Pharyngula::Will Kansas voters be embarrassed?

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Will Kansas voters be embarrassed?

PZ Myers • 30 Comments (last page)

Their newspapers are pointing out that Kansas ranks last in science.

Previous standards were evolution-friendly and defined science as “the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us.” The new definition avoids limiting explanations to natural ones.

“They said it’s wrong to limit science to the discussion or study of natural processes,” Gross said. “It’s not just wrong but stupid.”

The institute described such changes as the result of a “relentless” promotion of intelligent design. Religious and political pressure have created a “disturbing and dangerous” trend toward watering down standards on evolution, it said.

“A number of states have resisted this madness in their science standards, but too many are fudging or obfuscating the entire basis on which biology rests,” the institute said. “Kansas is the most notorious instance of this, but far from the only one.”

Here's an important point:

Kansas uses its academic standards to develop tests for students that measure how well schools are teaching them. The first tests under the new science standards won’t be given until spring 2008.

Standards are guidelines—they are declarations of what the state thinks are the important matters a student should know in order to earn a diploma from its schools. What Kansas has done is to lower the bar for graduation, making it easier for poor students to get through school without learning anything. It will take time for this to do damage to the school system and to damage kids. There are good teachers working their now and probably going beyond the bad standards to give kids a good education, but here's where the rot sets in: you don't have to be as good a science teacher to meet the requirements the state of Kansas has set. Poor teachers are going to succeed, and the bad will drive out the good. It's going to take years, and the harm is going to be long term—leave these kinds of bogus standards in place for some time, and it isn't going to be easily corrected by just switching them back.

And of course, the converse is equally true: having a gang of incompetent ideologues screw up the standards isn't going to immediately affect the body of qualified teachers currently in place.

What we have to hope is that in the next school board election, as quickly as possible, the damage is undone before the rot sinks deeper. And let's hope Kansas voters learn to be more vigilant.

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Comments:

#52847: — 12/08 at 09:02 AM
I am really tired of the canard that science looks for "natural" explanations and avoids "supernatural" ones.

What the hell does that even mean?

Does supernatural mean "not in accordance with the laws of nature"? Well, then we'd have to count, say, universal expansion as a supernatural phenomenon, and Dark Energy as a supernatural entity.

If demons really existed, and you could summon them with a magic circle, why would this be outside of science? We'd still learn about how to do a circle properly by observing what happens when we draw it in different ways. We'd attempt to delve deeper and find out why some circles summon demons and some don't.

The fact is, anything that has observable qualities is open to the scientific method, and that doesn't change, even if the observed thing violates known law, lives in another universe, or resembles a mythical creature.

"supernatural" and "natural" are meaningless terms.

#52849: — 12/08 at 09:05 AM
Any Kansans who thought they could show sympathy for ID in their standards and still get a good grade from Paul Gross should indeed be embarrassed for their lack of foresight.

#52853: Nullifidian — 12/08 at 09:19 AM
They already are.

There's a new Republican PAC in Kansas which has vowed to oust the Republicans who voted for IDiocy in the state standards, and a PAC called the Kansas Alliance for Education devoted to doing much the same thing.

"We are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred.” Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

#52860: MrKAT — 12/08 at 09:40 AM
Christopher:"I am really tired of the canard that science looks for "natural" explanations and avoids "supernatural" ones. ..Dark Energy.."
-Former is supersupercomplex compared with latter. You'd expect latter to be simple F=kx formula. If some force moves Your ball on table and Your opponent claims: I cannot give formula because it depends of complex unpredictable mind of invisible ghosts/fairies then it is superhyper complex compared to simple gravitation (F=amg, a=declination) explanation. In science Your have to concentrate and try first as simple as possible not as complex as possible.

#52865: — 12/08 at 09:48 AM
Christopher, this is why:

Supernatural-

of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil

By natural we mean that which is observable and testable, such as chalk outlined circles and candles, but not invisible undetecable objects that have no positive evidence for existing. Black matter is cool because there is positive evidence it exists, but it doesn't radiate/reflect electromagnetic energy.

