flap at the Texas Education Agency demonstrates why we need to teach history better so we can teach science better.

After nine years as the Texas Education Agency’s science director, Chris Comer resigned after being suspended for appearing to oppose the “intelligent design” theory of the origins of the universe.

TEA officials say other factors were involved in her firing, but e-mails obtained by the Austin American Statesman make clear that Comer’s scientific orthodoxy and apparent political heresy were a major factor.

Her mortal sin was that in October she sent an e-mail to an Austin online community announcing an upcoming lecture by Barbara Forrest, a Southeast Louisiana University philosophy professor and coauthor of Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse.

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by Robyn Blumner
Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), page A11
December 11, 2007

Christine Comer was forced to resign as director of science at the Texas Education Agency because she for warded an e- mail about a lecture on the fallacy of intelligent design and creationism as a scientifically grounded alternative to evolution. Comer, who spent 27 years as a science teacher and had been in her post at the agency for nine years, was told that the agency must remain “ neutral” on the subject.

Are they kidding? On one hand you have a theory that has been successfully tested using the scientific method for more than 100 years and whose accuracy repeatedly has been affirmed by the vast fields of biology and genetics. On the other hand you have a hypothesis that relies on supernatural intervention for which there has been no legitimate scientific testing or objective proof.

Florida is also in a dust- up because the teaching of evolution has been included in its proposed science standards. Donna Callaway, a member of the state Board of Education — appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush — said she’ll oppose the new standards because of it.

Really, folks, when scientific innovation is the key to our nation’s future, we don’t have the time to be mucking around in this tired debate. You don’t produce doctors and scientists by teaching science from the Bible.

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by Alan I. Leshner
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas), page 11B (Opinion)
December 11, 2007

Special to the Star-Telegram As Texas prepares to reconsider what youngsters statewide should know about science, the forced ouster of science curriculum director Chris Comer of the Texas Education Agency, apparently for standing up for the integrity of science education, stands as both shocking and sad. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is the official explanation for it.

Comer’s forwarding of an e-mail about a lecture by Barbara Forrest, author of the book Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse, apparently rubbed some TEA higher-ups the wrong way. The agency must, after all, “remain neutral,” according to a memo calling for Comer’s termination. Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe later went on to explain how “there’s been a long-standing policy that the pros and cons of scientific theory must be taught.”

These comments — suggesting that scientific facts based on indisputable physical evidence are somehow subject to debate on nonscientific grounds — are especially troubling in a state known for its innovation and filled with high-quality research universities.

Everyone has a constitutional right to interpret the origins of life based on Christian or any other doctrine. Religious discussion might be perfectly appropriate in theology or philosophy classes.

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CONSIDER LESSONS, COMPLEXITY OF INTELLIGENT-DESIGN CASE
by Dan Margolies
Kansas City Star (Kansas), page B10
December 9, 2007

In 2005, federal Judge John Jones III found himself in the national spotlight when he presided over a trial about the introduction of intelligent design into public school classrooms.

Jones, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President Bush, ruled that the Dover, Pa., school board violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools when it sought to introduce intelligent design in high school biology courses.

His 139-page decision concluded that intelligent design — the notion that life is too complex to have arisen though natural selection and must have been designed by an intelligent agent — was not science and “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.”

The case was the subject of a two-hour edition last month of the PBS program “Nova,” and its significance was such that Time magazine in 2006 included Jones in its Time100 list, the 100 most influential people in the world.

On Thursday, Jones was the keynote speaker at the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association’s annual meeting at the Muehlebach Hotel. Jones addressed nearly 1,000 lawyers and judges and spoke about judicial independence.

Before his speech, he sat down with Kansas City Star business and legal affairs reporter Dan Margolies to talk about the Dover case. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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