image from Saint Gasoline, click for larger.
Austin (TX) American-Statesman:
The state’s director of science curriculum has resigned after being accused of creating the appearance of bias against teaching intelligent design.
Comer was put on 30 days paid administrative leave shortly after she forwarded an e-mail in late October announcing a presentation being given by Barbara Forrest, author of “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse,” a book that says creationist politics are behind the movement to get intelligent design theory taught in public schools. Forrest was also a key witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case concerning the introduction of intelligent design in a Pennsylvania school district. Comer sent the e-mail to several individuals and a few online communities, saying, “FYI.”
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which sent the original e-mail to Comer announcing the event, said Comer’s situation seems to be a warning to agency employees.
“This just underscores the politicization of science education in Texas,” Scott said. “In most states, the department of education takes a leadership role in fostering sound science education. Apparently TEA employees are supposed to be kept in the closet and only let out to do the bidding of the board.”
Needless to say this is taking the science blogs by storm…more at two of my favorites, Bad Astronomy (thanks for the tip, Phil) and Pharyngula.
Update: Some commenters are taking offense that this post is anti-Christian. I wrote it. I’m a Christian (believing Quaker). A great many members of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State believe as I do that intelligent design is a specific attempt by Fundamentalists to inject religion into the public schools, and some of us also believe that if the State teaches the Bible they will misinterpret it for our children. Religious freedom requires freedom from anyone’s individual religious beliefs being force taught in the public schools as scientific fact. Read more here. BG
No Trackbacks To “Questioning “Intelligent Design” in Texas? You’re Fired.“
Thank God for seperation of Church and State!
should we be surprised?
I live in the northeast.
Grew up in northeastern Illinois.
It’s easy for me to criticize Texans. But I won’t do it.
All Americans bear responsibility for our country’s slide into a Dark Age.
Almost, but not quite, as bad as those idiot Sudanese..whoops, they’re Muslim–can’t criticize them, must be sensitive to their “culture.” Sorry.
Is crooks and liars trying to insinuate that you are stupid if you believe the universe was created instead of miracling itself existence? What a warm, welcoming place…
andrew @ 4:
Maybe if you stuck to the subject at hand you would not have to appoligize so much.
By the way, i can’t vote or do anything about what is going on in Sudan since i am not Sudanese. Are you, by chance, Sudanese?
The Dumbing down of America.
Remember when America was the leader in science?
Remember when America was looked to by the rest of the world?
Remember when America made the best products?
Remember when our Democracy was a model for the free world?
Remember when America’s Presidents were learned men of words?
Remember when you didn’t have to worry about the Banking system collapsing and taking you with it?
America is looked at askew in most other Nations now.
Nice Job mr. bush (doesn’t deserve proper capitalization.)
That venn diagram is AWESOME!
“Apparently TEA employees are supposed to be kept in the closet and only let out to do the bidding of the board.”
That about nails it.
Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism
#8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc. Elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of propaganda. The Nazi schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary and an elementary syntax in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.
Fourteen Warning Signs of a Fascist State
-by Umberto Eco
More Republican anti-science at work.
Although what can we expect from a country that refuses to elect candidates that do not swear they believe in an invisible being that will punish everyone who misbehaves by torturing them for all time? When that is what “normal” people are expected to believe, what do you expect?
Shiva H Vishnu @ 7:
Yes it was 7 years ago.
Pete @ 5:
Are you insinuating that if we don’t believe an old man who has always existed even before anything existed created everything that does exist (but there is no need to explain why or how He came to exist) that we are somehow unwelcoming?
This was on the front page of today’s paper here in Austin. It’s a sad state of affairs for normally intelligent people who work REALLY hard to educate our beloved little rug-rats.
First the Republicans spend several election cycles stealing Christians away from their RIGHTFUL home in the Democratic party… then Creationists steal public education from moderate Democrats and compassionate conservatives.
This is an Up-Side-Down world, and it’s Rush Limbaugh’s fault.
Shiva H Vishnu @ 7:
America was NEVER any of those things that YOU can remember…it was always a LIE….you’re just angry because you’re finally waking up to the nightmare
Pete @ 5:
Um, what exactly is the difference between the two options that you describe?
And it is my perception that the diagram you are in a snit about implies that you are stupid if you want to teach “ineulijunt dezine” as science. Keep it in a religious context where it belongs.
xoites defends Constitution @ 1:
Cute. An Atheist thanking God. :lol:
Not for nothing, but I was educated in Texas and even grew up to be a scientist! Shocking, I know. However, that was 30 long years and an evolution of the War on Intellect. Thank Bob my kids are learning real science in another state.
Pete @ 5:
Evolution does not equal the Big Bang Theory. We are insinuating that intelligent design should not be taught in public schools because it is religion based.
Try again.
