Michele Bachmann, science ignoramus (CNN photo)

It’s not surprising, because Bachmann (and most of the other candidates for the GOP presidential nomination), are stubbornly in the Science (and History) Ignoramus class. Global warming? Liberal nonsense! Evolution? Atheist nonsense! Separation of Church and State? It was never there!

Intelligent Design is religious belief, Creationism with a different label, and the federal courts — most recently in 2005 — have ruled it cannot be taught in public schools, especially in science class. Period.

Yet, Bachmann and others stubbornly insist ID must be taught in public schools. Don’t they read the newspapers?

Here’s what she told CNN.

“I support intelligent design,” Bachmann told reporters in New Orleans following her speech to the Republican Leadership Conference. “What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don’t think it’s a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”

WRONG!!

There is no “reasonable doubt” about evolution, at least among sensible people and especially not among scientists. There are no two sides about evolution, any more than there are two sides about Einstein’s theory of gravity, or the atomic theory, or continental drift. They are all accepted scientific theories, supported by piles of evidence.

She’s repeating the worn-out “teach the controversy” ploy of the ID community. It goes like this:

1. Assume that evolution is a belief system, not an empirical theory.
2. Pretend that there is lack of consensus about this belief system.
3. Couch objections to teaching evolution in school in “Big Brother” or “atheistic government” terms.
4. Appeal to the reasonable concept that students should hear all sides of an issue.
5. Insist that Intelligent Design is a suitable scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth.
6. Propose that ID and evolution be taught as alternative theories, and let the students decide which is “better science.”

To the layman, this all seems perfectly reasonable. After all, we can discuss socialism and capitalism in history classes, why not creationism — sorry, Intelligent Design — and evolution in biology class?

But science is not the same as political theory. Science depends on observations, experiments, logical deduction and induction, self-consistency, explanatory power, predictability and (most importantly for this discussion) rejection of supernatural causes for natural events.

The underlying premise of ID is that some unseen being/force/architect/mechanic/God created life forms more or less as they appear now, perhaps as early as just a few thousand years ago. We cannot prove such a Designer exists, since he/she/it is undetectable by natural means, so this Designer is supernatural.

In addition, since ID assumes a Designer is looking down (or around, or up, or sideways) at Life on Earth, he/she/it might decide at any time to poof! create something new, or eliminate something altogether. Thus, there is no real predictability to this so-called theory, since we cannot anticipate God’s decisions. — Sorry, did I say God? I meant the Intelligent Designer.

You don’t need to my word for it. US District Judge John Jones, a Republican appointee, ruled in Kitzmiler v. Dover Board of Education (2005), after a lengthy court trial, that ID is nothing but Creationism — religious belief — dressed up as a “science,” and very poor science, at that.

The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory. (Source)

and

ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID. (Source)

Bachmann, incidentally, implies that “government” should allow public schools to “teach the controversy,” which is a polite way of saying the government should require it. (Several states have legislation pending, or have already passed laws, requiring ID or creationism be taught in public schools. Louisiana, where she was speaking, is one of them that passed such a law.)

So, on the one hand, she says the government should stay out of education, while on the other hand, she says it should not. After all, the religious right, of which Bachmann is a member, really, really wants to put religion (their form of it) in the public schools, if they are not trying to eliminate public schooling altogether.

Pay close attention to what Bachmann, and the other GOP candidates, say about science and education. Then ask yourself if that is the kind of thinking that would enable the USA to continue being a leader in science and technology.

And then vote for someone else.

Expelled was the 2008 embarrassment that tried to prove once and for all there was a vast conspiracy to teach evolution while suppressing Intelligent Design and other “explanations” of life on Earth, and putting Hitler in power. Or something like that. The New York Times called it “one of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time.”

Narrated and hosted by the riveting Ben Stein, it tanked at the box office, so badly it seems, that its production company, Premise Media, is in bankruptcy court.

According to a document (PDF) filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, on May 31, 2011, the trustee of the bankruptcy estate is seeking to auction “[t]hat certain feature-length motion picture (‘Picture’) ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ and all collateral, allied, ancillary, subsidiary and merchandising rights therein and thereto, and all properties and things of value pertaining thereto.” The auction is scheduled to take place on-line from June 23 to June 28, 2011.

As awful as the movie was, I reckon somebody will probably bid on it. I hope the winner is a film collector, who will stash it in a vault somewhere, and not some Intelligent Design fanboy, who will try to inflict it on us again.

————————–
POSTSCRIPT: Back in 2008, I did a critique of the Expelled teacher’s guide. The National Center for Science Education also has a more elaborate debunking of the movie.

