stand up for REAL science

When I was in high school, I started at offensive tackle and defensive end on our football team. At 5'11" and 185 pounds, I wasn't the most intimidating force on the field, but I hustled and was a decent player.

Our team played a basic 5-2 defense. As defensive end, I had one major assignment: to contain the quarterback. No matter what, it was my job to make sure the quarterback did not get past me, with our without the ball. That meant if the opposing team ran the option, it was my job to try to flatten the QB, preferably before he had the chance to pitch the ball.

On more than one occasion, I made what I thought was a great play when I took down the quarterback on an option, only to look up and realize that he had successfully pitched the ball and the running back was already well down the field.

Why do I bring this up?

Read the rest of this post to find out.

As I mentioned yesterday, a recent New York Times article incorrectly implied that the "strengths and weaknesses" ploy currently in play in Texas is a "new strategy." This trivial mistake inspired two separate posts on the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views comment-free "blog."

To kick things off, there was this post by Robert Crowther in which the Director of Communications tackled what he claimed to be the "central premise" of the New York Times article:

The central premise that teaching "strengths and weaknesses" of Darwin's theory (and chemical origin of life theories) is a new, post-Dover innovation is flagrantly false.

Was this the central premise of the article? Not to anyone who read the entire thing.

The major premise of the article was summarized in the opening sentence:

Opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts.

The truth is that the "strengths and weaknesses" strategy is simply one of the few plays that the opponents of evolution currently have in their offensive play-book. It was unfortunate that the article implied that this was a "new strategy," but that mistake doesn't change the fact that the article correctly described the overall state of affairs in Texas.

Indeed, four paragraphs down from the section that Crowther quoted, an astute reader finds the following:

The "strengths and weaknesses" language was slipped into the curriculum standards in Texas to appease creationists when the State Board of Education first mandated the teaching of evolution in the late 1980s. It has had little effect because evolution skeptics have not had enough power on the education board to win the argument that textbooks do not adequately cover the weaknesses of evolution.

Yet even as courts steadily prohibited the outright teaching of creationism and intelligent design, creationists on the Texas board grew to a near majority. Seven of 15 members subscribe to the notion of intelligent design, and they have the blessings of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican.

It appears to this sports fan that Crowther may have tackled the wrong part of the article.

Not to be outdone, John West quickly wrapped up another reporter who supposedly repeated the same error:

Now, however, New Scientist's Celeste Biever ... has botched the story even further. She asserts that

this summer, the Texas state education board will decide whether the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution should be taught in public schools.

...critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse...

Changing the language to dodge the law is an age-old tradition for the anti-evolution movement.... [emphasis added]

Poor Celeste is even more fact-challenged than usual. She seems to think that the Texas Board of Education is debating whether to add strengths and weaknesses language to its science standards. In fact, the language has been in the standards for a decade! The debate is about whether to remove the language, and the people trying to "change" the language are the Darwinists.

(Note: The second quote offered by West is something Celeste Bevier quoted from the original New York Times article, and the third quote does not appear anywhere in the current version of the article on the New Scientist website.)

West, like his teammate Crowther, also seems to have tackled the wrong part of the article. Right after the second passage that West quoted, an astute reader finds the following:

Although "strengths and weaknesses" have been in the school standards since the 1980s, they have "had little effect because evolution skeptics have not had enough power on the education board to win the argument that textbooks do not adequately cover the weaknesses of evolution."

That doesn't sound to me like someone who thinks the Texas BOE is debating whether to add the "strengths and weaknesses" language to its science standards.

This all brings me back to my reminiscent introduction. Playing defensive end on a 5-2 defense can be a challenging assignment. Your job is to cover the quarterback, no matter what. Unfortunately, when your opponents run a successful play, you sometimes end up tackling the wrong player and looking kind of foolish.

It is obvious that Crowther and West have a similarly challenging assignment. They are stuck tackling trivia because they must stick to their assignment of covering their true motives. If they were to address the real point--that they have been forced to water down their language in order to insert discredited ideas into public school science classrooms--they just might give away the game.