Cargill's SBOE Non-Science Nonsense

In a trick move late in the SBOE meeting today, board member Barbara Cargill (R-Baylor grad, Woodlands mom), slipped in some amendments to the Earth Science TEKS that were pro-creationism, with no basis in science. Steve Schafersman liveblogged it (below). None of this was expected, so there was no testimony for or against it during the public and expert testimony phase yesterday. That Cargill was able to pull the wool over otherwise sensible board members to get some of her amendments passed was astounding. It's good news/bad news. The good news is that the "strengths and weaknesses" language was NOT approved by the board in a 7-8 vote. Bad news is that five out of 13 of Cargill's amendments were passed, BUT the final vote on all of this is not until the March SBOE meeting. So, will the 7-8 vote hold? Will someone show the 8 board members the light and convince them to vote against ALL of the Cargill amendments? There was some serious hilarity in today's proceedings with Cargill proclaiming over and over again about the 6000 emails she has received from consitutents about keeping the strengths and weaknesses language in. Someone slapped her down pretty good when it was pointed out that 5000 of those emails were the exact same email. Anyone want to start a 6000 email campaign to Cargill and company letting them know we expect science to be taught in Texas classrooms, not religious beliefs? Here's the liveblogging. Prepare to be alarmed:

Barbara Cargill now took the opportunity to eviscerate and really damage the new Earth and Space Science TEKS by introducing "qualifying language" to the TEKS in a motion. In typical deceptive SBOE method, she sprung this series of detailed motions on the Board suddenly with no possibility of preview. She said we heard from many of our experts to introduce this language, to add "humility and tentativeness" to the ESS standards. I read all the expert feedback and I want to state that Cargill's claims are absolutely untrue! Her qualifying language was recommended only by Dr. Charles Garner, the chemistry professor at Baylor, and Dr. Stephen Meyer, the Discovery Institute pseudoscientist. There was NOT a lot of feedback from the public or the other four experts to make these changes. The attempt to make the ESS standards more humble and tentative is just ridiculous. This is language that only anti-scientists and pseudoscientists would want. The ESS standards do not make extreme statements that would be unscientific. In fact, the language was weakened by the science panel to satisfy the two stealth Young Earth Creationists on the panel.

Barbara Cargill's attempt to gut the ESS standards is a betrayal of science of the highest order. I spoke to her yesterday and today and asked her to protect the new ESS course. She didn't promise she would, but listened to me. She had appointed two good members of the ESS panel who supported accurate and reliable science and stated their belief that the ESS standards should be adopted without change, and now she is denigrating their contribution. She is, in fact, voting against the product and recommendation of her own two expert. Why would anyone else with integrity want to be appointed to a TEA science panel by her if she deliberately goes against their professional advice and instead listens to pseudoscientists?

The usual suspects--Lowe, Dunbar, etc.--testified in favor of Cargill's motion. Mrs. Miller says she doesn't want to vote on any specific amendments to ESS without input from the experts.

The first item passed 8-7, Pat Hardy voting for the change. The next two failed. The fourth one passed. More to come.

During this process, Barbara Cargill is deliberately misleading the SBOE members about what scientists know about the subjects she is addressing. She repeatedly claimed that the "experts she spoke to" recommended the changes she is requesting. Her experts are well-known pseudoscientists (lke Meyer and Garner) and Young Earth Creationists, and she is ignoring the real experts on the ESS workgroup that wrote these standards, including the two she appointed herself. What Cargill is doing is despicable. She is willfully undermining Earth and Space Science education in Texas. I can't believe why a majority of the SBOE are going along with her. They are, in effect, voting about the details of ESS, something which none of them know anything about, simply on the basis of the very false and tiny bits of information Barbara is feeding them. They are relying on repeated untruths and misrepresentations. I was able to tell two of them that this was wrong by getting near them while the Board was in session, but I couldn't speak to all of them. This political process is just amazingly bad for Texas and for science education.

