Christian schools are suing the University of California for discounting the value of students’ grades and demanding higher test scores for admission. The Christian schools say it’s religious bias. UC thinks these schools don’t do an adequate job of teaching science (i.e., evolution) or other subjects.
The University of California system rejected (Calvary Chapel Christian) school’s coursework in biology, physics, history, government and English because of the texts used in the courses. The texts were published by Bob Jones University Press or A Beka Book, or both, (lawyer Wendell E.) Bird said. Both are conservative Christian publishing companies.According to a University of California position statement about the publishers’ science textbooks, the books “discount the scientific process and the scientific conclusions validated by a wealth of scientific research … .”
The position statement adds, “The texts in question are primarily religious texts; science is secondary.”
I’m on UC’s side on this one. Selective universities routinely evaluate the strength of applicants’ high school programs. If these schools put teaching religion ahead of teaching science, history or other courses, students will be less prepared for college.
Considering the state of science education in this country, Bob Jones’ efforts would have to work pretty hard to be worse.
Unless the university can demonstrate the actual, positive presence of demonstrably false information, they have no case.
I would exclude creationism from this, because it will be weeded out in frosh biology. Sort of a marketing thing.
To insist that the scientific method is dissed is kind of silly, considering the number of things believed by faith–since there is so little evidence–by public K12ers and California college grads.
Some things are so politically and morally true, such as global warming, that applying the scientific method is actively discouraged.
Have you examined these textbooks? I will agree that there is an anti-Catholic bias in the history books, from either publisher, but there is not a lack of history.
I will also agree that both BJU and AB add Christian emphasis to their science books. But that’s all they do. They don’t take away from anything. An example is in the Chemistry book, BJU, there is an additional section on “ways knowing chemistry improves a Christian’s life.”
There is NO denial of scientific method. The books cover evolution, even though they disagree with them.
Have you seen the literature books for the high school level? They are far beyond other lit books in depth and breadth. I know. I’ve used both BJU and AB as well as Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and others.
If UC has some objective proof, such as that their grades don’t match their scores, I might go for it.
I think that this might well be religious discrimination.
I used Bob Jones History (7-10), Government (11), Literature (7-12), Grammar (7-11), Biology (8), Earth Science (10), and Life Science (7) in school.
Though they definitely don’t teach evolution as fact, they do treat it as a theory, and teach its major arguments. I think I retained as many “facts” about evolution as public school students. The scientific method was NEVER discounted. We learned it and did experiments following it like any other students. My literature and government knowledge was superior to that of my public school friends. While they read well-known novels and did book reports, we excelled at recognizing metaphorical language, poetic structure, etc. We wrote essays, journal entries, and papers extensively. We even had a separate grammar class.
By the way, I scored a 32 on the ACT.
I still want to know what they teach about Global Warming, a “science” that makes “Intelligent Design” downright respectable.
Global Warming, because Lysinko might have been right.
While I have not seen the BJU biology textbook, a Fark.com poster said the book’s introduction contains the following statements:
“The people who prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second.”
“If the conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.”
As the authors of the book outright say they are not primarily interested in science, and they seem to explicitly discount the scientific method, then I can’t see how any course that uses this book exclusively can be used to satisfy a science requirement at the UC or elsewhere.
Notice the book states that the CONCLUSIONS are wrong–not the facts. All people are imperfect, flawed, and biased–therefore, they can look at the same facts and come to different conclusions. This is true in other fields of study, not just just science. Politicians, statisticians, historians, etc. all look at the same data and have varied conclusions.
Isn’t it the conservatives who are always bleating that people should bear responsibility for the consequences of their actions? If you insist that your kids be fed religiously bowdlerized pap instead of science, they’ll inevitably suffer in college admissions (or they’ll flunk out due to lack of background if this ridiculous suit succeeds)and in finding jobs. Make your decisions accordingly.
“they’ll flunk out due to lack of background if this ridiculous suit succeeds”
Actually, the problem is that these kids will never be given the benefit of the doubt. How can they flunk out if they are not admitted?
I suspect that these kids will do way better than the average college candidate simply because they realize that evolution is a theory, the same way intelligent design is a theory. Ever hear of Darwin’s THEORY of evolution? It is not fact, but there IS a lot of evidence to support the THEORY.
If anyone would like to see how much science has devolved, pick up the September issue of Scientific American. I have never seen so little fact and so much conjecture substituting for science. Had that issue been printed by a Christian press and used similar arguments to support intelligent design, it would have been laughed off the news stands.
