05.01.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:00 am by admin
Rep. John Moolenaar has submitted a bill to the House Education Committee that represents the latest tactical phase of the anti-evolution movement. That tactic is to smuggle in all the anti-evolution arguments made by advocates of Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) under the guise of supporting “academic freedom.” Similar bills have been submitted in several other states and are being fought over, including Florida and Louisiana. The writing and submission of these bills is being orchestrated by the Discovery Institute, the primary IDC advocacy organization in the nation; we know this because they had announced the content of this bill two days before it was submitted to the education committee and made available on the state website. The bill is HB 6027. Michigan Citizens for Science will, as always, work to protect science education against all attempts to water down or weaken the content, no matter how well-disguised those attempts might be.
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03.24.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:59 am by admin
MCFS advisory board member Ed Brayton will be speaking in Grand Rapids on Wednesday, March 26. He will be speaking to the Center for Inquiry-Michigan on the religious right’s demonization of the ACLU. The speech begins at 7 pm and admission is free. For more information, including directions, click here.
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11.03.07
Posted in Statewide News, National News at 12:51 am by admin
On Tuesday, November 13th at 8 pm, PBS stations will air a special 2-hour NOVA episode “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” about the Kitzmiller et al v. Dover Area School Board trial, which ruled that teaching Intelligent Design in public school violates the constitutional separation of church and state. MCFS President Robert T. Pennock was an expert witness in the trial and was interviewed for the NOVA documentary. Audio excerpts of his interview appear on the NOVA web site in the section on Defining Science.
Dr. Pennock was also interviewed for a show that will air locally on WKAR-TV following NOVA at 10 pm. “After the Trial: A Second Look” focuses on how the trial has affected creationism activism in Michigan. The show also features Rep. Brian Palmer (R-Romeo) who has sponsored several of the Intelligent Design bills in the state that MCFS has had to deal with.
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03.30.07
Posted in Statewide News at 8:24 pm by admin
Michigan Citizens for Science presented its 2006 Citizen for Science Award to Beverly Hundley, Director of Curriculum and Community Services at Gull Lake Community Schools, for outstanding service in defending the integrity of science and science education. MCFS gratefully recognizes her as an Enlightening Citizen for Science. MCFS Board member Greg Forbes presented a plaque to Hundley at the awards ceremony of the Michigan Science Teachers Association meeting on March 16, 2007.
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01.11.07
Posted in National News at 1:03 am by admin
MCFS President Robert Pennock has been named a recipient of a prestigious award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest scientific society. He has been named one of the 2007 AAAS Fellows for his tireless work explaining and defending the teaching of evolution in public schools in the United States.
Pennock is recognized for distinguished service in voicing the philosophical deficits in the pro-intelligent design argument and defending against its inclusion in science teaching.
“I feel very humbled to be honored for just doing what I love to do – studying philosophically and experimentally how science and evolution work, and helping teach about that process of discovery,” Pennock said. “Science is such an important way of understanding ourselves and our world; it deserves to be protected from those who would try to extinguish its light.”
Pennock has published two books and many articles that critique the intelligent design creationist movement. His 1999 book, Tower of Babel: the Evidence Against the New Creationism, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He was an expert witness in the historic Kitzmiller v. Dover case that ruled it unconstitutional to teach ID creationism in public schools. His work has been discussed in newspapers and magazines such as Harpers and Discover. Pennock earned his doctorate in history and philosophy of science from the University of Pittsburgh.
Congratulations, Rob, on a well deserved honor.
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10.10.06
Posted in Statewide News at 5:12 pm by admin
Michigan Citizens for Science (MCFS) is happy to announce that we won a major victory with the State Board of Education on Tuesday. Having failed to have pro-ID language included in a bill earlier this year to harmonize the educational standards for public and charter schools in the state, House Republicans turned their attention to the State Board of Education and attempted to influence that board to include anti-evolution language into the new science standards. The BOE rejected those attempts with a unanimous vote.
