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November 1, 2003

Comments on the Draft Science Standards
Karen R. Effrem, M.D.
EdWatch
1402 Concordia Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104
kreffrem@pro-ns.net
763-476-4884

INTRODUCTION:

I want to begin by thanking and commending the committee for the work they have done.  The vast majority of the standards and benchmarks are academic, knowledge-based and scientific, and they follow the law that says that the standards must be “be clear, concise, objective, measurable, and grade-level appropriate; (2) not require a specific teaching methodology or curriculum; and (3) be consistent with the constitutions of the United States and the state of Minnesota.”  These standards are an improvement over the process-oriented standards of the Profile of Learning.  The following are examples of standards that are both positive and negative with regard to objectivity and measurability as required by the law:

OBJECTIVITYAND MEASURABILITY:

Positive – While there are many, these benchmarks in particular meet the requirements of the law for objectivity and or measurability, and or they promote objectivity or measurability in science education and endeavor.  They should be kept in the final standards.

• Students will distinguish between scientific evidence and personal opinion. (6.I.A.1.a)
  

• Students will know that observations and explanations can be affected by bias or strong beliefs about what should happen in particular circumstances. (6.I.B.1.c)
  

• Students will be able to explain how scientific innovations and new evidence can challenge accepted theories and models, including cell theory, atomic theory, theory of evolution, plate tectonic theory, germ theory of disease, Big Bang theory. (9-12.I.A.1.b)

Negative – These benchmarks do not meet the standard of objectivity or measurability for the reasons described below each one.  They should be removed.

• Students will understand that science should be used responsibly. (3.I.A.1.a, 4.I.A.1.a, 5.I.A.2.b)

• Responsible use of science is in the eyes of the beholder.  This is neither objective nor measurable and should be eliminated. 

• Students will cite examples of how the prevailing culture of a time influenced scientific and technologic advances.

  • This could also go under multiculturalism.  It is impossible for this benchmark to be considered objective, as the law requires, because the views of a prevailing culture or groups within a culture are by nature subjective.   This should be under social studies.
    

• Students will recognize how traditions govern the conduct of science, including ethics, peer  review, conflict, and consensus. (9-12. I.A.1.d)

  • Comment:  Consensus is subjective and opinion based, and the word should be removed. Consensus comes from the Hegelian dialectic of thesis/antithesis resulting in synthesis. It is the opinion of the group that speaks the loudest or that controls the press or textbooks that wins out, not what is true or the most scientific.

There is a portion of the standards or benchmarks, however, that while not significant in number, are very significant for the impact they will have on the knowledge and actions of future Minnesota citizens.  There are several themes that run through the draft standards as well as the National Science Standards on which the draft is largely based.  These themes push political agendas that have little or nothing to do with science knowledge.  If Minnesota adopts standards in line with those national political agendas, then the huge outpouring of opposition to and the tremendous effort to repeal the Profile of Learning will have been in vain. 

Most of these problems with political themes and lack of objectivity would be solved by inclusion of the Santorum language as a preface to the standards.  However, this alone would be meaningless unless the philosophy of this language is incorporated into the various controversial standards and benchmarks, because the tests are based on those them. The language says, “Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society.”  This language is in the conference report to the No Child Left Behind Act, reflects congressional intent on the issue, and is going to be used by the US Department of Education to interpret the law and evaluate the standards that states submit.

I will group my comments about the standards by those themes.

UNBALANCED ENVIRONMENTALISM: Environmental science is taught in the national standards from the radical, political, crisis point of view that precludes a balanced discussion including fundamental American principles, such as private property and free market enterprise. Concepts, such as global warming, man's harm to the environment, finite resources, land use, population growth, and urban growth are mentioned prominently and frequently. In contrast, private property, good stewardship of natural resources, progress made on environmental issues and free market enterprise are never mentioned as positive concepts for the environment in the national content standards.  This approach results in highly politicized content.

There is a similar lack of balance in the draft.  Here are some examples:

• Students will understand that science is a tool that can help investigate solutions to environmental concerns/problems.  (3.I.A.1.b, 4.I.A.1.b, 5.I.A.2.a.)

  • Comment:  Most people agree with the above statement.  However, science also addresses many other concerns and problems.  For example, science ameliorates human and animal suffering, is used to create technology that protects humans and makes their lives better, increases crop yields, and the list goes on and on.  Environmental concerns and problems should not be taught as the only or the pre-eminent use for science.  Other uses should be added to the list.
    

