Education

The Access Research Network, a young-earth creationist organization formerly known as Students for Origins Research, states the following in its description of a DVD it sells of the 2003 debate on the resurrection of Jesus between Antony Flew and Gary Habermas, a professor at Liberty University: Dr. Habermas holds an M.A. in philosophical theology from the University of Detroit; a D.D. in theology from Emmanuel College, Oxford; and Ph.D. in history and philosophy of religion from Michigan Sate [sic] University.The D.D. in theology from Emmanuel College, Oxford is also mentioned in the description of Habermas on a website advertising the DVD “Jesus: Fact or Fiction." It shows up in his bio for a talk he gave at First Family Church in Overland Park, Kansas. There’s a slight problem with a doctorate of divinity in theology from Emmanuel College, Oxford–there is no such college at Oxford. This same false claim is made in the Wikipedia article for Gary Habermas, with a link from “Emmanuel College” to the Wikipedia entry for Emmanuel College at Cambridge University, not Oxford. (Emmanuel College at Cambridge does have a “sister college” at Oxford, but its name is Exeter College.) Habermas’s current online resume lists no D.D. degree at all. So what’s the story? Is this Habermas’s error, or someone else’s? And what kind of error is it? If Habermas has a D.D. degree from a UK school, why doesn’t his current resume list it? (Hat tip to Roger Stanyard, who pointed this out in a comment at RichardDawkins.net last year.) I once exchanged some letters with Gary Habermas, beginning with a critique I wrote of the first edition of the book on immortality that he co-wrote with J.P. Moreland. I don’t believe anything in my critique was accounted for in the second edition of their book; the second edition still includes this false statement about psychic detective Peter Hurkos, even though I pointed them to critical material: “In carefully documented situations, Hurkos demonstrated very precise knowledge of cases as famous as the stolen Stone of Scone…and the Boston Strangler murders.” Even if they rejected my criticism, shouldn’t a matter of simple honesty to their readers have demanded that they include a reference to the existence of published rebuttals? ...

New Scientist reports that a poll of 2000 high school teachers in 2007 with 939 respondents found that 2% did not cover evolution at all, the majority spent 3-10 classroom hours on evolution, about a quarter reported spending some time on creationism or intelligent design, and of those, 48% (12.5% of the respondents) taught it as a “valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species." 16% of high school science teachers in the sample said that they believed human beings were created in their current form by God within the last 10,000 years. Teachers who believed in young-earth creationism spent 35% fewer hours teaching evolution than other teachers. The study in question, from PLoS Biology, may be found online. Further summary may be found at Pharyngula. ...

Matthew LaClair has an op-ed piece in today’s Los Angeles Times in which he talks about his evangelizing history teacher and the biased textbook used in his class. James Q. Wilson defends his textbook in a companion L.A. Times op-ed; the bulk of his defense is that the later edition of his book fixes the problems LaClair complains about. UPDATE (June 29, 2008): The July/August 2008 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer comments on this controversy. It seems that the later edition of the book is not yet available for schools and contains most, if not all, of the same misrepresentations and problems that LaClair complained about. Wilson, through his dishonest op-ed, has thrown away his credibility.

Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society and Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education debated back and forth for five days in the Los Angeles Times on speech codes, faculty bias, and “Expelled.” Actually, they were pretty much in agreement on “Expelled." (Where they disagree on other issues, I think Lukianoff generally has the better of the argument, though I side with Shermer on the rights of private institutions.) I happen to support both of their organizations, and I think it’s interesting to point out that FIRE is the major organization defending the freedom of speech of students and faculty in academia, though they’ve not noticed any issues of persecution of ID advocates worthy of their attention. They actually deal with real cases of suppression, censorship, and indoctrination, not phony cases like those in “Expelled.”

I’m sorry that I just came across this excellent speech by Matthew LaClair recounting his experiences with David Paszkiewicz which was published in Freethought Today in October 2007, reprinted by the Friendly Atheist blog on January 6, 2008. It’s probably the best concise summary of what happened and the subsequent events.