#52866: Rick @ shrimp and grits — 12/08 at 09:49 AM

What Kansas has done is to lower the bar for graduation, making it easier for poor students to get through school without learning anything.

Who'll be the first to notice these students? Quite likely folks like me. I dont live in Kansas, of course, but I teach at a community college / technical school. That's where a lot of students go who can't quite make it into the university.

If I were doing the same thing but living in Kansas, I don't think I would mind having MORE students, but I would certainly be annoyed with the fact that these additional students would be even MORE science and math-illiterate than before. It's uphill work trying to teach someone to make measurements in a laboratory setting who (a) doesn't understand how to round numbers, (b) is hostile to repeating any measurement to check precision, (c) doesn't understand the significance of collecting data to support a hypothesis in the first place.

#52874: — 12/08 at 10:07 AM
Rick,

I feel your pain. In my first chemistry lab, the teaching assistant just told us to "do it three times" before we could go. I just saw it as busy work keeping me in lab longer than I needed to be. Not understanding things like repeatability, flukes, and statistics definately made me hostile toward the TA and the class itself by association. Of course, I got better (and more educated). The problem was not understanding the process because I was only told the steps as an argument from authority.

Now that I think about it almost every class I had in college had to lay down the highschool groundwork in the first part in order to teach the class during the second. Even in language, our german instructors had to teach the English (subjunctive, predicate clause, indirect object) before teaching the the German equivilant for all four semesters that I took. Even English majors had no idea what the subjunctive tense is. ('Would' is the subjunctive of 'will' and 'could' is the subjunctive of 'can'.)

#52878: Rockstar Ryan — 12/08 at 10:10 AM
I have to ask again - if science can now include untestable and unobservable supernatural answers, how will they develop test questions since nothing supernatural can be proven right or wrong?

"God conjured it from nothing" could be a correct answer for everything, no?

#52883: — 12/08 at 10:20 AM
Hey PZ you have a typo up there! "(There are good teachers working their...)" There, not thier! Sorry, my grammatically fundy brain had to alight on that one.

#52894: Kristine Harley — 12/08 at 10:40 AM
No surprise about Kansas (or Alabama, or Mississippi, or Texas), but I was surprised at Oregon's low score. Minnesota only gets a B, and while that's not bad, it's not very good. We were once known as among the first in the nation. In the early 90s was in Germany, for pity's sake, and there I ran into a teacher from South Carolina who started gushing about our wonderful education system, and how South Carolinans were jealous. Not anymore, I guess! (They got an A.)

#52895: Aero — 12/08 at 10:41 AM
I don't know if Kansas can claim to rank last in science just yet. Maybe it will if Texas is not considered.

But if Kansas wants to know what will happen if they continue to degrade their education standards they need look no further than Texas to see the future and it is grim. But the upside is that with lower standards for education, more young people will be eligible to play football.

By eliminating science, it will be a lot easier to farm. One can save a lot of money by not having to understand and use science based agriculture practices when all one has to do is plant something, anything, and pray. According to Kansas’ new standards, it is not unreasonable to assume that faith will cause corn to grow where it's needed and all will be well. Oh yeah and don't forget to pray for rain.

West Texans have been praying for rain that for centuries. Of course it is still a desert there. I never understood why it takes more than one prayer. If prayer works, where's the rain?

Don’t forget to attend all Thursday school pep rallies. That is the first of the eleven commandments in Texas. The first ten had to be moved down when education standards here proved too high to allow some good basketball players to become eligible to play.

#52902: Rick @ shrimp and grits — 12/08 at 10:56 AM

In my first chemistry lab, the teaching assistant just told us to "do it three times" before we could go. I just saw it as busy work keeping me in lab longer than I needed to be. Not understanding things like repeatability, flukes, and statistics definately made me hostile toward the TA and the class itself by association.

Only three times? The TA must've not been an analytical chemistry grad student.

But seriously, I usually use the first one and a half chemistry lab days as "statistics for dummies", because most students (including a fair portion of students that have already had a basic stats course) simply do not understand anything about experimental error, or the idea that some kinds of measurements are more precise than others, etc.

