stand up for REAL science

Back in February, I took Dr. John G. West to task for falsely claiming that supporters of REAL science are promoting religious instruction in public school science classrooms.

In a Discovery Institute lecture, West laid out the accusation:

Public schools are certainly allowed to hold objective discussions of competing religious beliefs, in relevant courses, but that's not what the defenders of evolution are proposing. They are pushing one-sided, really, religious indoctrination with the clear intent of changing the religious beliefs of students, not just the science beliefs, but changing and molding the religious beliefs of students.

In order to make his case, West selectively quoted from an article written by Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). As I tried to demonstrate back in February, West disregarded the stated goal of the instructional activities described in the article. It should be clear to anyone who reads the entire article that the activities described therein are not intended to promote one religious view over another. Indeed, their sole purpose is clearly stated in the article itself: "to inform [students], in a comparative sense, of the existence of more than one religious perspective on creation and evolution."

At the time, I thought that my detailed analysis of West's deceptive presentation would put an end to this disingenuous canard. I now realize that I misjudged the dogged persistence of those within the anti-evolution movement.

Case in point:

Larry Caldwell (yes, that Larry Caldwell).

In a June 28 post on the Discovery Institute's "Evolution News and Views" website, Caldwell repeated the canard by quoting from the same article by Eugenie Scott.

Caldwell began his post by "wholeheartedly" agreeing with a quote from an open letter to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal from Barbara Forrest and the Louisiana Coalition for Science:

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is violated when the government endorses a sectarian doctrine. . .

Later in the post, Caldwell repeated West's accusation that defenders of evolution are promoting religious indoctrination:

The truth is that Forrest and her colleagues at NCSE have no problem with government endorsing religious doctrine in relation to evolution, as long as it is a religious doctrine they agree with.

Forrest and her colleague Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of NCSE, also have no problem with injecting religion into biology class. Indeed, NCSE Executive Director Scott authored an article available on the UC Understanding Evolution website in which she recommends that public school teachers initiate discussions of religion in their biology classes.

Caldwell went on to support this assertion with a long quote from the aforementioned article:

As an example of a recommended strategy, the article relates the experience of teachers who

have had good results when they begin the year by asking students to brainstorm what they think the words "evolution" and "creationism" mean. . . . Don't be surprised to find some variant of, "You can't believe in God" or some similar statement of supposed incompatibility between religion and evolution. Under "creationism" expect to find more consistency: "God"; "Adam and Eve," "Genesis," etc. The next step in constructing student understanding of concepts is to guide them towards a more accurate view. . . . After one such initial brainstorming session, one teacher presented students with a short quiz wherein they were asked, "Which statement was made by the Pope?" or "which statement was made by an Episcopal Bishop?" and given an "a, b, c" multiple choice selection. All the statements from theologians, of course, stressed the compatibility of theology with the science of evolution. This generated discussion about what evolution was versus what students thought it was. By making the students aware of the diversity of opinion towards evolution extant in Christian theology, the teacher helped them understand that they didn't have to make a choice between evolution and religious faith. A teacher in Minnesota . . . had good luck sending his students out at the beginning of the semester to interview their pastors and priests about evolution. They came back somewhat astonished, "Hey! Evolution is OK!" Even when there was diversity in opinion, with some religious leaders accepting evolution as compatible with their theology and others rejecting it, it was educational for the students to find out for themselves that there was no single Christian perspective on evolution. The survey-of-ministers approach may not work if the community is religiously homogeneous, especially if that homogeneity is conservative Christian, but it is something that some teachers might consider. . . .

[emphasis added by Caldwell]

Based on this quote, Caldwell concluded:

Despite Forrest's current public posturing to the contrary, she and her colleagues at the NCSE really believe that a good "science" education should include a healthy dose of religious instruction in biology class.

Perhaps that's why Forrest's colleague, Scott, sometimes refers to herself as the "Evolution Evangelist."

Those of us familiar with the rhetorical strategies used by anti-evolutionists have learned to be wary of their use of ellipses in quotations. Upon reading the above quote, I immediately went to the original article to read the words that Caldwell intentionally chose to omit.

As it turns out, my wariness was justified.

Like John West before him, Caldwell utilized selective quotation to obscure the clearly stated purpose of the instructional activities described in the article. For example, Caldwell used the second set of ellipses to completely omit the following sentence:

One goal of this exercise is to help [the students] see the diversity of religious attitudes towards evolution.

Why did Caldwell choose to omit this particular sentence? Perhaps it's because this part of the quoted passage contradicts his assertion concerning the intended purpose of the exercise.

In addition, Caldwell ended the quoted passage with a final set of ellipses in order to remove another clear statement of the purpose of the instructional activities. Here is the entire final sentence:

The survey-of-ministers approach may not work if the community is religiously homogeneous, especially if that homogeneity is conservative Christian, but it is something that some teachers might consider as a way of getting students' fingers out of their ears.

(emphasis added)

As with the first example, this omitted section also contradicts Caldwell's assertion that the instructional activities were intended to promote one religious view over another.

As I pointed out in my earlier post on this topic, instructional activities like the ones described by Scott are solely intended to defuse the religious objections to evolution that students bring in from outside of the classroom so that authentic learning can take place inside of it. Indeed, Eugenie Scott made exactly this point towards the end of the quoted article:

Many religious students have never been exposed to a continuum of religious views, and in a very real sense, you are giving them an opportunity to listen to you and not shut you out. Note that you are not to promote theistic evolution: the schools must be religiously neutral. The purpose of this exercise is to give the student some critically important information so that he or she will be more willing to listen to the scientific information you will present.

Ironically, in his deliberate attempt to relight the fuse, Larry Caldwell has provided yet another vivid illustration of why such activities are necessary.

There is a lingering question that remains . . .

Why would promoters of Intelligent Design oppose efforts by teachers to inform students of the diversity of religious viewpoints concerning evolution?

I have an idea concerning what the answer might be.

After their utter failure to produce anything that even remotely resembles REAL science, the people at the Discovery Institute have come to realize that religious objections to evolution are among their only remaining lines of attack.

At this point, stoking the religious flames may be the only way to prolong their flickering movement.