Science Standards Advance, Cothran Whines

The Kentucky Board of Education yesterday cleared the way for the Next-Generation Science Standards to move forward in the regulatory process without change. At its meeting, the board approved the Statement of Consideration for 704 KAR 3:303, which calls for the new science standards to be included in the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. The Statement of Consideration included nearly 4,100 public comments received on the regulation. 

Commenters in favor of adoption argued that the Next Generation Science Standards would be beneficial for Kentucky children; that Kentucky students deserve the most up-to-date science education, and that an up-to-date science education includes learning about climate change; that the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards will help prepare Kentucky students for the challenges and opportunities they will face later in the 21st Century; that the Kentucky Core Academic Standards for Science reflect the state of modern, mainstream science; that university science professors expect incoming students to know the climate change standards contained in the Kentucky Core Academic Standards for Science and that students learning under those standards would be well-prepared for careers in fields that require knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; and more.

Opponents of the standards objected to the continued inclusion of evolution in the science standards and stated that the teaching of evolution will lead to a variety of negative social consequences, including the negation of religious belief, the marginalization of students with religious beliefs, the promotion of socialism and resulting genocide and murder, drug abuse, suicide, hopelessness, the limitation of personal freedom, and the belief that might makes right; expressed concerns that humans are classified with primates because primates have four hands, not two; that asking educators to teach evolution would violate the educators’ right to exercise their moral and religious beliefs; that outsiders are imposing the elitist and rich man’s religion of evolution on the families of public school students, taking away the right to worship God; that if evolution is in the standards, and taught, they will remove their children from the public schools and homeschool their children; and more.  

After review, the state board of education voted to move the regulation forward with no changes.

So, over at utiliter loqui, chief family man Martin Cothran of the Kentucky Family Foundation Family went off again. 

Cothran had concluded in a Herald-Leader op-ed that there was “an inordinate emphasis on climate science in the standards” and that “It is hard to avoid the impression that Kentucky's science standards…are trying to be some kind of global-warming manifesto.” 

Really? Kentucky’s science standards are a published statement of political motives? 

Cothran drew his stunning conclusions from “a simple word search.” Readers were invited to believe that Cothran could divine the motives of these science-types and why certain words showed up so much when compared to others. 

I responded to Cothran’s argument. I objected to his drawing such definitive conclusions on the scant evidence produced by a simple word search methodology. But Cothran carried on the debate by defending his method, claiming that I was wrong to have questioned - what he had now switched to calling - a “text analysis.” 

The only problem is that Cothran had not done a “text analysis.” He did a word count.

If he had done a text analysis - which is much more involved research technique and produces much higher quality information, I would have likely had nothing to say about it.

After objecting to my posting a claim made by another author, Cothran finally conceded that his method was not sufficient for the conclusions he drew, writing,

“I fully admit it's not "definitive." I admit the possibility that I could be wrong.”

He added, 

“I guess my point is that I was not trying to establish the why, only the what. Why there is such a stress on climate topics probably has to do with the fact that that's a fashionable issue right now. And I think it's a legitimate retroductive inference from the particular what to that particular why. But that is not something that can be determined by a word count and I don't think I said that it was.”

Perhaps if he had not gotten carried away by delusions of a manifesto I could agree.

In any case, that should have been the end of it.

But…No.

When the Board of education passed the standards yesterday, Martin went off again.

He fussed at Daniel Phelps, President of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, and Joseph Straley, the Provost's Distinguished Service Professor in physics and astronomy at the University of Kentucky. And in some kind of denial, he forgot everything that had been written, and took another swipe at me.

Then there is Richard Day, who responded by questioning my method of determining the emphasis in the standards, which employed the revolutionary technique of a) actually reading the document and b) counting the actual number of words having to do with certain issues. Day questioned this technique. I'm sure he had an alternative one consonant with the level of intellectual rigor that predominates in departments of education these days, possibly crystal healing or biofeedback or polarity therapy or perhaps some equally scientific fixture of the pop psychology that seems to predominate in his profession.

But he never offered an alternative method, so it's hard to tell.

In fact, I had suggested the alternative method of conducting a text analysis - the same method that he fraudulently told his reader he had done. If he had done a text analysis, then perhaps, his conclusions might have carried some weight. But Cothran is not one to let facts get in the way of claims.

As it happened, Cothran drew wildly inappropriate conclusions about some non-existent manifesto from a simple word count method; he published them in the newspaper; I suggested that a full text analysis would have been better; he later admitted that his word count method was not definitive, and that his conclusions could be all wrong; and now he is defending his inadequate method all over again.

Now that I think of it, I would also suggest that Cothran engage in a head soaking methodology.

 

Well, we thank Martin for sharing. But unfortunately his submission did not meet the standard.

Still, he deserve something for his effort – so that his self esteem isn’t damaged.  How about a nice participation ribbon? 

Meanwhile, this from the National Center for Science Education:

Deniers rebuffed in Kentucky

The Kentucky Board of Education declined to make any changes to a proposed regulation that would enact the Next Generation Science Standards as Kentucky's state science standards, despite the protests of evolution deniers and climate change deniers. In a lengthy document dated August 1, 2013, the Kentucky Department of Education summarized the thoughts of all who submitted comments on the regulation, and provided detailed replies. On the topics of evolution and climate change in particular, the department wrote (PDF, p. 139):

The agency also received statements of support related to the inclusion of particular science topics such as climate change and evolution, stating that meaningful scientific debate on the validity of evolution and climate science has ceased. Proponents of the continued inclusion of evolution pointed to the overwhelming acceptance of evolution in the biological science community. Proponents of the inclusion of climate change education contend that Kentucky students deserve the most up to date science education, which includes climate change. [The department agreed with these comments: see, e.g., pp. 104 and 105 on evolution, and pp. 115 on climate change.]

Over one hundred substantially identical emails were received stating an opposition to the continued inclusion of evolution in the proposed standards, characterizing evolution as a theory and not a fact. These commenters asked that intelligent design be added to the standards. Other commenters questioned the scientific validity of evolution. The agency also received several comments specific to the inclusion of climate change in the proposed standards, including concerns that climate change science was overemphasized to the neglect of other science concepts or that climate change is not a settled issue in the scientific community.

The three important antievolution goals — banning the teaching of evolution; balancing the teaching of evolution with creationism, whether in the form of "creation science" or "intelligent design"; and belittling evolution as controversial — were in evidence. So were all three of the pillars of creationism — arguing that evolution is scientifically controversial; arguing that teaching evolution is linked with negative social consequences; arguing that it is only fair to teach "all sides" of the supposed controversy. The same themes were also reflected in the comments about climate change.

The Kentucky Board of Education approved the department's report on August 8, 2013, so, as WPFL in Louisville, Kentucky, reports (August 8, 2013), "The regulation now heads to Kentucky’s Administrative Regulation Review Committee. If approved in the Kentucky General Assembly, the new standards would go into effect during the 2014-2015 school year." Kentucky would join Rhode Island, Kansas, Maryland, and Vermont as the first five states to adopt the NGSS — unless the legislature, which includes vocal critics of evolution and climate change, refuses its approval.