I'm puzzled about the students who have actually had stats, but I *suspect* that they don't actually do any hands-on data gathering in there and therefore don't connect the stuff in stats class to work they do themselves.

#52906: pablo — 12/08 at 11:10 AM
So will the revised definition of science in Kansas cause college applicants from there to be denied entrance to college? or to be required to take a remedial science course? Or is high school science only the first stop on the ID juggernaut?

#52907: PZ Myers — 12/08 at 11:14 AM
Oy, the three times rule.

I was once paired with a high school science teacher as a judge in a science fair. She drove me nuts: at every experiment, if the work was repeated fewer than 3 times, she gave it a failing score. If it were repeated more than 3 times, she also gave it a failing score...her reasoning was that there must have been something wrong with the work to require extra repetition, or that they just kept doing it until they got the answer they wanted.

I pity her students.

I'm not at all surprised about Oregon's score. There's Portland, and there's Eugene, and everything else is extremely conservative.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#52908: — 12/08 at 11:21 AM
I think I can shed some light on the students with stats not understanding it. Using only anecdotal evidence and loosely defined case studies, I would say that it is because students have lost a love of learning and there is no goal of learning for its own sake, or curiousity for that matter.

Students I have known only want the degree and the requirements are just that. "What do I have to do to get a degree?" Not that it is always the fault of the student. I have had professors respond to my questions with, "Don't worry about it. It won't be on the final." or variations therof.

I had to explain that I knew where the local Kinko's was and that I was paying for the education, not the degree. However, from my associations at college, I think a large portion of students just want the piece of paper. Anything else is something to be suffered through with as little effort as possible.

#52923: — 12/08 at 12:20 PM

By natural we mean that which is observable and testable, such as chalk outlined circles and candles, but not invisible undetecable objects that have no positive evidence for existing. Black matter is cool because there is positive evidence it exists, but it doesn't radiate/reflect electromagnetic energy.

But this was sort of my point; anything that has observable traits is within the realm of science.

Using "Natural" and "Supernatural" as slang terms for "existant" and "nonexistant", or "observable" and "non-observable" seems to do nothing but confuse the issue, especially since the majority of the population, I suspect, takes a more literary viewpoint, thinking more of the latter part of the argument,

of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil

Demons and fairies are considered supernatural, even though they're generally thought to manifest here on earth and be observable. And not everything that doesn't exist would be considered supernatural; Very few ordinary people would describe faster-then-light engines as supernatural devices, in spite of the fact that as far as we know, they can't exist.

When scientists say that supernatural explanations aren't a part of science, it sounds to some people like science is ignoring things that actually happened and are observable, because of some inexplicable descision not to look at parts of the world.

Instead of saying that "science looks at the natural world" , why not just say that it looks at the "observable world", since that's what they do?

It seems like doing this would deny a foothold to people who say that scientists are arrogant jerks who don't look outside their little bubble.

I have the same sort of argument towards the complexity thing; supernatural is not a synonym in the normal world for "unnecessarily complex". While ghosts and demons don't do a good job of explaning the world, they aren't outside the realm of science. They're like any other failed thoery, like flogistan or geocentrism. Not every unnecessarily complex theory really falls under the heading of "supernatural".

As I said, there are hypothetical situations where they would be the most simple theory, and in these hypothetical situations they'd be open to science.

My point is not that theories about god or whatever are useful, but that "supernatural" is not really synonymous with "Unnecesarily complex and unverifiable" in the popular mind, and the fact that scientists use them as though they were synonymous simply confuses the issue.

#52927: Kagehi — 12/08 at 12:29 PM

Black matter is cool because there is positive evidence it exists, but it doesn't radiate/reflect electromagnetic energy.

