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Is the State of Texas about to offer Master of Science degrees in creationism? The Institute for Creation Research (ICR), an organization that officially believes the earth sprang into existence less than 10,000 years ago, has applied to offer a state-approved Master's program in science education. Last week, an official advisory committee recommended that the State of Texas approve the ICR's request to offer Master's degrees (read about it here and here). If this request is granted, the ICR has two years in which it can offer state-approved Master's degrees while seeking accreditation for its program from a recognized, outside accreditation organization. Coming on the heels of news that one of the state's science education officials was forced out of her job because she was not "neutral" about standing up for evolution education, this latest event suggests that creationism is about to again become a big issue in the Texas educational system.More Adaptive Complexity articles
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It is one thing for a private organization to teach whatever outlandish beliefs it prefers, and for students to attend non-accredited colleges - it's their educational choice, and no big loss to the rest of the educational system. But it's another issue altogether for the state to give its imprimatur to such an organization when it intends to train science teachers who will then go out and work such sectarian and unscientific beliefs into public school science classes.
Is it acceptable to accredit a science education program that teaches science students that they can build perpetual motion machines that violate the laws of thermodynamics? That matter is not made up of atoms, and that diseases are caused by 'humours' and not germs? Of course not, and by the same token, it is wrong to give state approval to a Master's program that teaches future science educators that the earth suddenly appeared less than 10,000 years ago, and that today's living species did not descend from a common set of ancestors.
The ICR is free to preach whatever it likes, but it should not be allowed to dress sectarian beliefs up as science and use them to train science teachers who will be hired by the state to teach in public schools. The stuff that institutions like the ICR and the Discovery Institute peddle is not science. Its advocates repeatedly exhibit an extremely poor grasp of the scientific theories they are supposedly critiquing, and in their criticisms they continue to make basic errors about the actual technical content of mainstream science. They love to scour scientific journals and highlight material that they (wrongly) believe undercuts evolution, yet tellingly, they never actually participate in such research themselves. (If Intelligent Design advocate Michael Behe is so convinced that pseudogenes are the product of an intelligent designer and not the accidents of evolution, why isn't he doing any research himself to look for functional pseudogenes?)
The quality of science education in US schools is falling behind that of other industrialized nations, and here we are, taking actions to officially support organizations that are devoting millions of dollars to undercut good science education. Southern states are trying hard to attract scientific talent and biotech dollars to their states, but people who are able to perform top science are generally not very eager to move to a state where their kids are likely to be taught some variant of creationism at school. Texas officials need to show some spine and maintain the integrity of science education in their state.
FIRST: I'm not exactly sure if the 10,000 year timeframe is in fact what ICR believes. I have read that quote, and it's in several of their articles, but if you look at the total opinions presented there, you come to the conclusion that there own statements don't back up the 10,000 year timeframe. I'll reproduce just a sample:
5. Not enough sodium in the sea.
Every year, rivers8 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.9,10 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.10 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.10 Calculations11 for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean.
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old.
In any event, I will go on the record as stating that I find no concrete evidence for Darwinian beliefs about ORIGINS. Neither do I think that creationism or ID is a science.
If one is religiously inclined, however, a thorough reading of Genesis offers no support for an Earth that is only 10,000 years old. In fact, Genesis could well be interpreted as offering no refutation to the theory that the Earth is indeed billions of years old.
The issue, I believe to those who really understand the issue is this: Was man created, or did he in fact evolve. The evidence offered up by Darwinian theory in THIS regard is no more scientifically persuasive than that posited by the creationists. However, the evolutionary stance that man himself "descended from a common set of ancestors" or that man is in fact older than 6-7,000 years is also unsupportable scientifically.
So, we have a conundrum. My personal belief, simply put, is that Darwinism is no more "science" than is creationism. Or perhaps we might call Darwinism "bad scicence" but it certainly isn't scientifically supportable.
So, what to teach? I have no problem with the teaching of evolution as a THEORY, which is what it is. (AND I am ready for the heat from Dr. White re: that last comment) Conversely, trying to pit ID against evolutionary theory is simply a daunting task for any educational curriculum.
Now, what I agree with Dr. White on is this: Should the Texas schools offer courses that teach the world is only 10,000 years old? I would say a hearty "NO" to that idea.
John FiorentinoFiorentino Research