• Students will give examples of ways humans can alter the equilibrium of ecosystems, including human population growth, technology, and consumption; human destruction of habitats (through direct harvesting, pollution and atmospheric changes). (7.IV.C.1.b.)

  • Comment: This benchmarks above speaks only to the negative side of human interaction with the environment and parts are just plain inaccurate.  For example, expert Dennis Avery, said, “The environmental advocates do not like to be reminded that virtually all of the warming in the earth’s recent temperature record occurred before 1940 – before the emission of much greenhouse gas from human activities.” (Dennis Avery, Why Global Warming is Hot Again, American Outlook, Summer 2003) This benchmark should be changed to something like “Students will give ways that humans can both positively and negatively affect the equilibrium of ecosystems.”

• Students will give examples of how environmental neglect or degradation can lead to potentially irreversible effects. (7.IV.C.1.c.)

  • Comment:  This benchmark is just fear mongering.  Every major environmental “disaster” has been rectified years, decades, or centuries before the Chicken Littles in the environmental movement said would happen, at least in countries where there are free markets and freedom of innovation. Examples include the Exxon Valdiz oil spill and the oil fires in Kuwait after the first Gulf War. The dire consequences of certain so-called “irreversible” and man-made “catastrophes” like global warming or ozone depletion have been wrongly assigned to human activity and have failed to materialize.  This benchmark should be eliminated or changed to something like, “Compare the environmental conditions in republics and democracies that have freedom of innovation and totalitarian countries that do not.”

• Students will be able to apply an integrated understanding of chemistry, physics, and biology to the analysis of global change issues, such as ozone      depletion, greenhouse warming and overpopulation. (9-12.III.A.1.h)

  • Comment:  Here is more fear mongering.  There is no way to assure that students will be taught that science has shown that none of these issues are problems at all. This benchmark should be removed

    • Climatologist, Dr. Fred Singer said, “Escalating the drum beat for CFC phaseout were stories about blind sheep and blind rabbits in Chile, plankton disappearance in the Antarctic, increases in cataracts, and damage to the immune system with the unspoken suggestion of an AIDS epidemic. All of those stories proved to be baseless” (http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg17n1-singer.html)

    • Climatologist, Dr. Patrick Michael said of global warming, “The effects of this warming have been benign or beneficial. The growing season has increased by about three days at US latitudes and a week or more at more northern locations…Streamflow records indicate decreased drought and no change in floods.  And heat related deaths declined with effective temperature.” (http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv23n3/michaels.pdf).

    • Finally, How can credible scientists speak about overpopulation as a problem when large parts of the population of African countries are dying of AIDS and European countries are not even replacing their populations?

• Students will be able to use globally gathered data to describe how Earth systems interact to create our climate and ecosystems. (9-12.III.A.1.i)

  • Comment:  Will students be told how the scientists who wrote the “US National Assessment” on global warming used the two computer models that predicted the most extreme changes in temperature and rainfall over the United States and that those models could not beat a table of random numbers when it came to predicting US temperatures? (http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-05-02.html)  The benchmark should be changed to read something like, “Students will be able to use globally gathered data to describe how Earth systems interact to create our climate and ecosystems, and understand the bias and flaws in this data and its use.”

• The student will understand the relationships between the global atmospheric processes driven by energy from the sun, the Earth’s tilt, rotation, revolution, the influence of land and water, and the impact of human affairs. (9-12.III.B.1) 

• Students will discuss the impact of human activity and natural resource use on the Earth’s climate.  (9-12.III.B.1.f)

  • Comment:  Both the standard and accompanying benchmark imply that human activity is significant on the earth’s climate, when that is simply not true. Both should be changed to say that human activity has a negligible effect on climate or references to human activity should be removed.  

