Crippled dogs and one-trick ponies

I've just returned from the Texas SBOE hearings on Science TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) standards, and I'm so full of disgust and dismay that I'm at a loss for words to express it with enough rancor. You can, however, expect me to go on at length anyway. The whole thing was such a goddamn farce from the outset that I'd had more than enough after only one hour, at which point I could only roll my eyes and walk out the door. If you haven't encountered the gall and dishonesty of creationists on their own turf before, and even if you have many times, it's always the kind of experience that leaves you feeling worse about humanity in general.

As I write this, people are still speaking, and will be for a few hours yet. I saw no point in sticking around, but for all I know there could be, at any time, a real first-rate speaker who could get across the points that needed to be gotten across, and who would call out the creos on the disingenuous rhetoric they repeatedly spewed. As it is, I left the whole charade with two key observations: 1) That the big pitch the creationists are using isn't merely the weasel phrase "strengths and weaknesses," but their defense of that phrase as an expression of support for "academic freedom" that the scientific community apparently opposes; and 2) that the pro-science side, at least as I saw it today, is singly unaware of how to respond to that rhetoric properly and forcefully.

This cannot be understated: Just as the anti-gay contingent of the Christian right sells its opposition to gay marriage as a "defense" of "traditional" marriage that can in no way be compared to opposition to interracial marriage or anything of that sort, so too are the creationists now abandoning the overt, lawsuit-bait language of "intelligent design" for "academic freedom" language that makes them seem like the ones encouraging students to use their minds to think about and evaluate ideas that are presented to them in class on their merits. Conversely, the pro-science side wants to shut this kind of inquiry down, and just require students to be obedient little sponges soaking up whatever the textbooks say.

Why this is a misrepresentation and gross misunderstanding of the opposition to such terms as "strengths and weaknesses" was, to his credit, appropriately explained by Texas Citizens for Science spokesman Steve Schafersman. But he didn't make the point forcefully enough, and even he seemed taken aback when challenged by one of the creationist board members after giving his alloted three-minute address. I'll discuss that last, because it was after Schafersman spoke that I ducked out. After all, if a veteran front-line soldier in the science education wars like Schafersman falters when some creationist puts him in the hot seat, it's clearly time for the pro-science side to step back and understand just how dishonest the rhetoric is, and how it has to be addressed in a no-nonsense manner, calling bullshit bullshit, and stating the pro-science position with sufficient force and clarity that no sleazy creationist ideologue can sit there lying about it and sounding smug and reasonable while doing so. I don't see that the pro-science speakers today fully appreciated the ideological scrimmage line they were going up against, nor the fact that the game plan was going to be offense all the way.

A quick rundown of some of the speakers I did see.

As I had a number of errands to run early in the day, I was worried that I may have missed a lot of the good stuff. I didn't end up getting downtown to the Travis State Office Building until about 3:30. But as the TFN announced that the hearing itself wouldn't start until likely after lunch, and as I recall the last set of hearings I attended in the same building five years ago went on until well into the night, I figured I hadn't missed too much.

Turned out my timing was excellent. The hearings on the science standards started right around 3:55. That must have been some sheer pain for those folks who'd been there since 9:00 AM.

As the title of the post indicates, what ensued was the kind of dog-and-pony show where the dog has only three legs and all the pony knows how to do is turn in a circle. The first speaker was a dignified and well spoken older gentleman named Dr. Joe Bernal, who was himself an SBOE member in the 1990's, and who spoke eloquently on the need to keep science scientific and avoid the pitfalls of allowing room for non-scientific ideas. He stated that it was the duty of parents, not schools, to determine a student's religious instruction. He also reiterated the support among the scientific community for evolutionary theory.

Now, after a speaker has done his three minutes, board members can ask questions of that speaker if they wish. I saw it coming even before it started. The instant the bell chimed on Dr. Bernal's address, creationist board member Terri Leo leapt out of the phone booth with her Supergirl costume on and hit the ground faster than a speeding bullet.

Her first agenda: discredit the recent survey, cited by Dr. Bernal, that showed 98% of biologists and science educators in Texas support evolution. "Who funded that study? Wasn't that study funded by the Texas Freedom Network?" Dr. Bernal admitted it was, but stated calmly that whoever funded the study was beside the point. He actually got in a good comeback to Leo, noting that even the science teachers selected by the SBOE to review the science standards voted in the majority. But Leo wasn't finished. "I always thought that taking polls wasn't how you do science." Well, of course not, and the poll wasn't an exercise in doing science. The science is already done. The point of the poll was simply to get a show of hands among professionals in the relevant fields as to what theory is appropriate to teach in classrooms. But this is the kind of dishonest rhetoric that creationists will throw out there to get the pro-science side on the defensive.

