Pressure on Gov. Jindal to support/deny academic freedom

_{William Dembski

June 21, 2008

Education}

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Here are two emails I received, one from the Academic Freedom Consortium, which backs the recent Louisiana legislation allowing public school teachers to present material critical of Darwinian evolution, another from the skeptic society (Center for Inquiry), saying it’s all a ruse for sneaking religion into the science curriculum and therefore violates the First Amendment.

Please forward this information to our supporters. In Ohio, the Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan was repealed partly because the state board of education received 14,000 emails opposing to it. The other side, as you can see below, wants to do the same here. Fortunate, Gov. Jindal has his head screwed on straight and Louisiana is not Ohio. Still, it will strengthen his hand if he sees our support.

FROM THE GOOD GUYS:
—– Original Message —–

From: AcademicFreedomPetition.com
To: ajm@InternationalScientificProjects.org
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 7:00 PM
Subject: Tell Governor Jindal To Sign Academic Freedom Legislation

——————————————————————————–

Tell Governor Jindal You Support Academic Freedom

Click here and send Governor Jindal a message of support and let him know Louisiana should lead the way to academic freedom and freedom of scientific inquiry by signing the LSEA into law.

Louisiana is on the verge of becoming the first state to enact academic freedom legislation that will protect a teacher’s right to present scientific evidence both for and against modern evolutionary theory. The Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) is sitting on Governor Jindal’s desk waiting for his signature. But, he needs to know you support it.

Dogmatic Darwinists are working overtime to bully the Governor into vetoing the act, going so far as to enlist activists from other countries to urge American’s to tell Governor Jindal to oppose the act.

We need the help of everyone in Louisiana, and everyone in America, who supports academic freedom to encourage Governor Jindal to sign the LSEA into law.

The LSEA is a home-grown measure. Drafted by Democratic state senator Ben Nevers, the bill was inspired by the Ouachita Parish School District Policy which was established almost two years ago. The LSEA echoes some of what Discovery Institute has called for in its sample academic freedom legislation, but the bill has been advanced by Louisiana citizens and has won overwhelming support from Louisiana legislators.

Darwinists are calling for help from around the world. A letter attacking the LSEA is being showcased and e-mailed all over the world by Richarddawkins.net. As usual the letter is full of falsehoods.

This bill is not about creationism or religion. That’s a red herring from desperate Darwinists. The bill is about allowing teachers to present scientific evidence that supports Darwin’s theory, as well as some that challenges it.

So, please help us in supporting the LSEA.

Click here and send Governor Jindal a message of support and let him know Louisiana should lead the way to academic freedom and freedom of scientific inquiry by signing the LSEA into law.

You can also help by forwarding this e-mail to friends and family in Louisiana, or anywhere around the country, and ask join you and sign the Academic Freedom Petition at www.academicfreedompetion.com.

Click here for more information on the Louisiana Science Education Act

FROM THE BAD GUYS:

Greetings,

CFI Action Alert!

Help the Louisiana Coalition for Science Defeat Anti-Science Bill; Protect the Integrity of Science Education

Implore Governor Jindal to veto bill SB 733, LA Science Education Act

The Louisiana Senate has passed SB 733, a bill that creationists can use to force their sectarian views into public school science classes. The bill provides that, upon the request of a local school board, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) must permit appropriate supplementary instructional materials in science classes, but gives no guidance about the criteria BESE should use in approving such supplementary materials. Effectively, the legislation provides a means for creationists to promote their pseudo-scientific views in the classroom. The LA Coalition for Science (LCFS), a group of concerned parents, teachers and scientists, has called on Gov. Jindal to veto the bill through an open letter on its website at http://lasciencecoalition.org.

“This bill doesn’t help teachers. It allows local school boards to open the doors of public school science classrooms to creationism with the blessing of the state,” explains LCFS member Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University. “Governor Jindal surely knows that evolution is not controversial in the mainstream scientific community. He majored in biology at Brown University, and he belongs to a church that considers evolution to be established science and approves of its being taught in its own parochial schools. The LA Family Forum is pushing this bill over the objections of scientists and teachers across the state. The governor has a moral responsibility to Louisiana children to veto this bill.”

