Religion & Law

Is the Word Incalcitrant or Recalcitrant?

By John Pieret

The Undiscovery Institute's John West is kvetching about "the outlandish new 'study' evaluating state science standards published by two officials of the National Center for Science Education ... [in] a journal devoted to the one-sided teaching of evolution" [i.e. to teaching science without any theology attached]. According to West, the study seeks to "ban" the words "Assess," "Analyze," "Evaluate," and "Critique." Naturally, the study's authors, Louise S. Mead and Anton Mates, do no such thing. Here's the relevant passage from a section labeled "Creationist Jargon":

[I]n general, over the last two decades, creationists have reduced their advocacy of state-level legislation and policy that explicitly endorse creationist claims or attack evolution. Blanket bans on evolution and policies requiring "balanced treatment" of evolution and creationism have given way to more innocuous language, such as "teaching the controversy," "critical analysis," "strengths and weaknesses," "academic freedom," and "discussing the full range of scientific views" (Branch and Scott 2009). This is doubtless largely because such attempts have been obstructed by the courts at every turn, but it also reflects a growing creationist understanding that such legislation is not necessary to accomplish many of their goals in the public schools. Most creationism advocates in America are members of like-minded communities, which provide them with ready access to any amount of antievolution material?textbooks, articles, and video programs. Hence, there is no need to recycle or even refer specifically to this material in government policies. An antievolution policy need merely implicitly permit such material to be taught, and creationist pressure at the local level will often ensure that it is taught. ...

[W]e define [creationist jargon] also to include the kinds of language used by creationists to justify the use of teaching material that casts doubt on the theory of evolution. The aforementioned Alabama and Louisiana bills exemplify two general strains of such language. The first strain emphasizes the supposed weaknesses of evolution?the phrase "strengths and weaknesses," as in the Louisiana bills, is common?and the existence of supposedly scientific credible alternatives to evolution. ...

A second strain of creationist language is perhaps more dangerous because it is more subtle. This strain directs the student to judge the validity of evolution?to "critique," "assess," or "evaluate" it. The Louisiana Science Education Act over-egged the pudding by urging teachers to help their students to "understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner."

To many Americans, this seems harmless or even laudable?why shouldn't students practice evaluating the scientific theories they study? Of course, the answer is that students should do so?but only in a way that will in fact promote their understanding of science and that is otherwise pedagogically responsible. In the case of Louisiana, there is certainly reason to think that, on the contrary, evolution will be invidiously singled out for attention and that creationist critiques of evolution will be used. When Louisiana's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education adopted a policy about what types of supplementary classroom materials will, and will not, be allowable under the new law, a draft provision that "materials that teach creationism or intelligent design... shall be prohibited from use in science class" was deleted.

In other words, the authors are not saying that the words should be "banned" or that students shouldn't assess, analyze, evaluate and critique the actual science of evolution. They are warning that such words, when put into the mouths of politicians by disingenuous creationists, like those at the Disco 'Tute, are a signal that creationists are attempting to shoehorn their religious beliefs into science classes.

Nor is that hard to see. As noted by Mead and Mates, when the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education proposed guidelines that would specifically prohibit the teaching of Intelligent Design, creationism or other materials that "advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind," the DI and its ally, the Louisiana Family Forum (the state affiliate of James Dobson's Focus on the Family), successfully sought to have the restriction removed because such a provision "would have gone beyond the intent of the legislation." There is no doubt, therefore, what the intent of the supporters of such terminology is.

West's other complaint is that "the Darwinists' justification for shutting down open inquiry by students and teachers is the patronizing insistence that high school students are too infantile to be allowed to discuss things like adults." What Mead and Mates actually said was:

The aspiration to have middle and high school students evaluate evolutionary theory, moreover, is not entirely realistic from a pedagogical perspective. Students should evaluate the scientific theories they study?but not before they fully understand those theories! As the foundation to the entire science of biology, evolutionary theory is vast and complex, resting on a variety of evidential bases from a number of scientific fields?all of which students are generally being introduced to for the first time in high school. Students will not finish learning about it in detail until, at minimum, their later years of college, and they will not begin seriously analyzing it and synthesizing their knowledge until graduate school. Expecting high school biology students to be able to evaluate evolutionary theory is no more reasonable than expecting high school physics students to evaluate quantum field theory. If students had the necessary knowledge and skills to make such judgments, there would be little reason for college science courses!

Another way of thinking about this is that high school students are being given only bits and pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle and asking them to tell from those few clues what the puzzle depicts is unrealistic. The creationist talking points (such as they are), as in Stephen Meyer's ode to "boy, that looks complicated, it must be designed," aren't dealing on the same level as high school science. We'd be happy to deal with what happens when IDeologists try to address the nitty gritty of the evidence for evolution, as in Casey Luskin's ludicrous attempts to "critique" the wrist bones in Tiktaalik (or, for that matter, his inability to understand the English language). It's the pseudo meta-arguments against evolution, such as "information" or "specified complexity" or "irreducible complexity" that high school students do not have enough knowledge of evolutionary theory to fairly evaluate ... a point the creationists rely on.

The interesting thing is how petty West's complaints are in comparison to the seriousness of the charge being made ... that creationists are out to deprive children of good educations. The main lesson to take away from these mewings is that the Dishonesty Institute's minions are, apparently, incapable of fairly representing anything in this dispute, large or small.
.

Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on August 12, 2009 (boomark / email).