Not accepting the theory of intelligent design, regardless of how unlikely YOU feel it may be does not make YOU right. Science is supposed to take the person out of the loop and look at facts.
I find the liberal ed establishment pretty funny. Here’s why:
1) Since when did evolution become such an important issue? I’m a big Darwin fan, but can’t see how with the deplorable state of public ed that Christian schools bio departments are worse than others. I would love to see the SAT comparison between the students - this is so clearly political.
2) Look at the biological evidence for racial IQ variance (The Bell Curve comes to mind) yet where is the Education folk’s concern about the denial of this very strong, testable theory (more so than evolution) and unlike evolution this issue matters a lot in social policy - e.g., when you have inner city schools failing that are primarily African American, yet nobody makes a peep about IQ (including, say this blog!) it’s clearly avoiding science for political reasons. Sort of our own religion - liberalism.
So the hypocrisy is clear - it’s only people who the Ed establishment doesn’t like that gets punished for twisting science, and yet everyone does it, from Global Warming to the racial IQ taboo.
Steve. You have any proof that the Bob Jones stuff is any more bowlderized and pap-like than the public school material?
Alan, you flunk thrice, because 1) you have no idea what “theory” means to a scientist, 2) you have absolutely no clue about the central importance of evolution in biology and the Everest-sized mountain of data behind it, and 3) you have no clue that “ID” is an empty shell with no research behind it and no empirical content- it’s just an attempt at constructing a stealthier variety of “Creation Science”, since the latter failed to pass Constitutional muster.
I’m getting sick and tired of all the clueless nonscientists pontificating about science. Opinions are like you-know-what- everybody has one. But some of us are actually trained in this stuff and know a thing or two about it.
Richard, which part of “we apologize if at any point we’ve put science ahead of the Word of God” do you have trouble understandiong? None of those words has very many syllables.
“Regarding the admissions requirements, UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said, “These requirements were established after careful study by faculty and staff to ensure that students who come here are fully prepared with broad knowledge and the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed.”
But, as shown by the rather large number of students who have to take remedial classes and who still flunk out, they don’t do a very good job.
Rules should be applied fairly and uniformly, whether to students from Christian schools or to minority students.
It is reasonable for UC to discriminate against schools if there is a rational reason for doing so. That the text book is too religious smacks of discrimination and bigotry. If the schools’ graduates have a track record of failing intro courses because of insuficent preparation, mark the schools down. If the graduates do well, recognize that also. But the religion preached and the textbook used should not be the basis for evaluating the school.
Here is a link with a summary of the suit and the actual complaint. 208 pages with exhibits.
http://www.acsi.org/web2003/default.aspx?ID=1181
Be careful how quick you jump to conclusions about others. I am an engineer. For the uninitiated, that is a scientist that relies on hard measurable fact, not theory, to implement practical designs. I can’t rely on a theory that electrons might flow where I want them to flow. If I don’t know for sure where they are going and my design is wrong, people can die. I deal with measurable reality on a daily basis. At the very least, the measurable defines my designs. Can you measure God? I think not. So air did not exist before we could measure it?
Even if evolution is proven to be fact, it only proves the Bible’s literal account of man’s origin is wrong. It is still not proof that God or even aliens did not cause the spark of life. That leap of faith really burns unbelievers for some reason, but it’s OK to make the leap of faith that cow farts and fossil fuel are causing what appears to be an unnatural warming of the earth.
Anyone that is willing to throw out possibilities, no matter how absurd they may appear, is not a scientist. Prejudice is not an option in science. No one’s facts are complete on our origins. Hence, Darwin has a nice theory. So do the creationists. Darwin’s theory has more facts, but that does not make his theory right any more than the lack of facts makes creationists wrong.
As for the reliance on Congress to make valid scientific conclusions — well, if you believe they can, I hope that I’m right and there is a God, because we’re going to need him.
What I find really interesting is that so many “unbelievers” are so upset about religious theory. Why? What are they afraid of? Crusades? If you don’t believe, why deny others their belief? I don’t expect the inquisitions to come back. Or Witch-hunts. Maybe it’s the fear that there really is a God and there will be hell to pay in the end.
Oh, Steve, I am not a creationist. I am also not ready to say my existence is a random event. Personally, the only failing I see in Darwin’s theory is that so may really stupid people live to propagate. My belief in Darwin’s theory, however, does not negate my belief in God or make Darwin right.
