Big vote in Ohio

[Durandal]

Apparently, there is intelligence present on the Ohio State Board of Education. As usual, I have included my followup.

Damien, I am on the other side, from Debra Owens-Fink.

That is reassuring. From what I'd read on the issue -- Ohio's government being uniformly conservative and such, which is why the intelligent design apologists picked it to push their agenda -- I'd begun to think that all hope was lost. :)

I highly applaud the way you took apart her response. That's the same response she has given to others and has not been taken to task for it. Thank you.

I knew it was a pad response after the first line. She failed to address anything I said directly, while I afforded her that exact courtesy in my response. If teaching intelligent design is part of her idea of "excellent" scientific education standards, I can only have nightmares about what she considers sub-par scientific education to be.

I also decided to do some digging on the Physics Today website. Guess what I found? Mano Singham (whom she quoted in support of her position) is AGAINST the intelligent design theory.

http://www.aip.org/web2/aiphome/pt/vol- ... /p48b.html

No scientific theory is ever just an explication of the currently inexplicable. It must also postulate some mechanism that can be used to predict new phenomena that could not have been conceived under older theories. If a new theory is used to explain result a in situation A, then that same mechanism must be able to predict result b in situation B, predict c in situation C, and so on. This feature of producing new and interesting areas of exploration attracts adherents to a new theory, enabling it to become a serious competitor to the existing dominant theory.4 It is a theory's predictive aspect that leads to new and important discoveries. These two criteria comprise necessary (but insufficient) conditions for a theory to be considered a part of science. ID fails to satisfy either criterion, and that alone is reason enough for its exclusion.

Which is precisely what I said.

Others on the Board know my position so it's not necessary for me to copy them here. Since you are from out of state, I should let you know what happened at the Sept. Board meeting of the Standards Committee of last week. I don't believe that including "intelligent design" in the Science Standards wording will pass the total Board, maybe the Committee but not the Board.

That is relieving to hear.

However, in Committee discussion with the whole Board, a Board member suggested that "intelligent design" be included in the Social Studies Standards which we have also been working on this year but they have been overshadowed by the evolution issue.

If anywhere, that is more or less where intelligent design belongs, along with creationism (intelligent design is merely creationism in a clown suit). Studying society is almost impossible without touching on religion in some way, and the creationism/intelligent design vs. evolution debate is certainly a large part of American society.

I don't know what the outcome of that will be. However, I suggested to the Department of Ed. that under "People in Societies" category of the S.S. Standards, in 11th grade (our Ohio Graduation Test will use the 9th and 10th grade standards of each curricular area for the achievement tests) there is an item that talks about "Choose a Government policy or program and analyze how it has affected and been received by one or more racial, ethnic or religious groups" and then suggestions are given, i.e. Indian policies, immigration laws, etc. I suggest we add as a suggestion: evolution theory vs. intelligent design.

The test of evolution vs. intelligent design would be apt for testing science students on whether they really know what the scientific method is. Any student can mindlessly recite the steps to the scientific method, but if you ask them, "Intelligent design theory makes the following posits. Is this scientifically valid, why or why not?", they will learn a lot more about science. Teaching it as valid science basically tells students that "Because the Invisible Man said so" is an acceptable explanation in scientific conclusions, which is nothing short of asinine.

It would not be state tested, and would allow any local school district to include or not include this in their S. S. curriculum. We are a "local control" state and this would give that option to the local level. Of course, the controversy would then be at another level. Keep in touch and I'll let you know how it goes. Again, my thanks.

Anything I can do to be of help. The prospect of my 10 year-old cousin saying that he learned about intelligent design theory in biology class is truly frightening, not to mention that these correspondences have come up at a rather convenient time. I'm doing a discourse of my major selection for my English Composition course, and one of the prime things I am touching on is the admittedly sad state of scientific education in the country. These exchanges will certainly add to the paper greatly, as will news of the ultimate outcome. Please keep me informed.

Also, I'd like to salute the board as a whole for actually responding to my message. I honestly didn't expect anything aside from a standard "We received your E-mail and your opinion will be considered" response, because I am sure that you've received a great deal of E-mails on the subject in addition to the daily duties you must perform. The fact that the board actually checks their E-mail, reads it and responds to it is more than can be said of other government agencies, so kudos to the Ohio State Board of Education on that count.

[Nick]

Apparently, there is intelligence present on the Ohio State Board of Education. As usual, I have included my followup.

Thanks for letting us in on these exchanges Durandal!

I'm guessing that the draft standards I downloaded reflect this guys position.

7. Explain how theories are judged by how well they fit with other theories, therange of included observations, how well they explain observations and how effective they are in predicting new findings.

The intelligent design v. evolution debate would fit nicely in to this part of the science curriculum (if the board adopt the standards as written, and actually follow through on the damn thing, then Ohio might end up with a pretty nice science stream. . .)

[Nick]

Reading more of the standard after Durandal's last exchange (I moved on to the 'Scientific Ways of Knowing' section, then on to the 'benchmarks' section)

A. Explain that scientific knowledge
must be based on evidence, be
predictive, logical, subject to
modification and limited to the
natural world.
B. Explain how scientific inquiry is
guided by knowledge,
observations, ideas and
questions.
C. Describe the ethical practices and
guidelines in which science
operates.
D. Recognize that scientific literacy
is part of being a knowledgable
citizen.

A. Explain how scientific evidence
is used to develop and revise
scientific predictions, ideas or
theories.
B. Explain how ethical
considerations shape scientific
endeavors.
C. Explain how societal issues and
considerations affect the progress
of science and technology.

Forget the Ohio education system, this stuff is gold for _anyone_ who wants to know what a basic grounding in science should include. . .