Baylor computer science prof Robert Marks comments on Texas science standards at Dallas Morning News:
There’s a battle over evolution education in Texas right now. The latest round is coming up soon in Austin, with the State Board of Education hearing testimony on both sides of the controversy. There is a tug-of-war between those who want to teach only their corner on truth and those who would prefer to include critical analysis and discuss developments that challenge neo-Darwinian dogma.
This is unfortunate, because at least in areas of my specialization, using computers and mathematics to model evolution, the problems are fascinating and would be both fun and instructive to teach.
Gregory Chaitin, arguably the greatest and most creative mathematician of my generation, lays out the stakes: “The honor of mathematics requires us to come up with a mathematical theory of evolution and either prove that Darwin was wrong or right!” More.
Maybe the honor of mathematics is to get things right but the honor of the Darwin lobby is to shove in the world’s face the fact that it can compel a download of tax money by unleashing an End-of-Science! rent-a-protest at every meeting on the subject.
The rest follows as night follows day: The lobby cows bureaucrats, proclaims victory, and cashes in.*
Maybe Texans are rich enough to pay for all that landfill. Still, they could buy their students a better education if they insisted on more up-to-date stuff. Ja think?
But here’s a real problem: If the Texans don’t agree to be shaken down, we’ll all have to live through the Death of Science in pop media until the next shakedown opportunity arises.
Better think this one out, readers, unless—like a growing number of news consumers—you only use pop science media as litterbox liner these days.
*No discussion of the public education Slush Fund for Darwin would be complete without reference to the fact that the Darwin lobby is still marketing the leftovers from two decades ago. See Jonathan Wells’s Zombie Science for details.
See also: Gravy train wreck: No Free Lunch for Darwinism in Texas? (Cue Dark Ages …. )
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