    • “The environmental advocates do not like to be reminded that virtually all of the warming in the earth’s recent temperature record occurred before 1940 – before the emission of much greenhouse gas from human activities.” (Dennis Avery, Why Global Warming is Hot Again, American Outlook, Summer 2003) 

    • “It is noteworthy that in 1987 the scientific evidence presented in published, peer-reviewed research showed that natural sources, and not CFCs, dominated the amount of stratospheric chlorine.” (http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg17n1-singer.html) 

• Students will predict and analyze how a change in an ecosystem, resulting from natural causes, changes in climate, human activity, or introduction of invasive species, can affect the number of organisms in a population and the biodiversity of species in the ecosystem. (9-12.IV.C.1.d)

  • Comment:  If the reference to human activity stays in this benchmark, then there should be another one that says something like, “The student will explain how the Endangered Species Act and other laws and international agreements have been used, sometimes incorrectly, to alter human economies and activity, including but not limited to saying the spotted owl, certain species of salmon, and the lynx were endangered when they really were not.”

MULTICULTURALISM: Multiculturalism holds the politically correct view that all cultures and ideas are of equal validity, and that there is, therefore, no real or universal truth.  Multiculturalism also emphasizes the accomplishment of people because they belong to various minority groups, not because of the scientific achievement itself.

• Students will know that people of all backgrounds and with diverse interests, talents, qualities, and motivations engage in fields of science and engineering. (6.I.C.1.a)

  • Comment: What is the point of this benchmark?  Although true, what does it contribute to scientific knowledge?  It is not very objective or measurable and should be removed.

• Students will know that technological changes and scientific advances are      often accompanied by social, political, and economic changes. (8.I.C.1.d)

  • Comment:  This is true, but is subjective, opinion based, not measurable, and should be removed.

• Students will recognize that science and technology are influenced by social needs, attitudes, values, and limitations, and cultural backgrounds and beliefs. (8.I.C.1.e)

  • Comment:  The implication of this kind of statement is that science is not a matter of truth or reality, but rather an issue of cultural perspectives, also called “constructs.”  It is subjective, opinion based, not measurable, and should be removed.  This is an issue for the social sciences.

• Students will provide an example of a scientific advancement contributed by another civilization. (9-12.I.D.1.b)

  • Comment:  This set up a quota system for scientific achievement, making the civilization or ethnic group of the scientist more important than the achievement.  It is not objective and should be removed.

• Students will compare and contrast the differences between scientific theory and other bodies of knowledge, including cultural beliefs, and the importance of each in a science discussion. (9-12.I.D.1.c)

  • Comment:  This benchmark is using “cultural beliefs” as an excuse for everyone who brings up a scientific argument against the current evolutionary or environmental orthodoxy to be accused of injecting religion or culture into the argument.  This benchmark should be removed.

ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE:  This is another area that would be helped if the Santorum language were included in some sort of preamble to the standards, because it is so controversial.  The origin of the universe is a mystery and theories or hypotheses  about it should not be taught as fact.

• Students will explain how Doppler evidence suggests that our universe is expanding, moving away from the Earth and indicates support for the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. (8.III.D.1.c)

  • This benchmark is clearly biased toward one explanation of the origin of the universe to the exclusion of any other scientific theory or evidence and is in violation of another benchmark that says, “Students will know that observations and explanations can be affected by bias or strong beliefs about what should happen in particular circumstances (6.I.B.1.c).”  It is also in violation of good science to discuss one theory or set of evidence to the exclusion of all others.  It should be changed to something like, “Students will explain how Doppler evidence suggests that our universe is expanding, moving away from the Earth and indicates support for the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, but also list other evidence that contradicts the Big Bang Theory.

• Students will be able to explain how the sun, earth, and solar system formed.  (9-12.III.C.1.a)

• Students will be able to describe the remotely sensed evidence from current technology that has been used to understand the early history of the solar system.  (9-12.III.C.1.c)

• Students will describe the evidence from current technologies that has been used to understand the early history of the universe. (9-12.III.D.1.e)

  • In all three of the immediately above benchmarks, the words “the theory of” should be inserted after the words “explain” or “understand.”  No scientist was present at any of these events, so any explanation or understanding is only a theory.

