stand up for REAL science

Today in New Orleans, President Obama's new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association. I heard from a correspondent on the scene - okay, my husband - who, in between giving presentations and scavenging through the exhibitors' hall, managed to point me to the text of Secretary Duncan's speech.

(And why am I not at the conference? Don't ask, just suffice it to say that the probate system is a little taste of what awaits after death if I don't behave myself.)

Secretary Duncan repeated many of President Obama's earlier speaking points: longer school days, longer school year, lifting caps on charter schools, expanding performance pay, increasing parental responsibility, and providing greater access to college.

But Secretary Duncan did re-emphasize how important REAL science is these days:

Moreover, he is a president who will not allow scientific research to be held hostage to a political agenda. Whether it's global warming, evolution or stem cell research, science will be honored, respected, and supported by this administration.

The president sent a strong signal when he picked a Nobel-Prize winning physicist to be our energy secretary - and I plan to work closely with him and with all of the other key agencies from NASA to the EPA to the National Science Foundation - to launch a new era of science education in America.

(This new energy secretary, Steven Chu, is already shaking up the status quo at the DOE.)

More from Secretary Duncan:

Science is all about questioning assumptions, testing theories, and analyzing facts. These are basic skills that prepare kids not just for the lab - but also for life. We're doing kids a disservice if we don't teach them how to ask tough and challenging questions.

ID dilettantes ~~sometimes~~ often try to mask their anti-science actions with similar-sounding rhetoric. Kansans won't quickly forget one particular remark from former Kansas State Board of Education member Connie "evolution is biologically, genetically, mathematically, chemically, metaphysically and etc. 'wildly' and 'utterly impossible'" Morris:

"In fact we want MORE science by CRITICALLY ANALIZING [sic] the evidence."

Fortunately, there are many excellent resources for teaching critical thinking skills and analysis, so there's absolutely no excuse for teaching students bogus arguments masquerading as REAL science.

But you might be thinking, shouldn't we encourage questioning assumptions, as Secretary Duncan espouses? What's wrong with insisting that K12 students test theories, analyze facts, and ask tough and challenging questions?

Absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. Just as long as we make sure those tests and analyses and questions aren't based on the same ol' same ol' long-refuted crock of effluvient so beloved by anti-evolutionists. You know, "no transitional fossils" "mutations can't generation new information" "Cambrian explosion" etc.

We hear a lot of whining, "why should evolution be exempt from critical analysis?"

It isn't. Evolution is solidly established as a fact and as a theory. This doesn't mean that evolutionary research is dead; on the contrary! But we should recognize that the bleeding edge of research is well beyond the ken of the vast majority of the population who aren't trained in evolutionary biology.

Does this mean we think high school students are too stupid to understand? Nope; they're just not ready, not yet. Most high school students aren't ready to intelligently discuss tensor analysis or Hamiltonian groups or non-laminar fluid behavior either. Teaching these young minds that the earth is flat won't help them understand those points; forcing them to accept falsehoods in lieu of REAL science is just a way for anti-science folks to further confuse the issues.

And as Secretary Duncan pointed out, confusion is the last thing these students need:

Now we need you - your ideas, your energy, and your leadership - to build on the great tradition of inquiry, research, and theory that produced Edison and Einstein to create a new generation of scientists and make the world smarter and healthier.

America's economic security tomorrow is directly tied to the quality of education we provide today. This is our task. This is our challenge. Now let's get to work.

The prospect of a longer school year and longer school days is an challenging and expensive proposition, although one which might bring my current pay more in line with the pay of others who have my degrees. But to have the time to explore each topic in the standards in more depth along with extending their critical thinking skills . . . now there's an opportunity our kids deserve.