The thing about Terri Leo is, she's so dumb and sleazy that she cannot resist overplaying her hand. And she did it right away by using shameless creationist language while simultaneously denying any creationist agenda on her or the SBOE's part. Note that Dr. Bernal only brought up religion in passing in his speech, pointing out that it's a private family matter and not fit for science class. Leo leapt on this like a hungry tiger, railing that the phrase "strengths and weaknesses" was not religious language, and that the only people making a big deal about religion supposedly being shoehorned into science curricula are "militant Darwinists."

I am not shitting you. She actually used that term, out loud, in front of a packed room, in her questioning of the very first speaker of the day.

I couldn't stop myself. I laughed out loud, loud enough for her to hear. ("Hey...sorry, but...") That was when I knew that the whole day was going to be a complete joke.

Dr. Bernal responded quite impressively by bringing up — and I'm so glad he was the first speaker, which is when it needed to be brought up — that the SBOE had themselves enlisted known anti-evolutionists affiliated with the Discovery Institute, who have not exactly been secretive about their own religious and creationist agendas, to be among those assigned to review science standards. Specifically he asked (to the delight of the crowd), "Why is someone from an institute in Seattle being asked to review Texas science education standards?"

And here we saw, for the first time, the depth of the SBOE's egregious dishonesty they were going to display today. The presence of the DI's Stephen Meyer, and creationist textbook writers Charles Garner and Ralph Seelke was brought up many time by many speakers, and no one on the board would defend or even address it. They simply were not going to justify their actions in this regard to the public, or at least, they didn't in the hour I was there. If anyone reading this stayed through to the end, and heard anything from Dan McLeroy or Terri Leo about why these men, with their overt ID affiliations, were asked to review the Science TEKS standards for Texas, do let us all know in the comments.

Unlike 2003, when Terri Leo (working hand in hand with the Discotute) front-loaded that day's speakers with creationists, I only heard one creationist speak today, some idiot who sleazily brought up the DI's long-ridiculed "list of 700 dissenting scientists" as if it represented some kind of major controversy within science over Darwinian evolution. (As Ken Miller pointed out hilariously in his talk back in the spring at UT, this number represents barely a single-digit percentage of the total number of professionals in the relevant fields, and the list includes a number of names of non-biologists and similarly unqualified people who happen to have Ph.D.'s.) This guy then shamelessly rushed headlong into Godwin's Law while the audience groaned, averring (after supposedly having watched Expelled too many times) that by refusing to allow ideas to be questioned in class, we were doomed to be heading down the same path those poor misguided Germans went down.

This inspired such derision from the crowd that Terri Leo — shocked, shocked at just how "rude" people were being in response to the entirely reasonable comparison that had just been drawn between themselves and Nazis — exhorted everyone to be more "respectful" of this poor man, who had taken valuable time out of his day to come down here to call everyone Nazis, and would the board please be more diligent about controlling such inconsiderate and shocking outbursts.

I can't really put into words the atmosphere of disbelief that circulated around the room at this point. People were being calm, but among the audience and people waiting for their turn to speak (and I saw a very reassuring majority wearing "Stand Up for Science" stickers on their lapels), there was a definite vibe of "Just how much bullshit are we expected to endure?" Well, people, that's what we all have to remember about creationists and religious ideologues: they are a Perpetual Motion Machine and Bullshit Factory all rolled into one, unleashing an unstoppable deluge of bovine feces that would even make Noah throw up his hands and say, "Fuck it, no ark is gonna save us from this one."

Finally I come to Steven Shafersman, a man I admire and whose work in battling creationism over the years and fronting Texas Citizens for Science is unimpeachable. I had already made up my mind to disembark this ship of fools, but when I heard Shafersman's name announced I stuck around, deciding he'd be the last guy I'd hear.

Shafersman did well, but unfortunately his talk left an opening for one of the creationist board members (a portly man whose name I didn't catch, but who's been identified by a commenter as Ken Mercer) to pounce on. See, Shafersman's main point was that the reason it was inappropriate to have language like "evaluate strengths and weaknesses" in scholastic standards is that it requires activity on the part of the students they haven't got the expertise for. Mercer tried to obfuscate this by making it seem as if Shafersman and the pro-science side didn't even want students to be allowed to raise their hands and ask questions in class. This is emphatically not the case, of course, and Schafersman explained that, going on to say that in science, theories are critically evaluated in the field by working professionals, not by students hearing the theories for the first time and lacking the proper expertise and frame of reference to do a "critical evaluation" in the first place.

