Defend Science Commentary

Read commentary from Defend Science including:

(Sept., 2009)
Francis Collins Appointed as Director of NIH -
Science is Attacked Under the Banner of "the compatibility of science and religion"


Francis Collins, nominated by Barack Obama on July 8, 2009, was confirmed on August 7, 2009 as the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by a unanimous vote of the Senate. Collins’ scientific credentials are impeccable: he is a physical chemist, a medical geneticist and the former head of the Human Genome Project.

Collins now:

  • has responsibility for the $30 billion federal budget for biomedical and health-related research;

  • is a key scientific spokesperson in the federal government;

and, for some time, he has been on a very public crusade to proselytize his particular view about the “compatibility between science and religion”.

Collins’ “harmony” is not good for science.
....
Collins is not just promoting a general philosophical and religious view. From these views he draws, and invites others to draw, purported scientific conclusions that conflict with a scientific view of evolution. And Collins has made clear that he is seeking political allies on the religious right.
read the entire article...

(Sept., 2009)
Defend Science Response to Feedback on Francis Collins letter
Our commentary on Francis Collins has created some controversy - more so than any recent thing we have written.  In reading over the responses, some in agreement and expressing concern about the implications of Collins’ appointment, others passionately in opposition to what we wrote, we felt both that there were, in some cases, real disagreements being expressed and also some lack of clarity about what we were actually saying.  And we also feel that there are very important issues for science at stake in this, and so we are sending out this email.
read the entire article...

(May., 2009)
Obama's Stem Cell Policy -
Needed Science Banned and Constrained by Christian Fundamentalist Ideology

It appeared to many that Obama was truly standing up for science against the backward forces of the Christian Fundamentalist right.

But now, the new National Institute of Health draft guidelines for stem cell research have been issued and a more careful examination of these rules and of what has happened and how it has happened reveals a very different story. The truth is that while some changes may be made to open up and fund some forms of stem cell research, Obama's overall policy and moves mean that vital types of stem cell research are still banned and that stem cell research overall still remains fettered by the Christian fundamentalist position that there is something sacred about the fertilized human egg (i.e. the blastocyst, a clump of cells about the size of the period that ends this sentence) which should set a barrier to important scientific and medical research.


read the entire article...

(Feb., 2009)
Texas: Two Major Attacks on Science -
State Education Standards for Science Undermine Teaching
Evolution
Christine Comer Case: Undermines Educators' Ability to Defend
Science


A huge battle has been taking place centering on what standards for teaching science would be set by the Texas State Board of Education.  These standards are meant to dictate what is taught in science classes in elementary and secondary schools, and also are meant to provide the material for state tests and textbooks for the next decade.  And the implications of these standards go beyond Texas itself.  As Texas is one of the largest markets for school science textbooks, these Texas standards
could have a major effect on new textbooks used across the country.

The basic, scientific standards that apply here are clear:
evolution is true and should be taught as such;
creationism in any form is not science and should not be taught in science classrooms
read the entire article...

(Jan., 2009)

Defend Science, Darwin and the Biologists (report from SICB Conference)

Defend Science had an exhibit table at the SICB (Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology) conference in early January (the SICB is one of the major professional organization of biologists in the US. Approximately 1800 biologists and students attended). We learned a great deal: About important new organizations and efforts to popularize science; about the fierce struggle biologists are waging against creationist attacks on evolution, and in some cases just to teach evolution; and about what scientists and others can do to fight for science now – especially around Darwin Day and Darwin Year.
read the entire article...

(Dec., 2008)
Celebrate Darwin Day 2009: Stand Up For the Science of Evolution

This year, February 12, 2009, is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. 2009 is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “On The Origin of Species by Natural Selection”, a monumental work and tremendous scientific achievement.

If you could imagine a world without Darwin and the theory of evolution by natural selection, it would be a world impoverished in every dimension. Modern medicine would be crippled, without a deep understanding of how to prevent infections that rapidly evolve and grow resistant to treatment; we would have a greatly diminished understanding of the threats to biodiversity from alien species and habitat alternations. We would not appreciate the “grandeur in this view of life”, to use Darwin’s own words – the beauty and amazement of how all of life developed through natural processes. And science itself would be weakened in an almost incalculable way.

We strongly encourage everyone to help organize and participate in Darwin Day celebrations around the country, and circulate this statement everywhere, distribute it to friends and colleagues, post it on the web.
read the entire article...

