Live Blog of the Texas State Board of Education Meeting, 2011 July 21
10:00 a.m. - Good morning. I am present at the William Travis Building in Austin waiting for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) meeting to start. Later this morning the State Board will hear public testimony about the impending adoption of new supplemental digital science instructional materials. These are the first science instructional materials submitted under the new 2009 controversial science curriculum standards that had several new TEKS inserted by the State Board over the objections of the scientists and science educators who wrote them. The standards were written and adopted by 8-7 majority votes by the radical religious right Republican SBOE members. Highly-qualified science curriculum experts and professional scientists and science teachers were asked to write new science standards and update old science standards during a series of meetings in 2008 and 2009. These were given to the SBOE and generally adopted, but sections in Biology and Earth and Space Science that included information about evolution, DNA, the fossil record, and the origin of life were modified by the ultra-right members.
I have discussed these issues in detail in articles on the website of Texas Citizens for Science and here at the Texas Observer . Articles are at both places now. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I am the president of TCS and I also will testify on behalf of TCS during public testimony later today.
The SBOE meeting is being live-streamed here . You must have a RealPlayer client such as RealPlayer SP installed on your computer to watch the streaming videos. I often watch these live video streams at home when the State Board is meeting to avoid ten hours of driving to and from Austin to attend in person.
My friends at Texas Freedom Network (TFN), Ryan Valentine and Dan Quinn, are also live blogging this meeting at TFN Insider . Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education is also here live tweeting at at @JoshRosenau and @NCSE (using hashtag #txtxt ). TFN informs me they are also live tweeting at #SBOE . Abby Rapoport of the Texas Observer will also be tweeting about this meeting using #SBOE .
11:00 a.m. - Today is the first meeting chaired by Barbara Cargill who was just appointed to the chairmanship by Governor Rick Perry two weeks ago. When the special session of the Texas Legislature ended without Senate approval of Perry's former appointment of Gail Lowe as chairman, Perry had to appoint someone new. He chose Cargill. Like Gail Lowe and Don McLeroy before her, Barbara Cargill is a Young Earth Creationist (she believes the Earth is 6-10,000 years old and Earth, life, and all species were specially created by a supernatural deity in six days) and radical religious right Republican. Cargill, McLeroy, and Cynthia Dunbar were most instrumental in damaging the science standards with motions to amend the specific topics of evolution, the fossil record, origin of life, and DNA. Barbara Cargill especially tried to damage the new Earth and Space Science standards with numerous anti-science amendments that would damage the integrity of the ESS standards. Several unfortunately passed. However, ESS materials were not requested for adoption so today only the Biology supplemental materials will be controversial. Physics, chemistry, and other non-controversial sciences will also be adopted tomorrow but I doubt many will address these sciences.
Critique Of Intelligent Design - News
The politically-inserted standards that promote Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) will be the topics of debate from those presenting public testimony. The mainstream publishers certainly addressed the new standards, but not in the way that
insulated evolution from any form of critique in public schools? In any case, Dr. Scott is misrepresenting the law. The Kitzmiller v. Dover lawsuit dealt with the teaching of intelligent design, not teaching scientific evidence against evolution.
Boy, are they barking up the wrong tree: she's no friend of Intelligent Design creationism, and if they like that she's willing to criticize atheists, it's only because she doesn't consider creationists even worth arguing over.
When Hartman's intelligent design gambit didn't work, he closed the interview badgering Luskin with "Who do you believe the designer is?" Luskin again noted that this is about teaching peer-reviewed scientific critiques of neo-Darwinian evolution,
Imprint advances and expands the design conversation, providing fresh daily content to the community (and now to salon.com!), sparking conversation, competition, criticism, and passion among its members. By JC Gabel, Imprint Initially, the dawn of the
Unsophisticated and Outdated Scientific Critiques of Intelligent ...
Although both teleology and design are explanans of the explananda of natural phenomena that exhibit organized, functional complexity, they can be distinguished in the following sense. Explanations and arguments based upon teleology are predicated on there being purpose or some sort of goal, those based upon design assume that there is a specific intention for the detailed arrangements of the structure or process. Design explanations will inherently be also teleological ones, but many teleological explanations, such as those based upon the action of natural laws, can be advanced without assuming a crafting of the specific ends by a designing craftsman. The most important difference [between modern intelligent design theory and Paley's arguments] is that [intelligent design] is limited to design itself; I strongly emphasize that it is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley's was. I hasten to add that I myself do believe in a benevolent God, and I recognize that philosophy and theology may be able to extend the argument. But a scientific argument for design in biology does not reach that far. Thus while I argue for design, the question of the identity of the designer is left open. Possible candidates for the role of designer include: the God of Christianity; an angel--fallen or not; Plato's demi-urge; some mystical new age force; space aliens from Alpha Centauri; time travelers; or some utterly unknown intelligent being. Of course, some of these possibilities may seem more plausible than others based on information from fields other than science. Nonetheless, as regards the identity of the designer, modern ID theory happily echoes Isaac Newton's phrase hypothesis non fingo .
(Michael Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis," Philosophia Christi , Series 2, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2001), pg. 165, emphasis added.) Weber, who is a biochemist at Cal State Fullerton, claims that arguments based upon teleology could be viable, but arguments based upon design are defunct. He quickly dismisses ID arguments by citing to a chapter he wrote in the book Debating Design and another obscure publication. A critique of Weber's prior chapter is beyond the scope of this rebuttal; however, it's worth noting that he cites dubious rebuttals to Behe such as the RAG-Transposon Hypothesis and highly speculative arguments involving self-organization.
Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism: 
Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism: Critique Of Intelligent Design - Bookshelf
Critique of Intelligent Design, Materialism Versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present
Why Intelligent Design Fails, A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism
This is the debate raging in courtrooms and classrooms across the country.Science and Religion in Dialogue
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Critique of Intelligent Design - Home Page
A critique of religious dogma historically provides the basis for rational inquiry into ... Critique of Intelligent Design is a key to understanding the forces of irrationalism ...
Intelligent Design - Wikipedia
Hyperlinked article about ID, the assertion that empirical evidence supports the conclusion that the initial life on earth, and perhaps some of its present details, was deliberately designed by one or more intelligent agents.
Talk Reason: arguments against creationism, intelligent ...
TalkReason provides a forum for the publication of papers with well-thought out arguments against creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologetics.
Critique of Intelligent Design :: Monthly Review Press
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Design Yes, Intelligent No: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory and Neocreationism ... Among the chief exponents of Intelligent Design (ID) theory, as this ...