EVOLUTION TAUGHT AS FACT:  This area is a prominent reason that the Santorum language is needed.  The evolution/common ancestry benchmarks teach the theory of evolution as an established fact and do not discuss the scientific disagreements with and flaws in evolutionary theory.  Even the National Standards admit that the “data and understanding are incomplete” regarding evolution, but there is no evidence of that in the draft. That dogmatic discussion of evolution puts it in the realm of religion, and is a violation of the 1^st amendment to the US Constitution, as it is currently interpreted. The science standards disregard any scientific evidence that conflicts with the theory of evolution by calling it non-science or the injection of religion into science. This is a completely unscientific approach to learning.  The standards do not cover the multiple scientific flaws with Darwinism such as the ones that I have listed in an attached paper titles Summary of Evidence of Evolution and summarized under the relevant standards and benchmarks below:

• Students will know that fossils document the appearance of many life forms. (7.IV.E.1.b)

  • Comment: This is actually true, but it needs to be emphasized that many life forms appeared all at once in the fossil record as in the Cambrian explosion and this does not give evidence of evolution.  It should be changed to say, “Students will know that fossils document the appearance of many life forms all at once.”

• The student will understand how evolution provides a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as the striking similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms. (7.IV.E.1)

  • Students will give examples how fossils record the diversification of many life forms. (7.IV.E.1.c)

• The student will explain how evolution provides a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as for the striking molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms. (9-12.IV.E.1)

  • Comment: The following apply to both the standard and the two benchmarks above.  These should be changed as follows: “The student will understand how evolution fails to provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as the striking similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms.” (7.IV.E.1)  “Students will show that there are no transitional forms in the fossil record to explain the diversification of many life forms.” (7.IV.E.1.c)  “The student will explain how evolution fails to provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, and that molecular biology underscores the enormity of the gap among the diverse species of living organisms.” (9-12.IV.E.1)

    • There are no transitional forms in the fossil record to support the idea of common ancestry.  That record shows complete animal groups appearing all at once and fully formed, such as in the Cambrian explosion.  “…our more extensive labor has still failed to identify any creature that might serve as a plausible immediate ancestor for the Cambrian  faunas [animals]” (Stephen Jay Gould, “A Short Way to Big Ends,” Natural History, 95, January 1986:18 as quoted in James Perloff, The Case Against Darwin, Burlington, Massachusetts: Refuge Books, 2002, 39)  “It is a mistake to believe that one fossil species or fossil ‘group’ can be demonstrated to be ancestral to another.” (Gareth V. Nelson, Origin and Diversification of Teleostean Fishes, “ Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 67,1969: 22 as quoted in ibid.)

    • Taxonomy also shows a lack of transitional forms between the major animal divisions. “If we are willing to accept the facts, we must believe that there never were such intermediates, or in other words, that these major groups have from the very first borne the same relation to each other that they bear today.” (Austin H. Clark, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis, Baltimore: Williams and Wilkin, 1930, 189 as quoted in Perloff, 47)

    • Molecular biology also shows no evidence for the evolutionary sequence. “Instead of revealing a multitude of transitional forms through which the evolution of a cell may have occurred, molecular biology has only served to emphasize the enormity of the gap…[N]o living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth.” (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler, 1986, 249 – 250, as quoted in Perloff, 48)

• Students will recognize that a great amount of time, approximately 3. 5 billion years, is necessary to explain the variation of species that has produced the great diversity of life currently present on earth and found in the fossil record. (9-12.IV.E.1.e)

  • Besides the problems with the fossil record not supporting evolution as shown above, 3.5 billion years is a guess, not objective and should be removed.

• Students will explain how diversity of species can develop through gradual processes over generations. (8.IV.E.1.e)

  • Comment:  This would be better stated by changing the words “of species” to the words “within species.”  There is little or no scientific argument that species change within themselves due to natural selection, so called microevolution.  However, there is a lot of scientific argument about speciation and common ancestry, macroevolution.

• Students will understand that there is scientific evidence of common ancestry among some organisms. (8.IV.E.1.b)

  • Comment: There is a lot of scientific controversy about that evidence, which will be discussed below.  This benchmark should be reworded to say something like, “Students will understand that there is scientific evidence both for and against the theory of common ancestry among some organisms.”

• Students will be able to use scientific evidence, including the fossil record, homologous structures, embryological development, or biochemical similarities, to classify organisms showing probable evolutionary relationships and common ancestry. (9-12. IV.B.1.e)

  • Comment:  This benchmark should be reworded something like, “Students will be able to use scientific evidence, including the fossil record, homologous structures, embryological development, or biochemical similarities, to classify organisms and to investigate whether or not there are evolutionary relationships and common ancestry,” for the following reasons:

    • The problems with the fossil record as evidence for evolution have been explained above.