So, when the Texas BOE met in March to discuss controversial changes to the state’s proposed science standards, science educators all over the USA were worried. Would the BOE, chaired by an unapologetic creationist, introduce language into the standards to allow the teaching of creationism and and its clone, Intelligent Design, in the Texas schools?

To do so would be seriously damage science education in the Texas public schools. It would also likely influence textbook publishers’ treatment of evolution in biology texts, thereby affecting schools all over the USA.

The Texas BOE is nearly evenly composed of creationists and more sensible members, so the results were by no means predictable. In the end, the original changes, as proposed by the openly anti-evolution chairman and board members, were rejected. Instead, the BOE passed more coyly worded standards that still could be used to introduce pseudo-science and religion into Texas classrooms, but did not exactly trample science teaching.

Whether the new standards will induce textbook publishers to edit their books to make them more palatable to Texas remains to be seen.

A lot of bloggers have capably covered the Texas fracas already, so I will not go into the details here. Rather, I’d rather provide some background as an interested observer.

Textbooks
Right off, I want to reveal some personal bias. I hate most school textbooks. Invariably, they are written by committees of authors, who have to write to specific age-appropriate reading levels, include spiffy graphics and photos, chop the material into tiny, easily digestible chunks, and satisfy the requirements of 50 different state boards or departments of education. The result is a sometimes confusing, often dull piece of work that sucks the life out of any subject. For that reason, I avoided using high school physics texts as a teacher, sticking to college texts. As a one-man department at an independent school, I could manage that. Results may vary elsewhere.

Textbook publishing for the public schools is a major industry, now dominated by only a handful of large publishers. They tend to swing in the direction of the most populous states, Texas, California and New York, since those states will buy the most textbooks in any given replacement cycle. If Texas, for example, wants students to study the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolutionary theory, as was originally proposed, then publishers will try to add such material to their texts in an effort to close a deal with Texas. All other states will see identically worded texts. [It's inefficient and costly to publish 50 different versions of the same text, after all.]

The next textbook buying cycle in Texas is 2012, by the way. Real soon.

Science courses in US public schools are typically survey courses, by subject. At the high school level, that means a biology text one year, a chemistry text another year, etc. Middle school texts might be life science, earth science, environmental science and physical science.

Given the nature of the beast, and the typical school term of 180 days, any particular topic in a given field of study gets only cursory examination in most school texts.

Under these circumstances, treating a complex subject like the theory of evolution is a tough job. While I personally don’t like most school texts, I appreciate the hard work by their authors to serve their profession and subjects well. Most textbook writers and contributors are teachers themselves, or university professors, well versed in their subjects and in proper teaching methods. Their publishers’ bottom lines dictate the final products, not the authors’ own abilities.

So, take a complex subject like evolution, add a dash of “strengths and weaknesses” of the theory (whatever that means), mince it to fit within the parameters of the public school textbook, and the result would likely be a confusing exposition to a reader who might be at once an unmotivated learner and a disinterested student. Only a skillful teacher can pull his or her students out of that mire.

“Strengths and weaknesses”
The creationist/ID camp of the Texas BOE, lead by chairman Don McLeroy, proposed this amendment to the proposed standards: (A) analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information. The board rejected the amendment, 8-7.

At face value, the wording seems pretty harmless, but it was a ploy by creationists and Intelligent Designists to suggest that the theory of evolution has fatal flaws (no God pulling any strings, for example). McLeroy is an unabashed Young Earth Creationist (you know, God created everything in 6 days in 4004 BC), and the wording draws from the pro-ID Discovery Institute’s “wedge document” — a strategic plan to insert creationism/ID “science” into public instruction.

McLeroy and his cohorts also wanted similar treatments of other scientific theories, like the Big Bang and abiogenesis, and global warming. Evolution was just the poster child.

Since the First Amendment prohibits the state (public schools) from teaching religion (Genesis) to students, creationism and ID proponents have had to couch their “theories” carefully as “scientific” alternatives to the theories of evolution, abiogenesis and the Big Bang.

First, they have popularized the meme that evolution is a “theory in crisis.” [It isn't.] Then, they insist that scientists are trying to cover up their imperiled evolutionary theory’s weaknesses. [They aren't, since none exist.] The same scientists want to keep “alternative theories” out of the schools, since wider understanding of creationist and ID principles would further weaken “belief” in evolution. [Wrong again: the alternatives are not science.] Science should entertain all explanations for observed phenomena. [Sure, if they are scientific explanations.] Therefore, schools should “teach the controversy” to give students a more complete science education.

That ploy failed in 2005, when a federal judge (appointed by a Republican president and assumed to be “soft” on ID) categorically outed “teach the controversy” and ID as religious beliefs, not scientific explanations.