Paul Kurtz, CFI’s Chair, has stated that “SB 733 poses a serious threat to science education and represents yet another attempt by creationists to insinuate their religious doctrine into the classroom under the guise of promoting critical reasoning.”

We have reached the point at which the only possible measure we have left is to raise an outcry from around the country that Gov. Jindal has to hear. What is happening in Louisiana has national implications, much to the delight of proponents of “intelligent design.”

Please contact everyone you know and ask them to contact the governor’s office and ask him to veto the bill. Louisiana will be only the beginning. Your state could be next.

Here are the talking points:

Point 1: The Louisiana law, SB 733, the LA Science Education Act, has national implications. So far, this legislation has failed in every other state where it was proposed, except in Michigan, where it remains in committee. By passing SB 733, Louisiana has set a dangerous precedent that will benefit the Discovery Institute and other creationists by helping them to advance their strategy to get intelligent design creationism into public schools. Louisiana is only the beginning. Other states will now be encouraged to pass such legislation, and the Discovery Institute has already said that they will continue their push to get such legislation passed.

Point 2: Gov. Jindal’s failure to oppose the teaching of ID clearly helped to get this bill passed in the first place. His decision to veto it will stick if he lets the legislature know that he wants it to stick.

Point 3: Simply allowing the bill to become law without his signature, which is one of the governor’s options, does not absolve him of the responsibility for protecting the public school science classes of Louisiana. He must veto the bill to show that he is serious about improving Louisiana by improving education. Anything less than a veto means that the governor is giving a green light to creationists to undermine the education of Louisiana children.

TAKE ACTION NOW! TELL GOV. BOBBY JINDAL TO VETO SB 733

Contact Information:

E-mail: http://www.gov.la.gov/index.cfm?md=form&tmp=email_governor

Phone: 225-342-7015 or 866-366-1121 (Toll Free)