Alan, there are plenty of religiously devout biologists who, unlike you, understand that there is no necessary conflict betwen science and religion as long as religion does not presume to substitute mythology for empirically determined fact. Francis Collin, the head of the Human Genome Project and a devout Baptist, is just one of them. The “problem” does not come from science’s end.
Alan: I’m an engineer too. Where did you get a degree without learning the basics of science, not even the definition of a scientific “theory”?
Steve. Try teaching in HS science that global warming is shaky from the evidence standpoint, has happened many times before and not been a catastrophe, and that there is no evidence that what we see so far is anthropogenic.
THAT will bring some stuff down on your head.
You could just teach that we have global warming or global cooling, depending on which start point in the twentieth century you use and get in trouble.
The Bob Jones stuff may not be satisfactory, but I asked in comparison to public school texts.
The claim that global warming is based on shaky evidence is complete political BS, no longer endorsed by any competnet climate scientist except maybe a few who are paid to say it. (Again you presume to speak authoritatively on matters of which you obviously know little). Now, what to do about it is a separate issue- I personally see little point in Kyoto, which will have a negligible impact on the problem at great expense.
Why not just make ALL the new college students take a bunch of freaking TESTS in the first week of school to assess who’s up-to-par and who needs remediation? That way, we can maybe weed out some of the people who went to supposedly-prestigious high schools and slept or cheated their way through, and we can deal with the issue of “we don’t think students from religious schools are adequately prepared” without offending a chunk of the populace.
I’d argue that instead of allowing open enrollment in classes, students should have to take tests demonstrating some minimal competence in the subject. I’ve had too many students in junior-level biology classes who have so tenuous a grasp on basic math and chemistry that I have to spend a lot of time going over material they should already know.
ricki,
That is what my state college in Mass. did the first day of orientation week. We all went into the gym and took English and math and science tests and then our program was designed by our advisor. I was better off than most, being a returning student. Also, both of my parents were college grads and both of my grandfathers so I knew what college would be like. Most of the students there were the first in their family to attend college and they were shocked when put into remedial courses. I ended up tutoring a student in my required English literature class who had never written a paper of any length and didn’t know what paragraphs were, etc. All of her high school English classes had relied exclusively on multiple choice quizzes.
As far as the evolution/ID debate, this is a non-issue for me as most of the arguments on either side miss major points.
ricki wrote:
Why not just make ALL the new college students take a bunch of freaking TESTS in the first week of school to assess who’s up-to-par and who needs remediation?
Because it turns a searchlight on the educational failure of the K-12 system and who benefits from that? Society in general? Who cares?
This is exactly the way the wide-scale cheating on the Texas accountability test, the TAKS, was discovered. The same kids who aced the TAKS in sixth grade flunked it in a different building in seventh grade. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to draw the obvious inference.
The same thing would happen if wide-scale competence-testing were introduced in college. But first, you need wide-scale competence testing and who’s the immediate beneficiary of that?
Not the colleges. The unprepared and under-educated kids are flunked out in droves in their freshman year if not their first semester and no harm to the college.
My guess is that, like Texas, the people who sign the checks, the political representatives, will benefit from instituting competence-testing as a means of holding down college costs and displaying their concern for managing public money.
The colleges will object but the real pressure against competence-testing will come from the public education K-12 sector. They have nothing to gain and a lot to lose. Parents will suddenly be confronted with their little angel flunking the college entrance exams after having graduated from high school with a 4.0.
It’ll be too late for them but that won’t keep the sh*t from hitting the fan and the recipient of most of the ejecta will be the public education establishment. The parents of last year’s seniors are gone but the parents of this year’s seniors are very likely to descend on school board meetings waving news articles detailing the failure rate of their school district. Who needs the tsuris? Do your best to deep-six college competence testing and you don’t have to worry about unfavorable results.
The claim that humans are significantly contributing to global warming IS on shaky ground. (See: http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-05/departments/discover-dialogue/) Basing a GLOBAL THEORY on a single tree’s growth is not science. Unrepeatable data from dubious climate models does not prove anything more than we need better models before we jump to conclusions. Is there global warming? Gee, compared to the “Ice Age” there’s been a lot of global warming. Based on what is currently being posed as fact, we owe a great debt to our NEANDERTHAL ancestors for their creative use of fire — all that frivolity in our ancestor’s caves has led to a much more temperate climate. BTW, it’s really cow belches not cow farts, as I stated, that some believe are contributing to global warming — (see: http://depts.clackamas.cc.or.us/banyan/3.1/things.asp). I say ban chili cook-offs now as a preemptive strike, just in case!