Unlike the earlier confrontations on the issue before the House Education Commmittee, the state BOE operates fairly and allows both sides to have the time they need to testify on the subject. MCFS President Robert Pennock and board member Greg Forbes both got to testify against the changes, and MCFS was involved in the weeks leading up to this vote in educating the board on the misleading nature of the proposed changes. Not only did they vote unanimously to reject those changes, they also voted down yet another attempt to delay the final vote (which had already been delayed by a month so they pressure the board for the changes). A major victory for science and yet another defeat for its opponents.
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09.22.06
Posted in Statewide News at 3:28 pm by admin
The Lansing State Journal editorial board had a very strong op-ed piece in today’s paper taking gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos to task for his support of teaching “intelligent design” in public school science classrooms. In addition to making the correct point that intelligent design is not really a scientific theory at all but rather a set of religious beliefs masquerading as science, they also make an important point about DeVos’ inconsistency with regard to educational standards:
Second, by associating a controversial issue such as intelligent design with the issue of local control, DeVos is speaking against his own position in improving state educational standards.
Earlier this year the legislature passed HB 5606, which attempted to standardize the curriculum requirements across the board for all of Michigan’s public schools and charter schools. Dick Devos was a staunch supporter of that bill. Yet on the issue of intelligent design, he suddenly changes positions and wants to have different things taught in different school districts without any consistency.
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Posted in Statewide News at 2:09 am by admin
For Immediate Release
September 22,2006
Dr. Robert T. Pennock
President, Michigan Citizens for Science
http://www.michigancitizensforscience.org
president@michigancitizensforscience.org
As the views of gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos on teaching “intelligent design” in public schools have come to the public’s attention in the last few days, the DeVos campaign seems to be engaging in doubletalk on the issue. A Michigan Citizens for Science member wrote to the campaign inquiring about those views. Bizarrely, the DeVos camp is claiming he was misrepresented by the Detroit Free Press when in fact they quoted a statement the campaign put out almost verbatim. Here’s the full text of their email response. We’ve marked certain key phrases in different ways for comparison purposes:
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Posted in Statewide News at 1:16 am by admin
The Livingston Press and Argus newspaper has a report on gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and his now-public position on teaching intelligent design along with evolution in public school science classrooms. Included in the article was a reaction from MCFS President Robert Pennock:
Robert T. Pennock, president of Michigan Citizens for Science, agreed.
“How could Michigan students compete in the life sciences, so important to our economy, if DeVos has them learn pseudoscience?” he asked. “A federal judge appointed by President Bush ruled just last year that intelligent design creationism is ’sectarian religion masquerading as science,’ so including it in the public schools is unconstitutional. DeVos is not only recommending that Michigan schools abandon real science, but that they break the law as well.”
This is a very important point that the public needs to understand. By encouraging local school districts to incorporate intelligent design into their science curriculum, DeVos is inviting them into a Dover Trap. In that Federal court case last year, the Dover Area School District ended up with a legal bill in excess of $1 million dollars after going ahead with an ID policy against the advice of their own attorney. Every relevant court precedent is strongly against DeVos’ position and it is irresponsible for the state government to encourage local school districts to do what the Federal courts have already declared unconstitutional and risk their financial well being in the process.
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09.20.06
Posted in Statewide News at 5:50 pm by admin
Dick DeVos, the Republican candidate for governor in Michigan, has confirmed what we already knew from the report of one of our MCFS members in a letter to the editor last week, that he advocates teaching ID in public school science classrooms. The Detroit Free Press reports:
“I would like to see the ideas of intelligent design that many scientists are now suggesting is a very viable alternative theory,” DeVos told the Associated Press this week during an interview on education. “That theory and others that would be considered credible would expose our students to more ideas, not less.”…
DeVos told the AP this week that allowing school districts to include intelligent design in science classes lets them to “expose students to a multitude of ideas, … to think through the challenges, to learn to discern between multiple theories.”
Up until now, of course, ID advocates have not developed an ID theory, their rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, nor have they published any research supporting intelligent design. And as the Free Press notes, a Federal judge in Pennsylvania last year ruled that ID is merely a religious viewpoint wrapped in a thin veneer of scientific-sounding language and that it is therefore unconstitutional to teach it in public school science classes. DeVos’ policy, like the various legislative attempts to open the door to the teaching of ID in science classes, would lead local school districts into a Dover Trap, inviting them to violate the constitution and risk losing expensive lawsuits.
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