Texas Board of Education: Dunbar’s Seat

Marsha Farney (left), Brian Russell (center), Rebecca Osborne (right)

This is about the race for a soon-to-be vacant seat on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). The Board is currently dominated by creationists. If you want some background information, check out Texas State Board of Education Contests. Our most recent report on the overall situation was here: Texas SBOE Election Update (09 Jan ‘10).

Today we’ll talk about the seat on the Board currently held by Cynthia Dunbar. We’ve written about her before. See: Cynthia Dunbar And Her Friends, and also: Meet Cynthia Dunbar.

What does your Curmudgeon think of Dunbar? Regarding the creationist-theocratic majority on the SBOE, it’s very difficult to say that one is more ignorant than the others, or more deranged, or more destructive. Even our Slime-O-Meter fails us. On that instrument’s scale, starting at Ankle Deep and gradually increasing through the grades of Knee Deep, Hip Deep, Chest Deep, Neck Deep, all the way to the maximum reading of Deluge, we find that Dunbar is off the scale. Anyway, she’ll be gone soon.

We present some excerpts from GOP education board candidates all say they’re conservative , which appears in the Austin American-Statesman. The bold font was added by us:

Cynthia Dunbar’s decision to leave the State Board of Education at the end of her first term has sparked a spirited three-way Republican primary to succeed her.

Dunbar has been a powerhouse of the board’s conservative bloc, and all three District 10 candidates — educators Rebecca Osborne and Marsha Farney and patent lawyer Brian Russell — insist that they, too, are good conservatives.

The word “conservative” can mean many things. Let’s read on:

The 15-member State Board of Education, which adopts curriculum standards and textbooks for Texas public schools, is sharply divided between the conservative side and a more moderate opposition group. Eight seats are up for election this year.

It may seem that any change in the Board would be an improvement, but that’s not necessarily true in the contest for Dunbar’s seat. We continue:

Central Texas is assured a voice on the board because Dunbar’s potential successors — including Judy Jennings, the sole Democrat on the District 10 ballot — all hail from the Austin area.

We’re far less concerned with the candidates’ location than with their ideology. Here’s more:

Osborne, a teacher at McNeil High School in Round Rock, has been running for the past year, long before Dunbar’s announcement in December.

[...]

“There is a disconnect between the State Board of Education and the classroom,” Osborne said. Osborne said the board needs to ensure there is flexibility in graduation requirements and course offerings so schools can help students to achieve at their highest level of ability. That flexibility can be offered without compromising a rigorous education, she added.

Sounds like pure fluff. Moving along:

Russell, Dunbar’s designated heir apparent, said the divisiveness is unavoidable because of a philosophical difference on the board about how and what children should be taught.

“The whole reason why there is so much passion, so much zealous advocacy on the board is precisely because it is about the children,” Russell said.

If Russell is “Dunbar’s designated heir apparent,” that’s all we need to know about him. Another excerpt:

Farney calls herself the “common-sense conservative” because she can draw from her work as an educator and a parent of an elementary student in the Georgetown school district. “I value public schools very much, and I respect the teachers,” Farney said.

What does that mean? Here’s a bit more about her:

A former classroom teacher and school counselor, Farney received her doctorate in education in 2007 and has been a stay-at-home mother most recently. Farney said her curriculum experience would be of great value on the board and might help the board avoid problems. “I’m not an armchair coach looking into the public schools saying what they should be doing,” Farney said. “I’m the parent candidate.”

She isn’t telling us anything.

That’s the GOP lineup. There’s also Judy Jennings, the sole Democrat on the ballot for Dunbar’s seat. Here’s her campaign website. She doesn’t address the creationism and theocratic issues directly, so we don’t know enough about her.

For the moment, we don’t have a favorite in this race. It’s certainly good that Dunbar is leaving, but her replacement may be no improvement. If we learn more, we’ll let you know.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

• • • • • • • • • • •

. . Permalink for this article

Lincoln’s First State of the Union Address

THIS is way off topic, but the President is giving his first State of the Union address tonight, and the country somewhat divided. I seems appropriate to remind ourselves of a time when things were far worse.

We’ll give you a few excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s first State of the Union address, which can be found here: First Annual Message: December 3, 1861.

Some of this is the old familiar Lincoln you learned about in school. But some of it sounds strange indeed. Nevertheless, it’s Lincoln. He was complicated.

In the midst of unprecedented political troubles we have cause of great gratitude to God for unusual good health and most abundant harvests.