As I was taught, a THEORY is a hypothesis supported by significant data. It’s our BEST GUESS of the truth based on what we can measure or REPEATEDLY and INDEPENDANTLY model. It is NOT proof of correctness.
What I suppose markm and others claim is that there is not sufficient data to call ID a theory. If that is the case I would like to hear what their definition of sufficient data is. Critical Peer review and independent substantiation of the facts are all we have to go on. So far, Darwin has a bulk of the data in his court. That is why I am lathe to deny Darwin’s theory. This fits well with my Protestant religious beliefs.
I have NEVER stated that I believe Darwin’s THEORY is wrong. Aside from my statement about the propagation of stupid people (which was a joke, sort of) I see no reason why ID and Darwin MUST be mutually exclusive. Oh, sure, those on either extreme side of the debate have a problem with that, but again, that does not make either correct.
Until someone can show the science and data to prove we are random events and were not created or at least “seeded” by a “superior entity” there will be room for God. To deny any possibility other than the mainstream is NOT science as I was taught. It is, however, a cure for those with too much research funding.
Oh, re-read my statements — I have no “conflict” between science and religion. In fact, to my, evangelical friends I am quite the heretic.
We are in a long-term global warming cycle, recovering from the Little Ice Age. Nobody doubts, or laments, that.
Whether we are in a short-term warming trend depends whether you start measuring in the Thirties or the Seventies of the last century.
Obviously, the one you pick is the one that’s useful.
The Medieval Warm Period is a catastrophe. It means anything happening now is not unprecedented, and, including the Roman Warm Period and the Holocene Maximum, is entirely precedented.
No one can show it was anything but a positive for the human race.
And no one can show it was anthropogenic.
No wonder one individual referred to referring to it as “pseudo science” as if Leif Ericson’s jumping-off place was fiction.
The Medieval Warm Period is really subversive, isn’t it?
There’s a lake on the Antarctic peninsula which is warming. The dry valleys in the interior are cooling. Net up or down?
Thanks for sharing your “expertise”. So that I can weigh your position against that of hundreds of highly qualified climatologists, would you be so kind as to list your peer-reviewed publications in this field?
Good, short article on ID: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5274569-111414,00.html
Steve. See if the climatologists will deny the Medieval Warm Period. See if they will claim it was anthropogenic. See if they will claim it was a bad thing for humans.
See if they will deny that the temperature trend is up or down depending on when you start.
Nothing I’ve said is extraordinary or difficult for laymen to find out.
As we discover, talking about it can generate snarkiness.
Hence, my request to demonstrate that current public school and college teaching is any less religious than the Bob Jones texts.
Just a different religion.
You want to start on DDT?
Sure, Evolution is only a theory, but so are: Relativity (Special and General), Atomic Theory, Big Bang, Quantum Mechanics, Standard Model of Particles, Statistical Thermodynamics, Continental Drift, and many others.
See of they think any of that offers grounds for denying that anthropogenic warming is taking place. That is, if you’re intelligent enough to go take a look at the actual resarch literature rather than, say, Exon Mobil propaganda.
Steve.
I didn’t pay you, right?
You swear you’re not shilling to make my point for me, right?
It is not for me to prove anthropogenic warming is not taking place. I’m not the guy who said it was. It’s for the folks who say it is taking place to prove it, and the previous warm periods make it difficult to separate the current situation from other, clearly non-anthropogenic warming agents.
In other words, it’s up to them to prove it’s not any of the other forces. It’s not increased solar output–why are the Martian caps shrinking????–and it’s not that we’re leaving whatever put us into the Little Ice Age, whatever that was.
And then, whichever they choose, they can explain why ending the current interglacial period is a good idea.
Where I live, the average temp over the last million years has been under half a mile of ice.
You might also want to visit your local library, check out and then burn any references to the Seventies’ panic over the coming ice age.
I haven’t seen a continental US temp record on the high end which isn’t caveated by “since 1933″ or “1934″. I want to know what was happening in the Thirties.
This is perfectly illustrative of my point.
It is simply Not Done to question this stuff.
Aspersions on intelligence, silly nonsense about Ex(x)on Mobil.
Nope. Better not question.
Oddly, in all that verbiage there’s still not a single reference to a recent peer-reviewed publication that supports your argument. I wonder why.
Steve LaBonne wrote:
Oddly, in all that verbiage there’s still not a single reference to a recent peer-reviewed publication that supports your argument.
