stand up for REAL science

Naturally, the Discovery Institute is giddy over the latest version of the Texas state science standards.

Over at IDtheFuture, you can listen to the podcast of their version of events. The blurb for the podcast reads

Texas Board Chair Gives a Science Lesson
January 27, 2009 10:17 AM PST
Last week, the Texas State Board of Education met to consider a draft of their new science standards. At the meeting, the Board's Chair, Dr. Don McLeroy did a remarkable thing - he gave the rest of the Board a science lesson, which began when McLeroy proposed a new standard regarding evolution. Listen in to this episode of ID the Future as Dr. McLeroy lays out a compelling case for the existence of scientific controversies over evolution.

In fact, West glowingly describes McLeroy's presentation as

"It was a tour-de-force, especially because Dr. McLeroy's sources were the writings of prominent evolutionists themselves." (at about 1:15)

Of course, the tour-de-force to which West refers is the list of distorted, misquoted, taken-out-of-context, and plagiarized statements read by McLeroy in support of the latest version of the Texas state science standards. Those "scientific controversies" exist only in the minds of the quoteminers.

(continued after the jump)

Either West, and by extension the Discovery Institute, didn't recognize the quotemines because he himself isn't familiar with the sources, or West knows McLeroy's trumped-up reasoning was bogus and is supporting it anyway.

We wouldn't expect most of the members of the Texas state board of education members to recognize the distortions. After all, they're not experts, which is why they appointed experts to the standards writing committees in the first place. But it's curious that West didn't recognize the misquoted statements. Nor, apparently, did anyone else at the Discovery Institute.

According to John West,

" . . . Darwinian fundamentalists are already crying foul, claiming that these changes all promote creationism which is of course flatly untrue."

As much as the Discovery Institute seeks to uncouple itself from its creationist antecedents, you'd think they'd be denouncing McLeroy's cut/paste from a creationist website. On the contrary. The Uncommon Descent blog - which allows little dissent itself - is trumpeting the results of these quotemines as "one small step for honest teaching of evolutionary theory and one giant leap for intelligent design."

It's flatly true that McLeroy justified his changes in part by plagiarizing a creationist website, Genesis Park.

It's flatly true that McLeroy favors teaching creationism as science in Texas public schools.

And it's flatly true that the Discovery Institute has a history of choosing creationist allies.

But, hey, decide for yourself whether McLeroy's motives are purely science. Then think about how the Discovery Institute has championed his changes, and follow that evidence where it leads.