[...]

A disloyal portion of the American people have during the whole year been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A nation which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad, and one party, if not both, is sure sooner or later to invoke foreign intervention.

[...]

Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every other state, foreign dangers necessarily attend domestic difficulties, I recommend that adequate and ample measures be adopted for maintaining the public defenses on every side.

[...]

Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled “An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,” approved August 6, 1861, the legal claims of certain persons to the labor and service of certain other persons have become forfeited, and numbers of the latter thus liberated are already dependent on the United States and must be provided for in some way. … In such case I recommend that Congress provide for accepting such persons … that such persons, on such acceptance by the General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in any event steps be taken for colonizing … at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.

To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be expended in the territorial acquisition. …

On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to absolute necessity — that without which the Government itself can not be perpetuated?

The war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection I have been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle. …

[...]

The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has occurred since may not be unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then is much better defined and more distinct now, and the progress of events is plainly in the right direction.

[...]

With the retirement of General Scott came the Executive duty of appointing in his stead a General in Chief of the Army. It is a fortunate circumstance that neither in council nor country was there, so far as I know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person to be selected. The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his judgment in favor of General McClellan for the position, and in this the nation seemed to give a unanimous concurrence.

[...]

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them.

[...]

The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

• • • • • • • • • • •

. . Permalink for this article

Discovery Institute: Hey Casey! (Number 5)

SOME background information is obviously necessary at this point. Okay, here you go:

Our favorite creationist is Casey Luskin, one of the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids). Casey was speaking last year at some creationist revival meeting or something. During a heated exchange with Abbie Smith, which she later described here: Casey Luskin, Abbie flipped a bird at Casey.

Upon experiencing this “Darwinist” atrocity, Casey did the blogging equivalent of bursting into tears and collapsing on the fainting couch. He produced an amazing narrative which appeared on the Discoveroid blog: Civility of Darwinists Lacking at Academic Freedom on Evolution Event in Oklahoma. The picture which adorns this post is our subtle commemoration of that event. (The picture isn’t Abbie, who is lovely; it’s one of your Curmudgeon’s ancestors cousins.)

Casey has our deepest sympathy. As traumatic as that bird-flipping incident must have been for a sensitive creationist, that wasn’t the first time Casey let his kinder, gentler nature be known. Back in April of 2008 when we were first starting this blog, we posted this: Want a Creationist Physician?

That was about one of Casey’s Discoveroid blog articles — which he wrote with exquisite sensitivity — about a friend he described as “a smart young pre-med student who is a skeptic of Darwinism.” Casey’s friend was “studying hard to take the medical school entrance examination,” and he was offended and emotionally distracted by encountering some “evolution indoctrination” passages in his study materials.

Casey wrote that “the wording used [in his friend's study material] is extremely emotionally charged,” He also said:

My friend, who himself is not a fundamentalist but is highly skeptical of Darwinism, then made a revealing comment about this passage:

[Casey quotes his friend:] “This passage was distracting while I was taking the [practice] test. It was distracting because it’s about an emotionally controversial topic, and I don’t agree with everything they said. This crosses the line.”

We commend Casey for his empathic ability to share the emotional distress of his friend. This sensitive side of Casey explains his reaction to the Abbie Smith incident. Therefore, in the spirit of compassion for our fellow man, we feel obliged to warn Casey of a difficult bit of news we’ve come across. We fear that the tears are going to flow in Seattle.

At the website of EurekAlert!, the online news service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), we read Medical students may soon be tested on evolution. Here are some excerpts, with bold added by us:

What does evolution – a field that often deals with changes over many generations – have to do with preventing and treating disease in our lifetime? A lot, some scientists say. If recent recommendations are implemented, future physicians may soon be tested on evolution in medical entrance and licensing exams, says an international group of doctors and researchers.

Poor Casey. Let’s read on:

“There are many ways you can use evolution to improve medical care and medical research,” said psychiatrist Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan. Nesse is one of a growing number of scientists who since the mid-1990s have been urging medical doctors and researchers to consider human health from an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary training may benefit researchers in the lab, skeptics argue, but what use is evolution for everyday medical care in the clinic?

Good question. We continue:

“In terms of immediate payoffs, right up at the top of the list are antibiotic resistance and cancer,” said Stephen Stearns, a biologist at Yale University. Because of their rapid rates of reproduction, both bacteria and cancer cells quickly evolve resistance to the drugs we use to fight them. “Some develop resistance in just one or two years after drug release,” explained Diddahally Govindaraju of the Boston University School of Medicine. “Antibiotic resistance and resistance to chemotherapy are problems that cause enormous suffering and death and also sky-high costs,” added Stearns. “We can alleviate these problems if we manage the way we use chemotherapy drugs and antibiotics so as to slow or prevent the evolution of resistance.”