But Mercer kept hammering the false point repeatedly. What about errors and hoaxes in the past? What about Piltdown Man? What about Haeckel's inaccurate embryo drawings, that were in textbooks for years? If people weren't allowed to question these things, wouldn't these errors and hoaxes have gone unexposed, and wouldn't students be learning misinformation today? Why try to stifle the sort of open inquiry that led to these very necessary corrections?

Here is where Shafersman fumbled the ball, because there was such an easy and obvious response to this that it was all I could do to hold my tongue and not blurt it out as loudly as I could shout. I just wanted Shafersman to say one simple thing, and he never said it, because I think he was so flummoxed by the aggressiveness of Mercer's questioning that he allowed himself to fall into the trap that had been set for him, forcing him to go on the defensive. ("Why, as a matter of fact I was one of the scientists instrumental in getting Haeckel's drawings out of textbooks!" To which Mercer simply replied, "Right! So why then...")

Here's what I think Shafersman should have said in reply to Mercer:

"Sir, your examples support my point. The Piltdown Man hoax and Haeckel's drawings were both shown to be false by working scientists, not students. It wasn't as if some 14 year old in 9th grade biology class pointed to those drawings and said, 'I don't know, teacher, those just don't look right to me.' Because that student could not have done that. He would not have had the knowledge and expertise. And that is why requiring the analysis of 'strengths and weaknesses' is inappropriate language, as it requires students to do something they're not equipped to do. Imagine a history class where you're teaching about Alexander the Great. Then you say to your students, 'Okay, kids, write a critical analysis of Alexander's battle plans against the Thracians.' How can they do this? They aren't generals, they're teenagers. They aren't qualified. First, you have to teach them the facts. Then, later on, if they pursue this field as a vocation they may gain the expertise to critique 'strengths and weaknesses.' But for now, they just need facts. And that's why we're opposed to this language in the TEKS. Our opposition is not a synonym for stifling all academic inquiry or even simple questions, and to claim that it is is an extremely dishonest red herring."

That's how he should have shut Mercer down. And to his credit, he did make some of these points. But Shafersman was never as forceful as Mercer was. The best Shafersman could do, it seemed, was feebly try to regain control of the questioning with very weak-sounding responses (to the effect of "We don't really need to go into the details of Haeckel right now...", which embarrassingly sounds like an attempt at dodging the issue).

I simply could not handle any more. I bolted.

It was clear that the creationist contingent knew that the pro-science side was going to show up in force at these hearings, and they came loaded for bear with every bit of disingenuous rhetoric in their how-to-play-dirty playbook. You'll recall in Kazim's recent critique of the "rumble in Sydney," in which Alan Conradi debated a minister, that Kazim made a very important point: ultimately, public debates are a matter of the performance, not the content. While these hearings were not a debate in the formal, forensic sense, they were an informal public "debate" not unlike that which goes on in The Atheist Experience and similar live venues, where topics are argued, often skillfully and often not, in an off-the-cuff manner with minimal prep.

The hearings today were that kind of thing, just an extremely farcicial parody of it. In one corner, a sincere collection of educators and science activists simply trying to ensure that the state's educational standards aren't diluted by trojan-horse language that, while non-inflammatory on its face, still leaves room for religious teaching to be slipped into classrooms by unscrupulous teachers (like, oh, John Freshwater); in the other, a board dominated by ideologues who aren't the least bit interested in understanding the views presented to them (all the while hypocritically claiming to promote freedom of inquiry), and who made every effort to obfuscate, misrepresent, and lie about those views.

In other words, a joke. A complete and utter joke.

And they wonder why people say Texas is a laughingstock.

Two more observations before I sign off (and remember, this whole epic-length post was simply my report on viewing one hour of this rubbish today):

1. I would have liked to have stuck around to hear the woman speak who showed up dressed (quite attractively) as if she'd stepped off the set of Little House on the Prairie. I imagine she was going to make some point about 19th century education being unsuited for a 21st century world, but there's no way I could have endured more of Terri Leo and Ken Mercer's verbal diarrhea while waiting. If any of you did hear her, tell us what she said, please.
2. The pro-science side does seem to have one solid ally on the SBOE, in the person of Mary Helen Berlanga. Ms. Berlanga was very polite and thanked all of the pro-science speakers, including Steve Shafersman, for their hard work and efforts. But that just made me want to hear more from her. Why not be as aggressive with the questioning in the way Bradley and Leo were? Why not be the one to answer the repeated queries about why known ID-supporters and anti-evolutionists were allowed to review the Science TEKS this year?

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Addendum: Made corrections once Ken Mercer was identified in the comments.