Talk:Teach the Controversy/Archive 3

message: As Robert M. Young has often pointed out power often lies with the person who defines the situation. In this case the power to define the situation in the US public school system as one in which evidence against evolution is not taught lends legitimacy to the campaign to coerce biology teachers to teach something other than the position of mainstream science. Of course, members of the “teach the controversy” campaign want to claim that they are only arguing for the evidence to be taught and critically evaluated in schools, but the very existence of a campaign with those aims as stated implies that the majority of educators are either incompetent or corrupt, i.e., allowing the proponent’s definition of their aims to stand doesn’t contribute to the debate or to understanding of any kind but of itself ends the debate by acceptance of a thought-terminating cliché. Absolutely no one disgrees with “teaching the evidence”, but only a very, very few agree with “teaching the controversy” and so it’s pretty fundamental that these two phrases must not be equated if we are to give two hoots about the integrity of the US educational system. 
With regard to the material presented under the heading “Square One” the following phrases are standard creationist propaganda
*”contemporary Darwinian theory” – educators don’t teach “Darwinian theory” they teach contemporary evolutionary biology in accordance with the consensus in the scientific community. That consensus is challenged by contributions to the peer-reviewed literature, not by political campaigns or sloganeering.
*”the growing controversy over biological origins” – the theory of evolution isn’t a theory of origins. Creationists like to give the impression that it is so that people are left with the choice between either creation or evolution, i.e. either you can be a decent god-fearing person and choose creation or you can side with the evil materialist teachers and scientists by choosing evolution. Even mainstream Christianity doesn’t accept the position that there is a conflict between belief in God an acceptance of the theory of evolution. 
:Anyone interested in the scientific consensus on the other items of propaganda in the article regarding the Cambrian explosion, natural selection etc can simply read the relevant reports produced by the National Center for Science Education or the detailed responses archived at talkorigins.org.
*”intelligent design is a new theory of biological origins” – ID is not a new theory of origins - it was proposed by William Paley in 1800, and as I mentioned above we are not dealing with two opposing theories of origins here, that is simply the fundamentalist assertion.
*”scientific strengths and weaknesses of orthodox Darwinism” – evolutionary biology is not based on “Darwinism” orthodox or otherwise. This eponym is used specifically to imply that evolutionary theory is based on dogma.
*“polls show that over 70% of the electorate favor teaching both the evidence for and against Darwin’s theory of evolution” – of course they do, but “Darwin's theory of evolution” isn’t taught in schools, if it were students would know nothing of genetics, which does not appear in Darwin’s theory. Educators teach contemporary evolutionary biology!
Just as MPLX/MH says “in America, censorship should be the dirtiest word of all” and the “teach the controversy” movement shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it by the use of clever phraseology and by misrepresenting what educators and scientists do. Ian Pitchford 09:35, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to Suggestion on "Teach the Controversy"

message: Teach the Controversy is a political action movement in the United States that proposes an education policy for American public schools that entails presenting to students the scientific evidence for and against evolution, as well as the on-going debates within the scientific community, and then encouraging students to evaluate the evidence and controversies themselves.  Proponents believe that there is evidence against evolution that is not taught in schools and seek political and legal intervention to ensure that it is, and that students are encouraged to evaluate it critically.  
 
Opponents in the form of the mainstream scientific organizations have asserted that there is no controversy to teach. They point to the fact that evolution is widely accepted within the scientific community. The fact that there are ongoing debates as to the details of evolution's mechanisms and that to describe those discussions as a "controversy" is to mischaracterize the nature and significance of the discussions. Another common objection to the Teach the Controversy policy is that the actual goal of many Teach the Controversy proponents is the return of the teaching of creationism to the public school classroom, now in the guise of intelligent design, which they contend is non-theological. In support they point to numerous quotes of principal Teach the Controversy proponents, including the originator of the term and concept, that they believe state just that. 
Proponents respond by noting that they only want to teach scientific evidence and have students critically evaluate on-going debates in the scientific community.  They also point out that what they advocate would comply with the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, and that they have stated clearly that they no longer favor including either creationism or the Bible in biology textbooks or science classes.  One example of the proposed educational policy, including issues to be analyzed by students, can be found in Ohio's Model Lesson Plan of 2004 and the scientific literature to which it makes reference.
::How can anyone possibly understand this introduction without concluding that, "oh, 'teach the controversy' means 'teach the evidence for and against evolution'. If the US needs a political movement for that our scientists and teachers must be dreadful liars or incompetents". That's precisely the propaganda effect that these people want.Ian Pitchford 16:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Monk's Proposal II with edits that had growing consensus

message: I'll make this my last comment as this controversy is taking too much time away from other contributions I want to make to Wikipedia. I vote for deletion of the article because it's propaganda; in the absence of deletion I vote for wording along these lines:
The teach the controversy movement describe their goals as blah blah blah [insert however they want to describe them]........ Critics point to the movement's own teachings as reason to believe their goals are other than as stated. 
To give the most vivid example I can think of for adopting an introduction with this wording I think most would find this unacceptable:
"The Nazis advocated and enacted policies to eliminate members of inferior races such as gypsies and Jews." [which implies that the context of action against gypsies and Jews is valid].
but would have no problem with this
"The Nazis advocated and enacted policies to eliminate members of races they considered inferior, such as gypsies and Jews."  [which makes it obvious that the context is the belief of this group, not the status of gypsies and Jews].
Good luck! Ian Pitchford 14:18, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You are aboslutely correct, Ian. The opening paragraph of the currently protected page is actually still somewhat problematic as the advocacy is done with respect to people who believe that they have scientific evidence against evolution while there is no consensus whatsoever that such "scientific evidence" exists. On the other hand, there is consensus that scientific evidence for evolution exists (even though the advocates of the Teach the Controversy idealization don't believe it). What should be made clear is those who advocate teach the controversy have an agenda -- in particular they are opposed to evolutionary biology. An invention of a "controversy" is an important step in begining the process of ridicule of an idea. For all intents and purposes there is absolutely no controversy in the scientific community involving evolution. The "controversy" advocated is therefore extra-scientific. Joshuaschroeder 16:51, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an interesting POV, but it is your POV.  It is not mine.  We have to find consensus here.  All these points are fully addressed in the second paragraph.  The first para. should simply describe the movement neutrally, if we want an NPOV encyclopedia.  Readers can read the first, second and third paragraphs, and hopefully the full article, and decide for themselves.--VorpalBlade 23:16, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well said, Vorpalblade. With this in mind we should reword the bit about "scientific evidence against evolution". Joshuaschroeder 02:01, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Final comment