The Center for Inquiry has released a detailed critique (PDF) of a U.S. history textbook by James Q. Wilson and John Dilulio, Jr., pointing out that it falsely claims that there’s doubt about the very existence of the greenhouse effect, falsely claims that the U.S. Supreme Court has banned prayer in schools (as opposed to teacher-led prayer), falsely claims that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas overturned Texas’s anti-sodomy law on a close 5-4 vote (it was 6-3), falsely claims that the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution were motivated by worries about original sin, and so on. (A summary can be found at the Friendly Atheist blog.) Wilson is Ronald W. Reagan Professor for Public Policy at Pepperdine University and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors of the American Enterprise Institute; Dilulio was the first head of George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The problems in this textbook were uncovered by Matthew LaClair of Kearny, NJ, who previously received a lot of press coverage for his exposure of a U.S. history teacher at his school, David Paskiewicz, who was using the classroom as a forum for proselytizing evangelical Christianity. That story broke in the mainstream media only after being publicized on this blog. ...

John Lynch brought my attention this morning to HB 2713, the student religious freedom act, in the Arizona legislature. At first I thought this was like the “academic freedom” bills being pushed by the Discovery Institute (which I believe is also something that the film “Expelled” is being used to push), but those are about defending the ability of teacher to promote nonsense in the classroom, while this bill only defends student-initiated religious expression. There is one serious problem with the bill, however, and that is its conflation of religious and secular viewpoints: “Each public educational institution shall permit religious viewpoints in the same manner and to the same extent as secular viewpoints are permitted on the same subject matter.” If instead, this said merely that if one religious viewpoint is permitted, all religious viewpoints must be permitted, I’d have no problem with it. But this wording has the effect that where you can discuss anything at all, you can also discuss religion. In a science classroom, since science is secular, you can talk about religion. In a math classroom, since math is secular, you can talk about religion. That’s ludicrous. I think the bill will die, if not for the good reason I’ve just given, for the reason that it does also open things up to all religions and to anti-religion. If students are permitted to wear shirts with a Christian message, they must also be permitted to wear shirts promoting an Islamic message, an atheist message, a Satanic message, or a Pastafarian message. Likewise, if students are permitted to use personal viewpoints in writing an essay or giving a presentation to the class, they may use their viewpoints on religious matters as well. Again, atheism would have to be as welcome as Christianity. (And it’s not that atheism is a religion, only that it is a viewpoint on religious matters.) I suspect the authors and sponsors of the bill–State Representatives Clark, Anderson, Barto, Crump, Groe, Pearce, Robson, Tobin, and Yarbrough, and by State Senators Gorman, Gould, L. Gray, Harper, and Johnson–don’t really want that consequence. I think a few supportive emails are in order, thanking them for endorsing the right of students to argue for atheism in the classroom (and Satanism, and Scientology, a religion that Johnson, Gray, Gorman, and Pearce are familiar with, since they’ve previously sponsored bills on behalf of the religion).

Intelligent design advocate Michael Behe scored another “own goal” like he did in the Dover trial, this time in the law suit by the Association of Christian Schools International and Calvary Chapel Christian School against the University of California. ACSI and Calvary were arguing that the UC system was unfairly refusing to accept transfer credits from certain courses taught at Christian schools which used inadequate materials in their curriculum. Behe testified in court on behalf of the plaintiffs that “it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea . . . . Requiring a student to, effectively, consent to an idea violates [her] personal integrity. Such a wrenching violation [may cause] a terrible educational outcome." The judge cited this reasoning in his decision in favor of the University of California: Yet, the two Christian biology texts at issue commit this “wrenching violation.” For example, Biology for Christian Schools declares on the very first page that: (1) “‘Whatever the Bible says is so; whatever man says may or may not be so,’ is the only [position] a Christian can take . . . ." ...

It looks like Vancouver, British Columbia will become the second city to host a SkeptiCamp, which will be the third to occur. (Previously, previously.) Historical Comments Reed (2008-03-26): We're quite pleased that the first skepticamp outside Colorado is even outside the borders of the US. We've gone international!Its organizer tells me that BC is a hotbed of crankery which should make for an eclectic event that will make Colorado's look tame by comparison. ...

Although the “Expelled” RSVP page mysteriously dropped all upcoming screenings after the media coverage of P.Z. Myers being barred from a screening in Minnesota, a few cities have appeared on the list again and Phoenix is one of them. This could be a chance to see the film without giving its dishonest producers any money–I’ve signed up. (Free is the only way I’ll bother to see this film.) The site now explains the cancelled screenings as follows: Due to unavoidable changes in the travel plans of the producers of “Expelled”, several of our screenings have been canceled or are being rescheduled to a new date or time.While that may be true, I wonder if it’s merely an excuse to drop all of the existing registrants and do more stringent screening of who is allowed to be admitted. ...