(Sept., 2008)
2008 Elections: Implications for Science and Critical Thinking

“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq  war on a 'task that is from God.'
In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also
urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural
gas pipeline in the state, calling it 'God's will.’”  Associated Press,
September 3, 2008

For all those hoping against hope that the attacks on science, critical
thinking, and rational thought were going to end with Bush, the Republican party made it clear enough where it stands on that question when it brought forward the nomination of Sarah Palin.  Palin called in the past for teaching creationism in science classes in public schools (though more recently has been cautious in stating what she thinks.)  She is an abortion opponent,  an advocate of the view that life begins at conception, and an opponent of most birth control.  As small town mayor in Alaska, she raised whether it would be possible to ban books from the town library, and tried to fire the town librarian who refused to go along.

And it isn’t just the Republican Party.
read the entire article...

(Sept., 2008)
Attacks on Science 2008: A Very Partial List

The attacks on science continue in 2008.  The following list outlines specific items making the news (some in a very limited fashion).  But perhaps the biggest items are those that do not make headlines.  The current administration has taken no action on stem cell research since the November 2007 veto of legislation allowing embryonic stem cell research to continue, and none of the current major party presidential candidates, have raised the issue substantively in their campaigns.    Although the Bush Administration no longer openly denies the science behind global warming, not a single regulation addressing the pressing issues of greenhouse gases or other related topics has been raised.   Issues related to public health and the environment have also been denied with further evidence of the muzzling of government scientists in agencies such as NASA, the EPA, and others coming to light.  Equally chilling are the increasing efforts to roll back women’s reproductive rights and to force religion into science classrooms. Creationist bills are “brewing” in state legislatures across the country - and have been passed and signed into law in Louisiana (see below). And it is alarming in this context that issues relating to science and scientific thinking are nearly absent from substantive discussion in the presidential campaign - with the “exception” of Vice Presidential nominee Palin’s creationism and Biblical literalism.
read the entire article...

(July, 2008)
New Round of Attacks on Evolution - creationism as
"academic freedom" or "science education"

In a number of state legislatures (e.g. Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, Michigan) and state boards of education (e.g. Kansas, Texas), a new round of attacks on teaching evolution are in the works. In Louisiana, both houses of the legislature passed SB 733, and Governor Bobby Jindal, in opposition to widespread calls for a veto, signed it into law on June 25, 2008. This new onslaught of creationism/intelligent design is, at least in part, a response to the legal drubbing “intelligent design” got in the Pennsylvania v. Kitzmiller legal case in 2005, when Federal Judge Jones ruled that intelligent design creationism had nothing to do with science but was a way for religion to be smuggled into the classroom, and should not be allowed in public school science classes.

The Louisiana law is modeled on a template from the Discovery Institute, the nerve center of the intelligent design version of creationism. The heart of it is the latest misleading argument from the intelligent design forces – that scientists and teachers who raise so-called “scientific” criticisms of evolution are intimidated, unfairly denied tenure, and otherwise retaliated against. This strategy, central to Ben Stein’s movie, Expelled, frames the issue as one of “academic freedom,” claiming dissent from Darwinism is not allowed in the scientific community or classroom...
read the entire article...

(March, 2008)
The Movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" - a big attack on Science
The Ben Stein movie/documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is scheduled for release on April 18th. The movie casts Stein (former Nixon speech-writer with a minor acting career) as an “anti-establishment rebel” facing off against “Big Science”. It is a crude attack on evolution, insidiously framed as defending the “Freedom of Speech” of scientists who dare to go up against the scientific establishment. P.Z. Myers, evolutionary biologist and author of the science blog Pharyngula, was recently expelled from a screening of the film (although his guest, Richard Dawkins, was not!) Myers, who was interviewed by the producers under false pretenses and appears in the film, immediately exposed the hypocrisy of the films producers who ejected a critical voice from the screening of a film purporting to be about freedom of speech. (See his blog
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php ). This, and other exposures of the film’s attack on evolution, created a firestorm in the blogosphere and brought the film some much needed criticism (check out the links below which give a general idea of the discussion). Here we aren’t going to repeat material well-covered elsewhere. (Here) ... we want to address some of the specific strategies of the film. 

read the entire article...

(December, 2007)
The Stem Cell Breakthrough and the Attacks on Science
The week of Nov. 20, two teams of researchers -- one led by Kyoto University's Shinya Yamanaka, the other by the University of Wisconsin's Junying Yu reported that they had turned human skin cells into pluripotent stem cells – cells which appear to behave in tests so far the same as embryonic stem cells.