message: *I am in favor.
*I understand Mel Etitis is in favor.
*Ungtss is in favor.
*Monk has not commented directly but drafted the original version (and Proposal 4 has very few changes from that).
*Ian thinks it needs more work, but has bowed out of the discussion.
*JoshuaSchroeder thinks it needs work, but only recently came to the discussion.
Based on this, I am going to edit to replace the current intro with Proposal 4 (which is a fairly minor edit).  This seems to be the version closest to full consensus.
I propose that we follow Wiki policy going forward and that large or controversial edits be worked out in the discussion room before they or done.  If an edit causes controversy, we should agree to go back to the previous version until we can get a consensus.
Thanks for your cooperation in working this out.
--VorpalBlade 13:48, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary of comments on Proposal 4

message: [Some of this was copied from the archive.]
I am speechless.--VorpalBlade 11:31, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why?  That's pretty elementary political theory.  No one part of the political system is the government, except in dictatorships and the like. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 11:47, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree.  the government is a legal entity.  agencies, departments, and congresses are subsets of the government.  official acts made by agents of the government are acts by the government itself, unless they are illegal (i.e. USC 1983).  when the government acts, we should correctly note that it does so, rather than adopting the rather strained interpretation that the government intervenes on its own policy.  Ungtss 14:27, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ian Pitchford's claim that Congress is not government

message: Since I haven't gotten a response to this, I am going to change back to Government Action, which was the heading before Ian's changes that started the previous edit war.  He changed the heading without adding any comments here.  Let's please discuss so we don't get in another edit war.
"Political" more commonly refers to lobbyists.  The text is consistent with the heading "Government Action."  "Intervention" suggests that it is a realm that the government normally isn't involved with.  It is strange to say that the Ohio state Dept. of Education "intervened" to set education policy.  This implicitly questions the legitimacy of it, which is not neutral.  --VorpalBlade 14:04, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  the government is a legal entity.  agencies, departments, and congresses are subsets of the government.  official acts made by agents of the government are acts by the government itself, unless they are illegal (i.e. USC 1983).  when the government acts, we should correctly note that it does so, rather than adopting the rather strained interpretation that the government intervenes on its own policy.  Ungtss 14:27, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: New Comments

message: I thought Mel's edit wasn't really accurate, because it implied that only what they claimed to be the evidence for and against would be used, whereas, they want to teach all the relevant evidence from the scientific literature.  The first change I made was to use the way Ian formulated the first sentence, which I thought was more accurate and more neutral.  --VorpalBlade 18:13, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The English didn't support that implication, in fact.  As the summary stands, we're presenting what they say as if it were the truth.  Later comments might well state criticisms, but that's not the point; we should remain neutral, and thus we should make it clear that they're appealing to what they claim to be the existence of scientific evidence against evolution. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 18:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit to Mel's change

message: As we stagnate below with the discussion on whether this article should be kept, can we come to a consensus about whether a new sentence can be written that's not as problematic? No one has made a specific criticism of my suggestion, so I suggest we work from it (since the DI's definition contains at least two problems as yet unresolved). To remind everyone, my idea was as follows:
"Teach the Controversy is a political action movement in the United States that proposes a education policy for US public schools that presents arguments for and against evolution and then encourages students to evaluate the arguments themselves. Its advocates believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence against biological evolution that is systematically ignored and downplayed in current curricula. The movement is designed by its proponents to present an alternative to the paradigmatic hegemony of evolutionary biology without specifically invoking the creation-evolution controversy."
My claim is that the so-called "consensus" intro isn't really a good consensus because it isn't clear about what is opinion and what is fact. This opening sentence (to be followed by the sentence two and three of the opening paragraph) is very clear about what people believe what. We aren't making any claims about "scientific evidence" in the policy itself since that is definitely disputed, but at the same time we are clear that the movement leaders believe that there is scientific evidence that is ignored. I don't think it is overly unfair to anyone, but will be happy to edit according to appropriate arguments against this thought. Please comment. Joshuaschroeder 16:28, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Joshua, I could comment more, but will not be able to do so today.  My short answer is this: I think the current intro, which reflects the consensus version, plus a small change to the first sentence that Ian suggested, is pretty good.  Procedurally, I think it best reflects the views of the five main participants on this page over the last few days.  Since we worked pretty hard to develop consensus, I would prefer to work from that language, rather than start fresh.  However, there are aspects of your intro that I like.  What exactly do you think is wrong with the current intro?  I think it does a pretty good job of stating what the movement is, without stating the views of the proponents or opponents as if they are "fact."  --VorpalBlade 18:09, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Renewed call for dialogue on opening sentence