Pot, kettle, black, Steve.
On the contrary, there are lots of papers supporting the now overwhelming consensus that anthropogenic warming is upon us, and anyone interested can easily find references to them. But a genuine scientific paper supporting Richard’s argument would be a rare bird indeed, and I’d like to see it.
Then you shouldn’t have any trouble pointing to a couple of them that have stood up to scrutiny and criticism.
There’s a mountain of papers but you can start here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/292/5515/267?rbfvrToken=5c9444c084d99a677482c6a56c0a81919b22e330
See also the 2001 update from the IPCC which is fully available on the Web: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/001.htm
The Science Magazine article requires me to cough up personal info for their free registration, thank you, no.
The only place the IPCC report tries to appear unequivocal about anthropogenic global warming is in the “Summary for Policymakers” and even there it’s shot through with weasel words. If you dig into the report itself you’ll find it’s a bit less enthusiastic about the certainty of anthropogenic global warming and a lot more full of the need for further research.
I did find this critique of the Levitus paper which pretty much demolishes it.
If it’s so devastating why wasn’t it convincing enough to be published in an actual scientific journal? The late Mr. Daly was an amateur crank, not a reputable professional scientist. Sorry, not impressed. And still no sign that a real scientist ghas published a real scientific paper supporting Richard’s argument.
Dr Pielke is a leader in the scientific community, and an expert in climate, and while he is worried about the possible effects of global warming, and is sure that he is seeing some now, if you read his work carefully, you will see that 1. he is not sure that current trends will continue. 2. he is not sure that people are causing global warming. 3. he is not convinced that the science of global warming is all that it should be. Dr. Pielke has written many peer reviewed papers. http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resourse-1621-2004.18.pdf
A great deal of peer reviewed may be wrong. Check this out:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/09/why_most_publis.html
Oh come on Steve. We’re not talking about hiring a contractor to rebuild your porch.
Reputation gets you credibility, it doesn’t grant you insight. If the amature crank is right and the professional scientist is wrong then the amature crank is right.
Besides, to drag this discussion back toward the origin, you should pardon the expression, of this thread, there are professional scientists who line up on the side of Intelligent Design. Does their reputation confer on their opinions some special credibility in the ID debate?
Actually, what’s a really remarkable indication of the hollowness of the ID sham is that there is a grand total of ONE supporter whose credentials as a biologist in a relevant field command any respect- Behe. But his book is a remarkably shoddy piece of work (eg. he claimed to be unable to find papers on topics where there were actually dozens even at the time he wrote), and he was recently publicly repudiated by his own biology colleagues at Lehigh! Global-warming scepticism is actually vastly more intellectually respectable by comparison, I’ll certainly give you that.
Steve LaBonne wrote:
Global-warming scepticism is actually vastly more intellectually respectable by comparison, I’ll certainly give you that.
Oh well that’s mighty big of you.
I guess I’ll have to console myself with the tattered condition of the Kyoto Accords which proves, scientifically I’d say, that extraordinary demands, like extraordinary claims, require extraordinary proof.
What does Kyoto have to do with the science? I happen to hold much the same position as Bjorn Lomborg: global warming is real, but Kyoto does nothing useful about it and wastes resources better spent in dealing with other problems.
A word on Jim Lebeau’s commewnt: the Ioannidis study referred to by his link involves epidemediological research, where attempts are made to tease a small effect out of a lot of noise. To that extent, global warming is certainly deserving of extra scrutiny using Ioannidis’s tools (though looking at the literature rather than at individual papers, as he recommends, tends to show that support for rejecting the null hypothesis in that case is becoming rpetty strong.) On the other hand I don’t believe that it has much application to laboratory sciences like chemistry or molecular biology because these disciplines are highly cumulative- a wrong result in an active subfield is usually recognized and rejected pretty quickly because other researchers have to try to build on it to make further progress, and discover that they can’t. The peer review process in this case is merely the first, and not necessarily the most important, stage of the quality-control process.
Steve LaBonne wrote:
What does Kyoto have to do with the science?
The same thing as the ban on DDT did. It’s the political outfall of what’s represented as science.
The death of the Kyoto Accords is also a measure of the credibility of the anthropogenic global warming movement. If the science isn’t convincing then the solution isn’t going to be implemented.
Kyoto is dying a deserved death because it does nothing beyond symbolism to address the problem, not because the problem doesn’t exist. Wishful thinking will help even less than Kyoto.