Okay, that’s one. Anything else?

Meanwhile in the world of infectious disease, techniques developed by evolutionary biologists – such as methods for reconstructing genetic relationships, or family trees – have been used to trace the origins of pathogens like flu, SARS, and HIV. By uncovering where these diseases came from and how they spread, public health officials can better prepare for outbreaks in the future.

Okay, that’s two. Can there be more?

Evolutionary thinking can also yield surprising medical therapies, the authors explain. Throughout much of our history, for example, humans coexisted with beneficial bacteria and intestinal worms. Reduced exposure to these bugs due to improved hygiene leaves many with immune systems that don’t respond appropriately, scientists say. Research suggests we may be able to reduce our susceptibility to allergies, asthma, and many auto-immune diseases — from inflammatory bowel disease to multiple sclerosis — by giving patients “cocktails” of parasite eggs. “There are now 4000 people in a clinical trial to test the efficacy of worm eggs,” said Stearns.

We didn’t know about that. One final excerpt:

If the recommendations take hold, future physicians may soon be tested on evolution in the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). “The MCATs are currently under review, and changes will be made in the next two years,” said Stearns. “Those recommendations will affect thousands of colleges and universities across the country,” Stearns added.

“Pre-med students often say: ‘What on earth does this have to do with me? Fossils aren’t going to help me get into medical school,’” said biologist Jay Labov of the National Academy of Sciences. “But without an evolutionary perspective, a doctor’s tools are somewhat limited.“

Casey’s friend may be the last of the creationist physicians — assuming he got into med school and eventually graduates. This must be very distressing for Casey.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

• • • • • • • • • • •

. . Permalink for this article

Discovery Institute: Math Disproves Evolution

WE have thrilling news from the blog of the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids). They announce: A Mathematician Looks at Darwin’s Theory and Discovers It Doesn’t Add Up. Here are some excerpts, with bold added by us:

“Darwin’s attempt to explain the origins of all the magnificent species in the living world in terms of the struggle for survival is easily the dumbest idea ever taken seriously by science,” writes Dr. Granville Sewell in his new book In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design published by Discovery Institute Press.

With a quality publisher like Discovery Institute Press, we can be certain that this new work is a major scientific milestone. To the great credit of the courageous publisher, the author wasn’t Expelled because of his anti-Darwinist views.

Here’s the Amazon listing for the book. The date of publication is given as February 15, 2010, almost three weeks from now, but although the list price is $14.96, the offering price is $10.76.

There are no customer reviews yet, but this is the “product description,” presumably provided by the publisher:

In this wide-ranging collection of essays on origins, mathematician Granville Sewell looks at the big bang, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, and the evolution of life. He concludes that while there is much in the history of life that seems to suggest natural causes, there is nothing to support Charles Darwin’s idea that natural selection of random variations can explain major evolutionary advances (“easily the dumbest idea ever taken seriously by science,” he calls it).

Sewell explains why evolution is a fundamentally different and much more difficult problem than others solved by science, and why increasing numbers of scientists are now recognizing what has long been obvious to the layman, that there is no explanation possible without design. This book summarizes many of the traditional arguments for intelligent design, but presents some powerful new arguments as well.

Let’s leave Amazon and read one more excerpt from the Discoveroid blog:

“In The Beginning provides delightful and wide-ranging commentary on the origins debate and intelligent design,” says biophysicist Dr. Cornelius Hunter. “Sewell provides much needed clarity on topics that are too often misunderstood, like his discussion of the commonly confused problem of entropy, which is a must read.”

Naturally we checked out Cornelius Hunter. Wikipedia says:

Cornelius G. Hunter, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of biophysics at Biola University and is a proponent of intelligent design. Hunter is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute, hub of the intelligent design movement.

So it’s a Discoveroid reviewer praising the work of a creationist book published by the Discoveroids. How very incestuous. Oh, Biola University was originally named Bible Institute Of Los Angeles.

So there you are. We suspect that this outstanding new book offered by a prestigious publisher will soon find its way into Louisiana science classes in the form of “supplementary material” authorized by their new creationism law.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

• • • • • • • • • • •

. . Permalink for this article