But the coverage of this story is being spun in ways that represent a serious attack on science.

At the core of this attack on science, an intense effort is being made to put over the pseudo-argument that since these pluripotent skin cells are “the same” as embryonic stem cells and since there's supposedly “a stigma” involved in embryonic stem cells, scientists should just drop them and “use” the skin cells instead because after all who wants controversy. And unfortunately many who should know better who are normally supporters of science have joined in pushing this viewpoint.  read the entire article...

(December, 2007)
Christine Comer (dir. of science for Texas Education Agency)
attacked by creationists and forced to resign

The week of Nov. 20, 2007, Christine Comer who served for 27 years as a science teacher and 9 years as director of science for the Texas Education Agency was attacked and forced to resign.  Why?  Because she forwarded an email about a lecture by Dr. Barbara Forrest.  Dr. Forrest is co-author of "Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse" and was an expert witness in the Dover, PA trial that ruled against the teaching of "intelligent design" in science classrooms.  Dr. Forrest is also a signatory of the Defend Science statement.  In the dismissal letter received by Comer, it referred to the issue of evolution and creationism as "a subject on which the agency must remain neutral".  Remember this is talking about the state agency in charge of science education. read the entire article...

(July, 2007)
Bush appointed ex-Surgeon General exposes governmental
suppression of science
Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona - a Bush administration appointee - went public during Congressional testimony on July 10 with scathing exposure of how science, science policy and scientific thinking is being attacked and muzzled across the board from the highest levels of government. read the entire article...

(May, 2007)
What happens when Defend Science! reaches the broad public
When the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an editorial about Defend Science, hundreds of people responded, signing the Defend Science Statement, many making thoughtful and inspiring comments about the attacks on science and what to do about this.  Triggered by one editorial ... in Minnesota.  Imagine the impact of the Statement running in major newspapers, reaching millions... read the entire article...

(February, 2007)
Attacks on Science From the Bush Administration Continue Post-Election (Excerpted from a speech in February 2007 in Hawaii by Michael Hadfield)
Lest anyone think that the Congressional electoral victories of the Democrats last November have changed anything, let me point out these post-election events, all drawn from the popular press since November 2006: read the entire article...

(November, 2006)
Assessing What is Going On Today
To say the attacks on science continue states the obvious. But Bush and the Republicans appear to be in political trouble, and there has been rising opposition to the attacks on science, including important victories. So how to assess what is going on? This article will examine this by focusing on the question that concentrates the overall assault on science and scientific thinking - the creationist attack on evolution. read the entire article...

(September, 2006)
On the Relation Between the Defend Science Statement and the UCS "Restoring Scientific Integrity" statement
An important question which is sometimes raised is why we are doing the Defend Science Statement and how we view the (UCS) "Restoring Scientific Integrity" Statement.  Here we want to address this more fully, and also explain how we see our efforts as complementary and mutually reinforcing. read the entire article...

(February, 2006)
James Hansen, Global Warming, and the Bush Science Police
James Hansen, the top climate scientist with NASA, has come under intense pressure from high Bush administration officials threatening him and essentially telling him to shut up and be loyal to the President. They are demanding that he stop telling the truth about the grave dangers of global warming, and the urgent need for global action. Hansen has courageously refused to bow down to the threats and has continued to speak out.  read the entire article...

(January, 2006)
Prof. Paul Mirecki (Univ. of Kansas) attacked for planning a course teaching "Intelligent Design" as religious myth.  read the entire article...


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Scientific American: Bush-League Lysenkoism
The White House bends science to its will

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Videos
If you watched these before, try again now.  The video & audio quality is much improved.  The presentations and discussion were very enlightening and well worth watching and sharing with friends/colleagues.
[Some people have reported problems using Internet Explorer with these video links.  In our testing IE seems to freeze but is really just downloading a very large file and doesn't start playing until the download is finished - but then the video plays fine.  Netscape seems to work fine if you have that.  If you only have Internet Explorer, you can right click and save/download the video files to your local computer or just be very patient.]

Video of Defend Science Forum (UC Berkeley, 4/13/2006)
"The Attack on Scientific Thinking and Why We Must Defend Science"
video quality much improved!
Introduction (Jason Curtis / Mike Hadfield)
Dennis Baldocchi
Steve Palumbi
Kevin Padian
Q & A

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