Fax: 225-342-7099

Comments

ba77: (Note: I inadvertantly wrote "dark matter" a couple of times above, instead of "dark energy".) There seems to me to be something inherently wrong about Dr Ross basing the validity of the Bible on what wikipedia identifies as a hypothetical concept - dark energy - an artifact of a man-made model. (http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c8dee4b444001050766c) I am not an expert on cosmology, but my impression has been that dark energy is merely a definitional concept, something indirectly inferred and arising out of imperfections inherent in the Big Bang Model itself. It seems that cosmologists are quite aware of the tenuousness of the concept and that there has always been a lot of hedging in their discussion of it. In the sight you linked to in your response to DaveScot above, the author says, "It turns out that the value of the cosmological constant exactly makes up for the lack of matter in the universe" What he doesn't seem to understand is that the cosmologicial constant is defined to make up for that lack of matter. So in essence, Dark Energy is a naturalistic version of a god-of-the-gaps. The above is my sense of it, and I am not portraying myself as an expert in case anyone feels like they can correct me. I've started to go through the list of nine items that Ross says establishes dark energy to be "irrefutable". 1. galaxy cluster x-rays A search on "dark matter" and "cluster x-rays" returns the following as the first article: "Galaxy cluster X-rays confirm dark energy", New Scientist There is a lot of assurance reflected in the article title, as well as the opening sentence: New space telescope observations have confirmed once and for all that the Universe is dominated by dark energy. But read into the article, and you immediately start encountering hedge words in both the details and in the actual quotes from the researchers:
A team of astrophysicists used NASA's orbiting Chandra telescope to measure X-rays coming from 26 galaxy clusters. The observations imply that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. For that to happen, ordinary gravity must be overpowered by some kind of repulsive gravity - labelled dark energy by cosmologists. ... This acceleration was first spotted in the 1990s by looking at distant supernova explosions. It was later backed up by decoding the detailed pattern of spots in the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang.But both of those methods rely on uncertain physics. ... The proportion of gas is thought to be almost the same for all clusters, so making that one assumption enabled the team to work out the distance to each cluster. ... This agrees with the supernova and microwave measurements. All three methods imply that about 75 per cent of the energy in the Universe is in this repulsive form. "It gives us much more confidence that dark energy is real," says Allen ... But what actually is dark energy? The new measurements are consistent with a kind of dark energy that is not changing very much with time. That could be an energy inherent to empty space, Einstein's "cosmological constant". But the constraints are not tight, leaving numerous alternatives. ... It may even be something yet more exotic. Allen's team are now applying to use Chandra to observe more clusters, which they hope will narrow down the range of possibilities.
------ And this was the very first item on the list that Ross said established that "Dark Energy" was "irrefutable". And so this theoretical construct, dark energy, this indirect tentative artifact of a man-made model, is according to Ross, one of the "two most spectacular evidences from physics and astronomy for the supernatural and superintelligent design of the universe." OK let's go to the next item form Ross's list: 2. WMAP of Cosmic Background The first item I found was the following:
"WMAP gives thumbs-up to cosmological model" It’s easy to forget that until recently cosmology was largely a theoretical science. Thanks in particular to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which was launched by NASA in 2001 to study the cosmic microwave background, researchers are now able to talk about the first instants of the universe with the kind of certainty normally associated with a bench-top experiment.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/33318 So, this was the somewhat tongue-in-cheek endorsement in the title and opening paragraph of the article. However, consider the following:
Recent measurements of the anisotropy of the CBR by the WMAP spacecraft have been claimed to be a major confirmation of the Big Bang theory. Yet on examination these claims of an excellent fit of theory and observation are dubious. First of all, the curve that was fitted to the data had seven adjustable parameters, the majority of which could not be checked by other observations[40]. Fitting a body of data with an arbitrarily large number of free parameters is not difficult and can be done independently of the validity of any underlying theory. Indeed, even with seven free parameters, the fit was not statistically good, with the probability that the curve actually fits the data being under 5%, a rejection at the 2 s level. Significantly ,even with seven freely adjustable parameters, the model greatly overestimated the anisotropy on the largest angular scales. In addition, the Big Bang model's prediction for the angular correlation function did not at all resemble the WMAP data. It is therefore difficult to view this new data set as a confirmation of the Big Bang theory of the CBR. ... The [Big Bang] theory is now cluttered with a multiplying collection of ad-hoc hypotheses, such as the existence of dark, or non-baryonic matter and dark energy, for which there is no empirical evidence... Where all else fails, new arbitrary concepts and parameters are introduced, such as dark matter and dark energy. Consistently new observations have led to new parameters, so that the number of adjustable parameters in cosmological theories has increased exponentially with time, approximately doubling each decade.
