Is there no end to the lengths that Texas lawmakers will go to push their religiously motivated, anti-evolution agenda on science education? This time it isn't Don McLeroy who is in my sights, it is Republican Leo Berman who is a member of the House Higher Education Committee of Texas.
Berman is the sole sponsor of House Bill 2800 that was introduced on March 9, 2009 in the Texas House of Representatives. It seems that Berman is motivated by his religion to flex his political power to help the Institute for Creation Research to have the authority to award master's degrees in science.
According to a report by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), Berman has not yet made a statement concerning the bill. NCSE did contact a staffer who said that "...he believed that the bill's objective was to aid institutions that want to teach creation science or intelligent design."
According to NCSE's Glenn Branch, "[w]hen the Institute for Creation Research moved its headquarters from Santee, California, to Dallas, Texas, in June 2007, it expected to be able to continue offering a master's degree in science education from its graduate school. ... But the state's scientific and educational leaders voiced their opposition, and at its April 24, 2008, meeting, the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board unanimously voted to deny the ICR's request for a state certificate of authority to offer the degree."
If House Bill 2800 is enacted, it will make ICR exempt from state regulations thereby allowing them to grant science degrees. As put by NCSE, the bill will "exempt institutions such as the Institute for Creation Research's graduate school from Texas's regulations governing degree-granting institutions."
According to ICR's Web site, they "[equip] believers with evidence of the Bible's accuracy and authority through scientific research, educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a thoroughly biblical framework." To that end, it seems, they take discoveries and force them into current biblical understandings of... things. For example, they discussed the recent discovery of the fossilized brain. They said:
"Since the Bible’s historical data is usually ignored in most scientific investigations, it comes as no surprise that this recent discovery 'all happened by chance.' The researchers would not expect to find fossilized soft brain tissues if today’s slow processes were all that was at work in the past. However, given the catastrophic formation indicated by most of earth’s geologic structures and the massive extermination of life represented in the fossil record—as well as the preservation of soft tissue from creatures supposedly millions of years old—the biblical Flood is a valid and relevant interpretive key to earth’s past. It can be expected that more soft tissue fossils, including brains and perhaps visceral organs, will be found."
How does one logically go from finding a fossilized brain to deeming the biblical flood valid and relevant? This is obviously one of those "schools" that will only accept scientific discoveries that they can "make fit" into scriptural accounts of... things. I hate to break this to them, but that is not science. It is intellectual dishonesty. And a school like this has no business whatever granting degrees in science. After all, what they teach is not science.
And, it is downright disgusting to know that there is yet another lawmaker in place in Texas that doesn't care about what he is supposed to care about... in Berman's case - higher education. His is too concerned with his own religious agenda to see that this school is an offense to the realm of science. Further, I would say that ICR is an insult to the concept "school."
Comments
Officially, the Institute for Creation Research does not support intelligent design creationism, just as "cdesign proponentsists" (Google the term if you're not familiar with it - it means "supporters of intelligent design creationism") do not officially support overt creationists such as the ICR. But that's just what they tell the public.
Hopefully allowing the ICR to grant "science" degrees is too much of a travesty for even Texas to allow to happen.
Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, offering a Lenten meditation to Pope Benedict XVI and top Vatican officials March 13, said the controversy that has arisen between scientists supporting evolution and religious believers promoting creationism or intelligent design is due mainly to a confusion between scientific theory and the truths of faith . . . While science and evolution can explain part of the history of creation and how life exists, they cannot explain why, he said. -- Catholic News Service, March 13, 2009
It is great to see that someone in power still has the nerve to stand up to those in some circles who are determined to stamp out religion from society. Evolution is a theory and has many gaps yet universities are trying to portray it as fact. That is a real shame. Jesus is real and alive and working in peoples lives today. I witnessed an amazing healing miracle this year when we prayed for our neighbor. It is obvious God is alive and loves us.
This would be very sad for higher education in Texas.
The effect of this bill would be to dilute the meaning of "science" until it is the equivalent of "whatever I believe".
Now I know why my parents who were born and raised in Texas moved to the Northwest! Where has the late great state of Texas gone? Remember the Alamo, don't destroy it! So much for the late great Lone Star State!
I wrote an email to Leo Berman stating my concerns that creationism isn't science. He wrote back and said "You probably subscribe to the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind, Global Warming." This guy truly is a moron.
according to daniel dennet...evolution is "design out of chaos without the benefit of mind"...perhaps this is why it is so confusing...see the amazing TED talk by SUSAN BLACKMORE on MEMES AND TEMES...thanks for the post
High court judges are not infallible. To state that creationist colleges cannot teach good science is a position of personal bias. Although evolution explains the origins of life, it can only do so from a theoretical perspective, as biologists, no matter how knowledgeable they are, cannot replicate the origins of the first living organisms even under the strictest laboratory conditions, even though this process allegedly happened by accident in the distant past. The problem here is naturalism. Scientists are taught from the very earliest days of their training that everything in the biological world MUST have a naturalistic beginning and conclusion. The very hint of a creator or an intelligent designer that may have been involved in the forming of life on earth at some point is immediately rejected as unscientific, while evidence for life arising in the distant past from non-organic materials is equally non-existant. The irony of the world's chief atheist, Richard Dawkins, who rejects the concept of a creator but is open to the idea that life on earth may have been 'seeded' by extraterrestrials cannot be overstated.
The persecution of scientists past and present who dare to question evolution is a disgrace. Those scientists and science teachers who continue to oppose anyone who dares to point out the serious problems of macro-evolution are not just being intellectually dishonest, they are intellectual criminals. One cannot claim to have an open mind by pointing the finger at creationists who believe in a god who created everything from nothing, while at the same time claiming that nothing somehow turned itself into everything. The vast majority of scientists, who are in the main seculr individuals, accept macro-evolution not because it is supported by a wealth of facts, but because the only atlernative, a creator to whom they will ultimately be held accountable, is unthinkable.
Greg Randles, M.Sc., Molecular Genetics
Edinburgh University
There never was a nothing; anyone who says so is wrong. Neither Scripture nor Scienty say so; creation means begrowth or begetth, something into something, not ex nihilo. Matter always was and energhy always was; they do not interconvert, sith they're not dimensionally equal.
a primer on evolution for creationists: http://google.com/groups?q=Milancovich+Wilson+supercycles
Also look up "RNA world".
Excellent!
I was waiting study some lika this.
:)
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!