In answer to a wonderful question from Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Cargill admitted that her two "experts" were "Dr. Meyer and Dr. Garner." This is precisely what I thought. She used suggestions from two non-Earth scientists who both have religious and pseudoscientific agendas, but claimed that "all the experts she spoke to" recommended these changes. How profoundly dupllicitous and ultimately damaging to Texas Earth science education. She falsely tried to give the impression that she consulted real experts on her suggested amendments, but in fact she did not. She consulted only ideologues who do not have the interests of Texas students at hear, but only wish to propogate their own pseudoscientific agendas. Barbara Cargill wants students who take this new course to be misled, exactly as she misled her State Board colleagues, and she sabotaged the ESS standards to accomplish this.

Every one of Cargill's amendments affects a standard that deals with origins. Every one is about a topic that obsesses Young Earth Creationists. They are opposed to having students learn about the evidence that supports an ancient Earth, the origin of life, the evolution of fossil life, the demonstrated existence of transitional fossils, the reality of common descent, etc. One of her amended revisions that passed will require that the ESS textbooks include information that is nonexistent, arguments against universal common descent.

Don McLeroy made two motions to amend the science TEKS. Both passed. The first was not controversial. This was to add "Know the definition of science and understand its limitations" to all the science TEKS introductions. The second was more problematic. This was to add a student expectation to the Biology TEKS in section 7 on evolution. This new standard reads: "describe the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record." I am not totally opposed to this since it requires that the evolution of fossil life be discussed in biology textbooks. I might have worded it differently since it is scientifically inaccurate. While most fossils show stasis, many do show gradual change, and transitions from one species to another and different taxa to others is quite common. The biology texts would have to discuss these topics, too, to contrast this type of evolution with stasis. I could ask for nothing more.

The really bad language is the inclusion of the "sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry." The fact of common ancestry of all living and fossil species is not in doubt. The problem is that common ancestry does not explain stasis, sudden appearance, gradual evolution, and other tempo and modes of evolution. Common ancestry is an inference from analysis of morphological and genetic information and the fact of genetic continuity of all life (life only comes from life, not non-life, except for the origin of life early in Earth's history). The tempo and mode of evolution (i.e. sudden appearance, stasis, gradual change, transitional fossils, etc.) is explained by speciation, fossilization, fossil preservation, the completeness of stratigraphic and fossil records, and other considerations. So the new student expectation, which did pass, is poorly worded in an ignorant and unscientific way. Dr. McLeroy consulted all sorts of evolution books but failed to really understand them because he lacks a basic understanding of evolutionary theory and paleontology. If he had these two, he would have worded his student expectation better. I think the idea behind this new standard has merit, but it really needs to be reworded in a scientifically-acceptable fashion.

Finally, the science standards passed on a unanimous voice vote. The "strengths and weaknesses" language was left, but one or two standards in ESS and the second addition to evolution by McLeroy need to be rewritten.

Here are the five changes to the ESS standards that Barbara Cargill was able to pass with the new wording. She proposed 13 but 8 failed; all were voted on individually and all were very close votes, some a tie vote which meant they failed. Compare this wording to that in the ESS proposed TEKS available on the web.

(4) Earth in Space and Time. The student knows how Earth-based and space-based astronomical observations reveal *differing theories about* the structure, scale, composition, origin, and history of the universe. (5) Earth in Space and Time. The student *understands* the solar nebular accretionary disk model. (5)(B) investigate sources of heat, including kinetic heat of impact accretion, gravitational compression, and radioactive decay, which *are thought to allow* protoplanet differentiation into layers; (6)(D) *evaluate the evidence that the* Earth's cooling led to tectonic activity, resulting in continents and ocean basins. (8)(A) evaluate a variety of fossil types, *proposed* transitional fossils, fossil lineages, and significant fossil deposits and *assess the arguments for and against universal common descent in light of this fossil evidence*;

Some of these were minor changes but others are very unscientific, especially the change to 8A which promotes Creationism. There are no scientific arguments against common descent. The other four have qualifying language which makes the standard less certain and more tentative, something completely unwarranted.