Two World Systems Revisited: A Comparison of Plasma Cosmology and the Big Bang Eric J. Lerner I don't know that much about the Plasma Model, and am merely quoting sources that can be readily found on the internet. So make your own judgments. However I want to focus on the latter comment from the above, regarding the continual profusion of new parameters and concepts in the establishment cosmological model. Ross unquestioningly accepts all of these as received truth. The reason is that their gargantuan complexity are what directly enable his probability arguments for the existence of a supernatural entity able to make it all work. In another thread, scordova (I believe it was) talked about the Precopernican, Ptolemaic models of the planetary motion, and remarked on how absurdly complicated they were, due to the fundamental ignorance of the time. Scordova (maybe it was BarryA) also remarked that ironically these models actually worked - to a point. But it took people like Newton and Copernicus to demystify the universe by developing a simpler and more straightforward and more reliable model. Well, we know for a fact that if Ross were alive in that day, he would have absolutely embraced the Ptolemaic model, because its gargantuan complexity would have fueled his probability arguments in the same way the Big Bang does for him today. ------------------- You did not respond to my other remark about the video, that Ross talks at length about the universal expansion having to be at a very precise rate, and then claims that this somehow "demonstrates" that the creating entity had to be a "personal being". Do you dispute that he said that? Can you explain it? The only rationale I can see in retrospect is that he remarked that the creator would have had 10^97 more precision in his efforts than MIT scientists were capable of. So, maybe his thinking was MIT scientists are personal, so if something can achieve more precision than they can, that thing must be "personal" too. Tell me I'm wrong if that isn't what his argument was. The overriding goal in all of Ross's work is to prove that our creation was "supernatural", that nothing out there in the Universe can account for us. So in the other video you provided yesterday (http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f3d6399f561e1263c949), Ross describes for example, how scientists have searched for decades trying to find physical processes in the universe that would account for the left and right handed orientation of amino-acids which scientists have concluded cannot be accounted for by processes taking place on earth itself. So they have identified physical processes around neutron stars and black holes, and then in interstellar gasses that explain part but not all of what they're seeing in amino acids on earth (w/ apologies for the imprecise description here - you've seen the tape). You can almost here Ross saying, "Foolish mortals. Your search is futile. Nothing out there will ever explain it." Ross says on that video that the surface of earth was molten lava 3.85 billion years ago. He says that it took .05 billion years for all that lava to cool down and water to appear, and then life appeared INSTANTANEOUSLY in ZERO TIME with NO PRECURSORS WHATSOEVER and SUPERNATURALLY exactly 3.8 billion years ago. Strangely, at one point he says "a cosmological instant" (or maybe it was "geological instant") when in fact he means a literal instant, because he says, "zero time". Variants of cosmological fine-tuning espoused by Ross I believe, the authors of Privileged Planet and others, would say that earth possesses an extremely improbable situation in the universe allowing its occupants to observe the universe accurately and this (among other things) points to the hand of God. Well, why on earth would God set it up for us to observe the universe? Nothing out there is of any real relevance to us, according to Ross. You might as well just use the stars for astrology. Doctors will study years and years to understand that mechanism that is the human being - the determinstic method by which it functions and so forth. But according to Ross, as far as the process that created us, there is nothing to even study. He implies as much, that all that studying of the universe by bio-cosmologists trying to find mechanisms that would illuminate the origin of life on this planet are utterly pointless because the "process" according to Ross is supernatural and took zero time. And I can absolutely attest that a person can be a Christian and reject all this. Maybe my thinking isn't current on all this. Maybe science is getting religion now and saying the origin of life is magic, I don't know. I am a layman in regards to to a lot of this - I never denied that.JunkyardTornado_{June 23, 2008
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Junkyard, You deny the empirical evidence for Dark Energy (Finely tuned Cosmological Constant arising from undetectable source) and Dark Matter (Gravity arising from undetectable source)? Do you have a another "material" candidate besides the "material" candidates of Dark Energy/'Matter? Even, what I believe is, your "plasma" conjecture would fall within materialism's domain. Thus, the problem for you is not to find some unknown material entity, The problem for you, from a materialistic perspective, is to explain the exquisite fine-tuning that is above and beyond (transcends) any hypothesized material basis. Yet you blatantly ignore this "transcendent intelligent design" fact and sidetrack discussions with your obfuscating materialistic fluff. As far as Dr. Ross disagreeing with ID, His beef is that ID only makes an inference to design and does not go far enough into trying to identify the Designer. More Than Intelligent Design http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2002issue10/index.shtml#more_than_id