Sandwalk: Casey Luskin Defends Academic Freedom

Friday, February 02, 2007

Casey Luskin Defends Academic Freedom

Some IDiot sympathizers have proposed a bill in the legislature of the State of New Mexico (USA). Here's the relevant parts of the bill

A. The department shall adopt rules that:
(1) give teachers the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory and protect teachers from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so; and

(2) encourage students to critically analyze scientific information, give them the right and freedom to reach their own conclusions about biological origins and provide that no student shall be penalized in any way because the student subscribes to a particular position on biological origins.
B. For purposes of this section:
(1) "biological origins" means the origin, history and diversity of life and living organisms; and

(2) "scientific information" means information derived from observation, experimentation and analyses regarding various aspects of the material world conducted to determine the nature of or principles behind the aspects being studied. "Scientific information" does not include information derived from religious or philosophical writings, beliefs or doctrines. Scientific information may have religious or philosophical implications and still be scientific in nature."

Everyone with a brain knows what this is all about. It's not about academic freedom: it's about intelligent design creationism.

If it were really about academic freedom then why does it specify "biological origins"? Why not every aspect of education; like capitalism, pre-marital sex, the rights of gays, global warming, and the periodic table of the elements?

Casey Luskin doesn't get it. His knickers are all in a knot because Darwinists Begin Their Attacks on New Mexico Academic Freedom Bill. Luskin wonders why "Darwinists" are so upset because of a bill that singles out "biological origins" and not other science topics; or history subjects; or music theory; or whatever. According to Casey Luskin, this is only about academic freedom—it has nothing to do with intelligent design creationism or attacks by the religious right on evolutionary biology. It even says so right there in Section B(2).

Yeah, right. And I suppose it's just a coincidence that Casey Luskin and the Discovery Institute are so excited about this bill. I suppose they're really strong supporters of alternative views in the classroom. I suppose they favor teaching safe sex for teenagers, for example. After all, that's a good way to encourage students to think critically and reach their own conclusions.

What a bunch of hypocrites. This bill promotes the exact opposite of academic freedom. By singling out one particular topic that's up the nose of religious fundamentalists, it will have the effect of stifling academic freedom in the biology class. Teachers will feel pressured to go out of their way to pay lip service to superstition whenever they talk about evolution. Students can refuse to learn about evolution knowing that this bill will protect their ignorance.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...: As a New Mexican following this issue, I like to re-frame this as applied to other disiplines. What if a student couldn't be penalized for a test answer that said pi = 3, as the Bible claims, or that the sun revolves around the earth?

And of course "academic freedom" refers to the right of faculty to teach their students appropriate material without undue influence from administration, not for students to answer however they like and be rewarded for it.; Friday, February 02, 2007 4:45:00 PM

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Peter Atkins

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake. Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

I once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000

It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick

There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins

Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod

The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.

Richard Lewontin

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Friday, February 02, 2007

Casey Luskin Defends Academic Freedom

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