Now the creationist/ID camps have fallen back on a secondary ploy, to suggest that students should “critically analyze” the “weaknesses” in their rogue’s gallery of scientific theories. That was the eventual outcome of the Texas BOE’s deliberations.

The final wording of the major amendment was: In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning and experimental and observational testing, including examining all sides of the scientific evidence of those scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the student. Approved 13-2

Notice the magic words “critique” and “critical thinking” there, implying students can analyze evolution in the same way they can an American novel, or a political movement.

Two specific amendments to the biology standards also passed: Analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis and the sequential nature of groups in the fossil record. Approved 13-2 Anti-evolution types insist there are gaps in the fossil record — no intermediate forms — indicating a weakness in evolutionary theory and evidence for Creation. And, analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell. Approved 13-2 ID proponents harp on the so-called “irreducible complexity” of living organisms as evidence for an intelligent designer.

Under earth sciences, the board also specifically struck an instructional goal that students should learn the universe is 14 billion years old, replacing the wording with current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe. Approved 11-3 Anti-evolutionists usually deny the universe is as old as most scientific estimates hold, though not all them accept a 6,000-year-old age either.

Outcomes
At this point, it’s hard to predict how the new standards will affect instruction in Texas. Asuming the Texas legislature doesn’t get involved somehow, some teachers might use the cleverly worded standards to teach creationism or ID in their classes (which is not to suggest some haven’t already been doing it). Egregious examples will likely end up in court, since it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that creationism and ID are religious ideas and cannot constitutionally be taught in public schools.

The ID camp, of course, is pleased as punch at the final results, since they did not lose categorically. Chairman McLeroy, however, is whining that the new standards are scientifically unsound and ultimately are a disservice to Texas students.

In that, he is ironically correct.

Links:
Minutes of the BOE meeting: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/summary/2009/March09Summary.pdf

Short article in the Baptist Standard: http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9355&Itemid=53

From the Skeptic Blog: http://skepticblog.org/2009/04/01/texas-science-standards-wrapup-yup-doomed/

Dallas Morning News report: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-evolution_28tex.ART.State.Edition1.4a87415.html

Salon.com coverage: http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/03/28/texas_evolution_case/

The bill purportedly would have protected instructors from punishment or job loss if they presented “scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding chemical and biological evolution.” In fact, it was a ploy to enable suitably minded instructors to teach creationism or ID alongside evolutionary theory. Wording that is almost identical appears on a web page sponsored by the Discovery Institute, a pro-ID “thinktank.”

Full details are at The Panda’s Thumb.

Lest you think the bill might have had merit, allow me to provide a brief introduction to “creation science.” ID is just a variation of creationism, accepting an older age of the universe.

Creationism holds that:

• The account in Genesis is literal and true.
• God created everything in six days, about 6,000 years ago.
• Before Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, all animals were vegetarians, death was non-existent, and predation/parasitism were unnecessary.
• God got pissed at Adam and Eve, and that wily serpent in the Tree, and cursed them with unending toil, mortality, and slithering on the ground. With the Fall, God also rebooted Creation 1.0 to introduce carnivorism, predation, parasitism and all the unhappy biological problems all His creatures now face.
• At this time, dinosaurs and other now-extinct organisms co-existed with humans. (The Fred Flintstone Hypothesis). They were wiped out, and the fossil record created, with the Great Flood that chased Noah, et al., into a big boat. Instead of rebooting Earth, God just wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Creation 2.0
• The organisms now living have always existed in their current forms since Creation 2.0. Evolution does not exist, and Earth’s organisms do not have a common ancestor. It goes without saying that humans and apes are not related at all.

Believe it or not, some teachers in the US have actually managed to teach this nonsense in public schools. Ohio’s John Freshwater is but one notable example.

So, if your legislatures are considering similar “academic freedom” measures, be forewarned. The wolf is wearing sheep’s clothing.

And yeah, it’s not written by a creationist or a believer in Intelligent Design. They never use four-letter words. Really. Just ask them.

On the face of it, “academic freedom” would sound like a good thing, but in today’s world of newspeak, this kind of “academic freedom” is shorthand for “let’s allow the public schools to teach creationism or Intelligent Design ideas alongside the scientific theories of the Big Bang and evolution.” Similar bills have been proposed in several other — mostly Bible Belt — states, and all have the same chance of success. None — except of course in Louisiana, where one actually passed.

These bills are merely a veiled attempt by Christian kooks to subvert the US Constitution (and proper science education) by suggesting that creationism and ID are really scientific theories, not religious ideas, and therefore should be taught as valid alternatives to evolution. Trouble is, the Supreme Court ruled decades ago that creationism was religious in nature, and cannot be taught in public schools, and in 2005, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that ID was also religious in nature, meaning the Dover, Pennsylvania, school system had violated the Constitution by permitting it to be taught in science classes.