excerpt: "Scholars involved in what has come to be known as “the Intelligent Design movement” deserve respect. They swim against the powerful tide of naturalism, and I applaud their efforts and integrity. At the same time, however, I sense a need to clarify a subtle but significant distinction between their goals and those of the organization I represent, Reasons To Believe. Intelligent Design (ID) proponents refrain from making a specific identification of the Designer, and they have their reasons." -- Though Dr. Ross works in Astro-physics and feels the evidence is overwhelming enough to infer the transcendent God of the Bible, and feels ID proponents are "holding back", this is simply misunderstanding the field that ID is in. ID is primarily based Molecular biology at the present moment and thus it is extremely more difficult to derive a inference to a transcendent creator than in astro-physics. In the future a clear concise path for the inference for ID may be made in molecular biology and I feel that breakthroughs in "quantum teleportation" and "optimal genomes" will pave the way. But as far as demanding a direct inference to a transcendent Creator, right now, molecular biology does not have all the advantages of evidence that astro-physics has accumulated for the past century- plus years, and thus the direct inference will have to wait. Indeed it is not like we can point directly to the anthropic principle or the "timelessness" observed at the speed of light.bornagain77_{June 23, 2008
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ba77: I have my own specfic constructive ideas concerning cosmology, creation etc. that I have elaborated on several times on this site. However, they don't really seem to resonate with anyone. No matter. But the point is, I'm loyal to my own ideas, and detracting from others seems to be a natural human impulse. Go to Ross's site and read what he has to say about I.D.JunkyardTornado_{June 22, 2008
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DaveScot, Looks like he deduced it from mass density calculations of the Big Bang, thus it seems to be independent of presently "observable mass" in the universe: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html#ref1 excerpt: mass density of the universe if larger: overabundance of deuterium from big bang would cause stars to burn rapidly, too rapidly for life to form if smaller: insufficient helium from big bang would result in a shortage of heavy elements Junkyard: I'm all for investigation of facts but I've come to the conclusion that Almighty God could probably make a tree pop into existance right before your eyes and you still would not believe in a transcendent creator! In fact I believe your sole (reincarnated) purpose on this site is to disrupt and sidetrack discussions and truly feel that you are a hinderance to honest inquiry.bornagain77_{June 22, 2008
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Re a dimes worth of Matter: Maybe the total number of stars in the observable universe isn't relevant to Ross's argument (in which case my simplistic observation concerning that wasn't either). But if that number isn't relevant, why did Ross devote so much time to it, except merely to impress a lay audience. Re: Dark matter proving the existence of God. I said Ross gave 10 reasons why dark matter is irrefutable; actually he gave a list of ten items, without elaboration, and said that the explanation is provided on his Website reasons.org.JunkyardTornado_{June 22, 2008
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Hugh Ross "if you were to add or subtract a dime’s worth of mass from the universe, no life would exist!” And you tested that hypothesis how, exactly?DaveScot_{June 22, 2008
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ba77: "Dr. Hugh Ross http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c8dee4b444001050766c Dr. Ross talks of the fine-tuning of Dark Energy, and then he talks of the fine-tuning of the mass in the universe. He then pulls a dime out and says if you were to add or subtract a dime’s worth of mass from the universe, no life would exist!" Actually, he makes a point about it being the observable universe he's talking about. He says (at around the 7:00 minute mark of the video) that there are 200 billion galaxies in the "observable" universe, and specifically mentions some galaxies possibly outside that range. Then he says there are on average 200 billion stars in a galaxy. Then the total number of star he gets from this is 50 billion trillion stars in the "observable" universe (Do the arithmetic yourself and see if you can figure out how). And he says if you add a dime's worth of mass to these "50 billion trillion stars" life could not exist. So what happens if they discover another galaxy? Wouldn't that add more than a dime's worth of mass to the observable universe? If there are answers to this rather simple observation, Ross does not provide them in this 10 minute clip.
...many credible theories, such as cosmic inflation require a universe much larger than the observable universe. No evidence exists to suggest that the boundary of the observable universe corresponds precisely to the physical boundary of the universe (if such a boundary exists); this is exceedingly unlikely in that it would imply that Earth is exactly at the center of the universe... It is likely that the galaxies within our visible universe represent only a minuscule fraction of the galaxies in the universe.
