Page 42 - Acoustics Today Spring 2011

“Evolution is the accepted scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, and Life Science cannot be taught coherently without a central role for evolution. Modern evolutionary theory has grown far beyond what was proposed by Darwin. To his ‘natural selection,’ science has now added mechanisms such as genetic drift, punctu- ated equilibrium, and sexual selection. These additions have strengthened evolution, not cast doubt on it.”
“...Intelligent Design is not science, because it has posed no testable hypotheses, nor tested such hypotheses, nor submitted such tests for mainstream scientific peer review, nor gained acceptance in the scientific community.”
“9-12 Strand I and Strand III describe the limitations of scientific knowledge and scientific content as well as its strengths and accomplishments. Students of all back- grounds will thereby appreciate that people have differ- ent ways of knowing things, and that the scientific approach is only one of those ways—a way that has been very successful in bringing logic and observation to the discovery of how things work, but a way that is always subject to revision. ... Learning ... about the strengths and limitations of science, students will be better educat- ed, and better prepared to integrate science appropriate- ly into the complexities of their own adult lives as par- ents, citizens, and workers.”
With Steven’s cover letter in hand, and with dozens of pro-science advocates in attendance, the Instructional Services Committee of the Board of Education voted 4-2 on August 27, 2003, to move the standards forward without revi- sion. The next day, the full Board voted 13-0 to adopt the standards without revision. IDnet-NM’s anti-evolution cam- paign had failed. (See Fig.2) The Board’s final unanimity is
remarkable to me in light of the views of some Board mem- bers. I know that at least two Board members held religious beliefs that are incompatible with Earth being more than 10,000 years old. At a Board dinner party on August 27, a third Board member told me that every letter he had received from citizens in his district favored either no evolution in the classroom or a balanced evolution–creationism treatment. Another Board member told me that evening that his wife had begged him to skip the Board meeting entirely, because she truly feared that the stress of the evolution controversy would kill him, through stroke or heart attack. The Board members deserve much appreciation and respect for voting for sound science education in spite of such circumstances.
It is interesting that two Board members voted against adopting the standards on August 27 yet voted affirmatively the next day. I know that Sharon and I were trying to be gen- tly persuasive at the intervening dinner party. Two members of IDnet-NM were at the party, too, chatting with Board members. Maybe we were more persuasive than they were. Or maybe the Board chose unanimity to bury this conflict as deeply as possible.
Another incident of August 27 continues to fascinate me. At the Instructional Services Committee meeting, the motion to pass the standards out of committee without revision was made by a Board member with a strong voice who was sitting not far from the chair. From my perspective at one front cor- ner of the audience, it seemed that another Board member, closest to me, was starting to say something at about the same time. Knowing a little about his background, I wonder if he was about to make a motion to change a few lead-in words in the standards, e.g., from “Describe the evidence for...” to “Describe the evidence for and against...” Did the standards pass out of committee without revision only because one Board member was milliseconds quicker and a few dB loud-
Fig. 2. The Board’s decision to adopt the science standards made front-page headlines in the state capital’s newspaper the next morning. (Reproduced with permission of The New Mexican)
38 Acoustics Today, April 2011