Texas Citizens for Science
Responds to Anti-Science SBOE Members
Science textbooks are best if written by scientists,
not by State Board of Education members
by Steven Schafersman Response to Don McLeroy
State Board of Education member Don McLeroy of Bryan is one of the extreme anti-evolutionists on the Board who has been agitating to force biology textbook publishers to include bogus "weaknesses" of evolution so that the books' treatment of this important topic will be misrepresented and damaged. He claims this is required by state law, but this is true only if the alleged weaknesses are based on scientific information and if they truly exist. The "difficulties" of evolution he describes in his Oct. 22 guest column don't exist and have no basis in scientific knowledge.
Stanley Miller's classic 1950's experiment showed that organic molecules--the building blocks of living organisms--can be produced by abiotic chemical reactions, as they must have been produced early in Earth's history for life to begin. Contrary to McLeroy, since that famous experiment, scientists have conducted thousands of new experiments, made significant theoretical advances, and discovered new chemical pathways that have only strengthened Miller's original conclusion that the organic components necessary for the origin of life on Earth can certainly be formed by natural chemical processes operating early in Earth's history and were therefore certainly available when life first appeared. There are several hypotheses of how these chemicals combined to actually form living organisms. The distinctive strengths and weaknesses of each of these hypotheses are fully treated by the biology textbooks.
Even more wrong-headed is McLeroy's dislike for the concept of common descent, a feature of biology that has not been disputed since the 1860's. Contrary to McLeroy, common descent is not "beset with a myriad of difficulties." It is completely accepted today by all biologists. Linnaeus and Cuvier lived in a pre-Darwinian age and did not have the wealth of evidence and sound theory that scientists had in Darwin's day and thereafter, so it is extremely disingenuous for McLeroy to name these two historical scientists as supporters for his idiosyncratic views.
Common descent does not rely on an appeal to authority, as McLeroy claims. Nothing in science relies on an appeal to authority, and it is dishonest for him to claim anything does. The empirical evidence for common descent is overwhelming: evolution by genetic change is observed and inferred to occur between species through thousands of generations; lineal descent of one species from another is therefore verified; evidence shows that there has never been a break in the genetic continuity of each species population throughout the entire ancestral-descendant sequence of a lineage, and--lacking evidence of such a break--this continuity of genetic connectedness can be inferred for all lineages; thus, common descent is inferred from observation, experiment, and models and explained by theory. It is true that common descent is not directly observed, but McLeroy doesn't understand that reliable knowledge in science is not directly observed, but indirectly inferred from hypothesis testing (the observations, experiments, and models) and explained by theory.
McLeroy falsely claims that the eminent philosopher Karl Popper doubted that "historical science is science at all." Popper strongly affirmed precisely the opposite: historical science makes post-dictions just as physical science makes predictions; both can be tested and corborrated and result in reliable scientific knowledge. Next, he quotes Niles Eldredge to the effect that gradual change is not supported by the fossil record, but this is pretense on McLeroy's part, since Eldredge's statement says nothing against the reality of common descent, only about the pattern of descent. McLeroy follows this distortion with others about thermodynamics and embryology. These creationist tricks may confuse and mislead readers who are not knowledgeable about science, but they are dishonest in serious scientific and scholarly discussion, and McLeory should be ashamed for indulging in them.
I support Don McLeroy's final conclusions: "Scientific dogmatism about origin of life and common descent has no place in Texas biology books. Our state's scientific educational system must not be corrupted." The best way to accomplish these is to ensure that anti-scientists such as Don McLeroy keep their hands off the science textbooks used in our state. If McLeroy were truly serious about keeping science uncorrupted and dogmatism out of science textbooks, he would let scientists and science professionals determine the content of the books, not creationists on the State Board of Education.
Response to Teri Leo
Readers should be concerned about diametrically conflicting statements in my Outlook op-ed column (Oct. 8) and Teri Leo's Viewpoints reply (Oct. 18). I said that every scientist who testified at the Sept. 10 State Board of Education public hearing wanted the biology books to remain free of the bogus pseudoscientific changes asked for by the anti-evolutionist Discovery Institute and creationist members of the State Board, including Teri Leo herself. Leo claimed this was false. We both referred readers to the transcript on the Texas Education Agency website (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/textbooks/adoptprocess/). Readers are invited to read the transcript for themselves to see which of us is telling the truth.
Perhaps Leo is confused about who among the testifiers was a scientist. Some engineers, mathematicians, and philosophers testified in favor of the changes, but these individuals are not scientists. Some individuals with scientific training and even science degrees testified in favor, but these individuals work for creationist organizations (Discovery Institute, Probe Ministries, etc.) and do not practice legitimate science; they acquired scientific training only to learn the terminology and indulge in credential mongering to impress those they wish to persuade. Finally, one science professor testified in favor, but he has abandoned real science and now devotes his time promoting intelligent design in scholarly and popular articles. Not one of these individuals has published anything in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that casts doubt on modern evolutionary theory, and all consistently indulge in the same pseudoscientific arguments against it--arguments that have been repeatedly refuted by legitimate scientists. This controversy is a battle between science and pseudoscience, and Leo supports the latter. Pseudoscience is false science--it masquerades as real science--it intends to confuse and deceive the reader, and Teri Leo is one of these deceivers.
The SBOE has received no peer-reviewed scientific literature that documents problems of textbook coverage of evolution and origin of life topics. The original analysis was written by the Discovery Institute and derived from a misleading, unscholarly book by one of their in-house pseudoscientists. The additional peer-reviewed scientific literature they submitted in support misrepresented the views of the authors, most of whom have publicly repudiated the misuse of their papers by the Discovery Institute. There is no scientific evidence critical of evolution, and Leo is mendacious in claiming there is.
Leo claimed my prior testimony was inconsistent, but her description is erroneous. Readers will have to visit the Texas Citizens for Science website (http://www.txscience.org) to read my testimonies. They consistently distinguished between the occurrence of evolution and the theory of evolution, and clearly say only the theory has problems that advanced research must deal with. [The problems, of course, involve the incompleteness of the theory, not any part that has been tested and verified; only such corroborated aspects of evolutionary theory or any other scientific theory can be considered reliable knowledge, and only this material is included in introductory textbooks.]
Contrary to Leo, the Santorum Amendment does not oblige schools to teach both sides of any scientific argument where controversy exists. And even if it did, it would not apply to evolution, because its occurrence is not controversial among scientists. Furthermore, the creationist zealots on the SBOE want to force weaknesses only about evolution and the origin of life into biology textbooks, not about other biological topics, and that is illegal, because federal court decisions have ruled that state officials focusing only on evolution is an establishment of religion that violates the First Amendment.
Readers should know that Teri Leo is the most radical, anti-evolutionist zealot on the SBOE who has been working tirelessly--to the exclusion of other important issues--to push her creationist agenda and dumb-down science education in Texas public schools. Every Texas citizen who has school-age children should be angry about her efforts and oppose them for the sake of accurate science education in our schools.
Last updated: 4 November 2003