Evidence? They have found entire dark galaxies where the ratio of dark matter to normal is like 90% to 10% and which is only visible through radiation and the occational interaction of the two types of matter. Last I checked the closest anyone has gotten to God is a shroud that may not actually *be* a shroud, given that traditional burials only used robes and a face cover, for someone that was probably human, but which might have been the equivalent of an ancient autopsy drawing, based on one experiment using candle light and paint pigments do draw a body. Gosh! I am convinced. lol

The only good thing about lunacy like this is that reality tends to impose itself over gibberish, no matter how hard people try to supress it in favor of the gibberish. A few always slip through the cracks and do something embarassing that makes the fundies look stupid. ;)

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent - Robert A. Heinlein

#52930: Kagehi — 12/08 at 12:33 PM
Of course even giving them a "Probably" in that is stretching the realm of all reasonable thinking, just to be clear.

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent - Robert A. Heinlein

#52933: Rick @ shrimp and grits — 12/08 at 12:53 PM

if the work was repeated fewer than 3 times, she gave it a failing score. If it were repeated more than 3 times, she also gave it a failing score...her reasoning was that there must have been something wrong with the work to require extra repetition,

Was she grading the science fair or was she reciting the instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch?

"Three shall be the number of replicate measurements, and the number of replicate mesaurements shall be three. Four replicates shalt thou not perform, neither shalt thou perform two, unless thou then proceed to perform three. Five is right out!"

Sadly, this is an indicatior that you can not only get through a first-year science course without an appreciation of experimental error and ways of determining it, but also get through an entire degree - with multiple science courses. (I'd assume that as a high school science instructor, this person has had a lot more than one or two science courses in college.)

or that they just kept doing it until they got the answer they wanted.

If they were trying to do that, then wouldn't they simply NOT PRESENT the trials that didn't give them the answer they wanted?

Has she also not considered that a measurement that inherently has a large uncertainty would NEED to be repeated more times than one with a small uncertainty - if only to get a good value for the quantity measured?

Sheesh.

I pity her students.

Right. I hope she was not teaching a course with any quantitative work.

#52951: — 12/08 at 01:45 PM
I'm not at all surprised about Oregon's score. There's Portland, and there's Eugene, and everything else is extremely conservative.

Except Ashland. It's surrounded by some kind of liberal forcefield. Drive north a couple miles to Talent, and it's like you've suddenly gone from Minneapolis to Selma.

#52954: — 12/08 at 02:02 PM
I agree with Christopher, linguistics change. If I say I am gay, nobody thinks I'm really happy do they?

#52978: — 12/08 at 03:51 PM
Why? Can't gay people be happy? It is just fundie propaganda that gay people are all unhappy.

#52983: — 12/08 at 04:11 PM
Even English majors had no idea what the subjunctive tense is.

Actually, it's the subjunctive mood or voice.

And I'm not sure they really need to, but the verb tenses in your clauses don't match ("...majors had no idea... tense is.").

But I'm an IT guy - what do I know? ;)

#52990: — 12/08 at 05:06 PM

Actually, it's the subjunctive mood or voice.

And I'm not sure they really need to, but the verb tenses in your clauses don't match ("...majors had no idea... tense is.").

I'm a neuro guy btw and I don't have a problem using myself as a case in point. I just mentioned the English majors because it made me feel better about my own ignorance. In truth, my wife learned English as a third language and I let her proof all my papers. By 'let' I mean 'begged'. She has a far greater command of English and it's rules than most people I know. (And the tenses should match.)

#53000: — 12/08 at 06:16 PM
Follow-up to my gripe yesterday about the Fordham report's grade for Alaska....

The "F-minus" for Kansas was was a result of the radical changes adopted just last month. Yet the revisions to Alaska's standards, which answer most of the criticisms, were approved back in June.

I spoke to the Fordham Institute VP, Michael Petrilli, and he said the "cut-off date" was in May. No new considerations after that.

Except for Kansas. Because, he said, people would've noticed something was amiss if they gave Kansas a C.

And Alaska? Nobody notices that its low ranking is out of date. I guess Alaska should still be grateful that the "cut-off" rule was uncut for Kansas, otherwise we'd be dead last. Except... the draft of the new Alaska standards was available in March (which comes well before May, you might notice). I realize there's 50 whole states, but if you're going to embark on a study that you want people to pay attention to, it's best not to be lazy.

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Will Kansas voters be embarrassed?

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