Pete @ 5:
Time for a lesson on Venn Diagrams: If the ’stupidity’ circle does not fully contain the ‘religion’ circle, then belief in religion does not imply stupidity. It IS possible to have one without the other.
LibertyLover @ 17:
I am told God made my Atheism possible.
Well, now this is not unexpected, Texas is number one in ‘dumb’. There’s something about those vast, open spaces in Texan’s heads that mimics the vast, open spaces of the state.
DNA studies have shown that Texans, on average, are only one gene away from fruit flies, and religious Texans, which is the majority in the state, would be identical to fruit flies if they only lived one day. Unfortunately, many religious Texans live longer than that, but not to worry, we’ve overcome bigger hurdles than this.
Remember, ‘god’ is on the side of the non-religious, he must be, otherwise he would not have put the religious Texans in such a god-forsaken place.
He buried that ass*ole John MaGee, or MaGoo, or whatever his name is running CUFO, or CUNI, or whatever that crazy zionist cult is, in San Antonio, for christ’s sake, which shows you what ‘god’ thinks of him.
Can we give Texas back to Mexico?
rasta @ 15:
No we did have Golden Era’s here and there. Where good karma negated all the shit.
Chris H. @ 18:
Wait a minute…
You need to find a more liberal church.
Evolution describes how God was able to manufacture all those different species… and The Big Bang explains how God managed to get all those galaxies and stars up there in the first place. The word “day” in Genisis is really a very sophisticated METAPHOR. Didn’t you know that? (You have to think in “geologic time and verse.”
Pete @ 5:
Wait. After rexamining what you said let me restate what you said with different words but THE EXACT SAME MEANING.
“Is crooks and liars trying to insinuate that you are stupid if you believe the universe miracled itself existence instead of miracling itself existence? What a warm, welcoming place…”
Pete @ 5:
Not really. There are spiritually inclined people around here. Imagine that. The difference is the spiritually inclined around here don’t go shoving their trip down peoples throats.
Cowboy Bob in Austin @ 24:
Geologic time does not exist in the Creationist Universe.
Well, Texas gave us bush … If there is a God, all evidence shows that He hates bush and is punishing all Americans because we are stupid and elected such a moron.
Pete @ 5:
Geez, Pete, it’s my observation that C&L, while open to many extremes of rational opinion, was not meant to be a ‘warm, welcoming place’ for idiots, or reality-challenged lunatics, or faith-based boobs. There are asylums, rehab centers, and right-wing blogs for that purpose, as well as Pedophilic Cathedrals, Perverted Sexual Places of Worship, and republican caucuses.
Pete @ 5:
It’s insinuating that people responsible for teaching science shouldn’t be fired for being biased against things that aren’t scientific. ID is not scientific…
FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER!!!!!
xoites defends Constitution @ 13:
If you put up a little picture that implies people who think differently than you are stupid, then yes.
Pete @ 5:
My, we’re sensitive this evening aren’t we? :(
Chris H. @ 18:
I don’t see anything in the graphic about public schools.
xoites defends Constitution @ 20:
Cowboy Bob in Austin Says
Evolution describes how God was able to manufacture all those different species… and The Big Bang explains how God managed to get all those galaxies and stars up there in the first place. The word “day” in Genisis is really a very sophisticated METAPHOR. Didn’t you know that? (You have to think in “geologic time and verse.”
“The bible is a metaphor for whatever science ends up discovering” is, indeed, a popular point of view. Useless, but popular.
I’ll be impressed when cdesign proponentsists (Google it) actually produce real results and make useful predictions.
Legitimate scientific theories spend years developing bodies of supporting work before anyone suggests including them in high school textbooks.
And I’m all for “teach the controversy.” Very short lesson: there isn’t any. Not in the scientific community anyway, which is what science classes are supposed to be focused on.
The irony is that this post is appearing on the very night that the classic film Inherit the Wind, which featured Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly, and which dealt with the teaching of evolution in a public school during the 1920s, is being shown tonight on TCM.
I am told God made my Atheism possible. in the Creationist Universe.
I meant that
Ha ha!
Don’t let no one tell you that God ain’t got a sense of humor
Somebody said he’s pissed of but that was just a rumor
Boing
Preacher Boob @ 30:
Hey … no reason allowed in this thread.
(pretty funny though PB)
Pete @ 33:
If you think the picture put up there makes you look stupid then my most charitable comment is you either do not understand a Ben Diagram (ignorant of how they work and what they mean) or you are stupid.
Stupid people are welcome here. Take me, for instance.
Anyone who believes in intelligent design must not believe in George Bush.
L.A. Confidential @ 40:
“I don’t want to start any desperate rumours
But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour
And when I die
I expect to find Him laughing…”
Anyone? Anyone?
Cowboy Bob in Austin @ 24: