Archive for Statewide News
09.14.06
Posted in Statewide News at 10:21 pm by admin
Dr. Eric Fauman, a biochemist who works for Pfizer, reported to us last week on a question he got to ask Republican Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos last week. That report has now been published as a letter to the Ann Arbor News. It is reprinted below with his permission:
As an interested Michigan voter I attended a campaign stop by Republican candidate for governor, Dick DeVos, at the Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor on Sept. 8. As a researcher with a PhD in biochemistry whose livelihood depends on exploring the biological and evolutionary underpinnings of disease, I was pleased with DeVos’s stated support for public education, the Life Sciences Corridor and Michigan’s global presence.
However, I was greatly disheartened by DeVos’s response when I asked him about his “position on the teaching of evolution in our public schools.” Although he espoused support for teaching the theory of evolution, DeVos volunteered his conviction that our children should also be taught other theories, “such as Intelligent Design.” As Judge Jones found in last years Kitzmiller v. Dover, “An objective observer would know that Intelligent Design [is a] Creationist, religious strateg[y] that evolved from earlier forms of Creationism.” One of Intelligent Design’s most prominent advocates, William Dembski, has stated that “Intelligent Design is just the Logos theology of Johns Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” At a time when our students’ science literacy is already significantly below average teaching our children sectarian religious beliefs as science can only harm our state’s ability to compete internationally.
Eric B. Fauman, Ann Arbor
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06.29.06
Posted in Statewide News at 6:40 pm by admin
In a surprise move yesterday with virtually no public notice, the House Education Committee held a vote on HB 5251 and passed it on to the full house by a vote of 15-2. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Lawrence Wenke (R), the state representative whose district includes the Gull Lake School District, submitted an amendment that removed the specifics so that the bill now reads:
(10) Not later than August 1, 2006, the state board shall revise the recommended model core academic curriculum content standards in science to ensure that pupils will be able to do all of the following:
(a) Use the scientific method to critically evaluate scientific theories
(b) Use relevant scientific data to assess the validity of those theories and to formulate arguments for or against those theories.
Yesterday’s vote sends the matter to the full House for a vote, which could happen at any time. Our expectation is that the bill’s sponsors will attempt to re-amend the bill to add in the specific examples (adding “including, but not limited to, the theories of global warming and evolution” to the end of section a) when it comes up for a vote. We are urging everyone to call their state legislators, both in the House and the Senate, and encourage them to vote against this bill. It will only open the door to the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools, baiting local school districts into a Dover trap.
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06.07.06
Posted in Statewide News at 4:40 pm by admin
MCFS arranged to have several members of our board at the hearing this morning to testify against HB 5251. The way it works in such hearings in Michigan is that you have to show up before the meeting and fill out a card asking to testify, telling them who you are and what group you represent. The committee chair then goes through the cards during the hearing and calls people up. Committee chairman in the Michigan house are essentially all-powerful. If they choose, they can only allow one side to testify and not the other. They can give an hour to one side and 5 minutes to the other. And they can schedule a hearing on a bill with only a 24 hour public notice. Thus, the reason we didn’t find out about the meeting until yesterday. Several interesting things happened at the hearing.
First, it was obvious that the other side had far more than 24 hours notice to prepare to testify. They brought in a professor from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to testify on behalf of the bill and he read from a prepared speech, so clearly this was set up well in advance. This professor’s testimony, however, was quite telling. After Rep. Moolenaar, the bill’s chief sponsor, declared in no uncertain terms that the bill had nothing whatsoever to do with intelligent design, the professor’s speech was a laundry list of ID arguments - irreducibile complexity, specified complexity, peppered moths, and so forth. The two main sources he cited were Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box, and Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial. And then after taking all of the material of his testimony from the ID movement, he himself claimed that this had nothing to do with ID.
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Posted in Statewide News at 1:31 am by admin
In the aftermath of HB 5606, which was signed into law without any anti-evolution language in it, Rep. Moolenaar is reviving HB 5251, which contains the following language:
(10) Not later than August 1, 2006, the state board shall revise the recommended model core academic curriculum content standards in science to ensure that pupils will be able to do all of the following:
(a) Use the scientific method to critically evaluate scientific theories including, but not limited to, the theories of global warming and evolution.
(b) Use relevant scientific data to assess the validity of those theories and to formulate arguments for or against those theories.
This language is a transparent attempt to write the ID movement’s “teach the controversy” strategy into state law and open the door for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools science classrooms. The House Education Committee has scheduled a hearing on this bill tomorrow, June 7th, at 10:30 am, in room 307 of the House Office Building.
MCFS board members will be there to testify against the bill and we urge all MCFS members to call or email their local representatives to make their voice heard on this issue. For information on how to contact your local rep, click here.
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