Yet, the kooks persist, in a quixotic attempt to find some state stupid enough to pass so-called “academic freedom” legislation, so like-minded instructors can slip in so-called scientific alternatives to evolution.

Here is the wording of the Iowa bill:

EXPLANATION
4 5 This bill establishes the “Evolution Academic Freedom Act”.
4 6 The bill includes the general assembly’s findings and
4 7 declarations related to its intent to protect the right and
4 8 freedom of public school teachers and public postsecondary
4 9 instructors to objectively present scientific information
4 10 relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding
4 11 biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching
4 12 any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological
4 13 evolution.
4 14 The bill defines “scientific information” to mean germane
4 15 current facts, data, and peer=reviewed research specific to
4 16 the topic of chemical and biological evolution. For
4 17 elementary and secondary schools, the definition is linked to
4 18 the state’s core curriculum for science.
4 19 Pursuant to the bill, the general assembly finds and
4 20 declares that current law does not expressly protect the right
4 21 of instructors to objectively present scientific information;
4 22 that instructors have experienced or feared discipline,
4 23 discrimination, or other adverse consequences as a result of
4 24 presenting the full range of scientific views regarding
4 25 chemical and biological evolution; that existing law does not
4 26 expressly protect students from discrimination due to their
4 27 positions or views regarding biological or chemical evolution;
4 28 and that the topic has generated intense controversy about the
4 29 rights of instructors and students to hold differing views.
4 30 The bill prohibits an instructor from being disciplined,
4 31 denied tenure, terminated, or otherwise discriminated against
4 32 for objectively presenting scientific information relevant to
4 33 the full range of scientific views regarding biological or
4 34 chemical evolution.
4 35 The bill requires students to be evaluated based upon their
5 1 understanding of course materials through standard testing
5 2 procedures. Students shall not be penalized for subscribing
5 3 to a particular position or view regarding biological or
5 4 chemical evolution.

The key words here are “scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding
biological and chemical evolution.” The bill mentions nothing about creationism or ID, but the language contained therein is a dead ringer for similar language proposed by the ID “thinktank,” the Discovery Institute. Here is the wording of a petition on a DI-sponsored website:

“We, the undersigned American citizens, urge the adoption of policies by our nation’s academic institutions to ensure teacher and student academic freedom to discuss the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution. Teachers should be protected from being fired, harassed, intimidated, or discriminated against for objectively presenting the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory. Students should be protected from being harassed, intimidated, or discriminated against for expressing their views about the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory in an appropriate manner.”

Like the fictional “war on Christmas,” the persecution of Christians who dare challenge the horrible monolith of evolution is a lot of hot air. It’s a meme fostered by the simply awful movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, that essentially bombed in the box office last spring. You can count the number of instructors fired or harassed for teaching creationism/ID on your fingers. In fact, in many cases they lost their jobs for other extenuating circumstances. (See the John Freshwater case for a recent example.)

Creationism and ID are religion, folks. In their current forms, they are clearly Christian-inspired. According to the Constitution and all subsequent court interpretations of the same, publicly funded schools cannot teach one particular religion to students. It is a very simple idea, which some legislators are apparently too thick to understand.

Dressing the wolf in sheep’s clothing fools no one, really. Iowa’s scientists are circulating a petition against the bill, which will probably die in committee anyway. Meanwhile, we (actually, you) will get to hear the same tired arguments about evolution, men are not monkeys, the word of God, blah, blah, blah.

It’s a lot of crap, and embarrassing to realize it is coming from the most powerful nation in the world (well, maybe not in economic terms, anymore …).

And I am proud to say I still haven’t seen the movie. I figured I’d wait until either it was dirt cheap in the DVD remainder bin, at the Goodwill, or available in the torrent channels.

Famed film critic Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, must have had the same idea. He waited until now to publish a review of Expelled in his blog.

Briefly speaking, he doesn’t like it, not one bit. Two thumbs down. I don’t think he much cares for Ben Stein, the narrator and promoter of the film, either. He concludes his scathing analysis of the film, its promoters and Stein’s opportunism thusly:

Ben Stein is only getting warmed up. He takes a field trip to visit one “result” of Darwinism: Nazi concentration camps. “As a Jew,” he says, “I wanted to see for myself.” We see footage of gaunt, skeletal prisoners. Pathetic children. A mound of naked Jewish corpses. “It’s difficult to describe how it felt to walk through such a haunting place,” he says. Oh, go ahead, Ben Stein. Describe. It filled you with hatred for Charles Darwin and his followers, who represent the overwhelming majority of educated people in every nation on earth. It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt.

Read the entire entry. It’s classic Ebert.