wikipedia Here were Ross's other points from the video: He start off the video by saying that the expansion rate after the Big Bang had to be at a very precise rate, otherwise life would not exist. He says that the degree of error possible was only 10^-120 which would mean that the transcendent creator of the universe had 10^93 more precision in his efforts than MIT scientists (or maybe it was Berkeley) could achieve. At around the 3:00 minute mark he says, "What we have demonstrated here, is that not only must the being [responsible for the Big Bang] be a transcendent being, but that he must also be personal..." Anyone who cares to, watch this video and see if he "demonstrates" anything of the kind. He doesn't even define what he means by personal much less demonstrate it. He just says the expansion has to be at a certain rate, and then flatly asserts, "..what we have demonstrated is that the being responsible has to be personal..." Then with no further comment, he moves on to his next topic which is the following: His point in this next section is that Dark Energy is an irrefutable fact, and this proves the existence of a Divine Creator. He quotes whom he identifies as "three athiest astrophysicists":
"Arranging the universe as we think it is arranged would have acquired a miracle..." "An external agent [would had to have] intervened in Cosmic history for reason of its own."
-Dyson Klebold and Susskind I think this is a legitimate example of quote-mining, here. In the first quote it says "Arranging the universe as we think it is arranged would have acquired a miracle" Clearly the quoters mean "we" in the sense of referring to the existing establisment consensus regarding dark energy. They by no means mean that they (the quoters) believe in Dark Energy, or that the universe requires a miracle, and this is clearly evidenced from the last quote (which Ross does also provide):
"Only reasonable conclusion is that we do not live in a world with [dark energy]"
Their point about it requring a miracle means that it would be outside of the ability of science to scrutinize or potentially explain. Dark energy is widely perceived as a gigantic fudge factor thrown into Big Bang Cosmology to make it work with observed data:
dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the universe .[1] Assuming the existence of dark energy is the most popular way to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate .
wikipedia
Plasma cosmology does NOT rely on abstract mathematical modelling or an increasing array of exotic hypotheticals like Dark Matter and Dark Energy!
-http://www.plasmacosmology.net/ And yet, Ross considers Dark matter to be an irrefutable FACT and presents 10 reasons for that conclusion, then throws the quote of the 3 athiest astrophysicists back in their face, "See! You said it yourself! Only a divine miracle can explain dark energy!" [paraphrased]. [emphases added in quotes]JunkyardTornado_{June 22, 2008
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Sent my letter, Off topic: Dr. Hugh Ross http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c8dee4b444001050766c Dr. Ross talks of the fine-tuning of Dark Energy, and then he talks of the fine-tuning of the mass in the universe. He then pulls a dime out and says if you were to add or subtract a dime's worth of mass from the universe, no life would exist! That is extreme fine tuning!!!bornagain77_{June 22, 2008
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Aren't the majorities in the Louisiana legislature -- 94-3 in the House and 36-0 in the Senate -- "veto-proof"? I cannot imagine the laws of any state not allowing a governor's veto to be overridden.Larry Fafarman_{June 21, 2008
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HERE'S MY EMAIL: Please support the recent academic freedom legislation allowing evidence for and AGAINST evolution to be taught. No scientific theory is so good that it only has strengths, nor does it help students to be given the impression that evolution is a slam-dunk when the theory has lots and lots of holes. The materialism that supports evolution is as ideological as any religious dogma that resists it. --WmADWilliam Dembski_{June 21, 2008
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Dear Gov. Jindal, I have read with interest the issue of academic freedom in the LA science curriculum. I just want to send a note of support to you in this time of overheated rhetoric. I applaud the LA legislation and the principled folks who passed it. There can never be a downside to free inquiry, as long as it is approached honestly and transparently. The only lurking bogeymen in this issue is the iron hand of doctrine and censorship. Neo-Darwinists are much like climate alarmists in that they often think that those who shout loudest and longest win. I trust you will let common sense carry the day. Science is never settled when done properly, and teaching "The Controversy" will at minimum help students to become more effective critical thinkers. Thank you for your time. ~ name & address ~ (PS - I could never hope to see such bravery here in the Northeast, unfortunately)rhodeymark_{June 21, 2008
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Any chance someone in comments can post the Governer's email address (if that's legal...?). Can't access any of those links. :(Avonwatches_{June 21, 2008
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My note to Jindal: In support of the academic freedom bill. Do not allow those who push their religious materialistic theory of life's origin and development as the ONLY allowable "science" to fool the public and rob our children of the ability and tools needed for freedom of information by creating a false "opposition to science" via an alleged "religious" motivation; especially as they are equally "religiously" motivated. Is this America or is the theory of evolution going to be the official state sanctioned religion? It is the states responsibility to allow the citizen the right to know and let the evidence lead to each one to his or her own assessment. I say we are in SERIOUS trouble if freedom of information is shut down by special interest and intrenched dogmatism. Yours truly, alan pomper B.A. Science Education-Major: Biologyalan_{June 21, 2008
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Thanks for this post, Bill. I sent the governor a message.Granville Sewell_{June 21, 2008
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