    • Biology textbooks define homology as the similarity of structures due to common ancestry.   It is used in a circular argument as proof of common ancestry even by the NCSE when it said, “The same anatomical structure (such as a leg or an antenna) in two species may be similar because it was inherited from a common ancestor (homology)…” (http://www.iconsofevolution.com/embedJonsArticles.php3?id=1106).

    • There is no evidence of evolution from embryology.  Modern biology textbooks are still using versions of Haeckel’s drawings that were discredited over 100 years ago.  “This is one of the worst cases of scientific fraud…What he [Haeckel] did was to take a human embryo and copy it, pretending that the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same at the same stage of development.  They don’t…These are fakes.” (“An Embryonic Liar,” The Times (London), 11 August, 1997, 14 as quoted in Perloff, 55)

    • “Three high-school textbooks, Biggs, Kapicka and Lundgren’s Biology: The Dynamics of Life (1998), Schraer and Stoltze’s Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), and Miller and Levine’s Biology (5th Edition, 2000), contain stylized drawings that improve only slightly on Haeckel, and perpetuate Haeckel’s misrepresentation of the midpoint of development as the first stage.” ((http://www.iconsofevolution.com/embedJonsArticles.php3?id=1106)

    • According to biochemist Dr. Michael Behe, biochemical evidence speaks much more of “irreducible complexity,” such as blood clotting, and the immune system, that cannot have evolved, because all the parts of those must be present for the system to work. If these systems had evolved gradually over eons, creatures would have bled to death or died from infection before the system was perfected. (Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, New York: Free Press, 1996, 77-97)

    • Sir Francis Crick, the Nobel laureate who co-discovered the structure of DNA, calculated that the probability of just one protein occurring by chance would be one in 10 to the 260^th power, or 10 with 260 zeroes after it.  Most mathematicians say that something is for all practical purposes impossible if the probability is 10 to the 50^th power. (Francis Crick, Life Itself: It’s Origins and Nature, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981, 51-52 as paraphrased from Perloff, 29-30)

• Students will be able to explain how adaptations of species and co- evolution with other species are related to success in an ecosystem. (9-12.IV.C.1.b)

  • Comment:  How will students be able to explain “co-evolution” when there are many flaws in the theory of evolution itself, which are not mentioned in the standards?  The phrase “and co-evolution with other species” should be removed.

• Students will be able to describe how genetic variation between populations is due to different selective pressures acting on each population, which can lead to speciation/ a new species.  (9-12.IV.E.1.d)

  • Comment: The genetic variation referred to here is selective pressure causing mutations that are seen as the building blocks of evolution.  The only problem with that is that mutations have never been observed to result in higher order, more complex genetic information, so it is impossible for genetic variation to result from mutations and in new species. This should be changed to something like, “Students will be able to describe how genetic variation within populations is due to different selective pressures acting on that population, which can lead to microevolution, but not to new species/speciation.”

    • “All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information, and not increase it.”  (Lee Spetner, Not by Chance!: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Judaica Press, 1997, 138 as quoted in Perloff, 23)

INTEGRATION OF OTHER FIELDS AND SUBJECTS WITH SCIENCE:  The national Science Standards require that there be less emphasis on “treating science as a subject isolated from other school subjects” and more emphasis on “connecting science to other school subjects, such as mathematics and social studies” (p.224). While integration of academic content between subjects is a good idea, the promotion of political agendas across subject areas is a bad idea and falls under the heading of indoctrination, not education.  It is not a good idea in the draft either and has been done in at least two areas:

ETHICS:

• Students will know that science can sometimes be used to inform ethical decisions by identifying the likely consequences of particular actions. (8.I.A.1.b)

  • This is true, but there is no discussion of how science has coarsened human and medical ethics by leading to a utilitarian, quality of life ethic, instead of a sanctity of human life ethic.  Examples of this include abortion for the wrong sex, abortion for even the hint of a genetic defect, partial birth abortion, euthanasia as being practiced in Europe and now in the US with the Schiavo and Cruzan cases, etc. The benchmark should be changed to read, “Students will know that science can sometimes be used to inform ethical decisions, both positively and negatively, by identifying the likely consequences of particular actions.

INTEGRATION OF BEHAVIORAL BIOLOGY WITH SOCIAL SCIENCES:

• Students will realize that behavioral biology has implications for humans since it provides links to psychology, sociology and anthropology. (9-12.IV.G.1.e)