Just a reminder about what new chairwoman Barbara Cargill — and her five “conservative Christian” allies on the State Board of Education — have in mind for the meeting this week:
I am a little bit concerned in looking at some of these science online supplementary materials. I looked at one of the links and there was a picture of a — a graphic of a human fetus next to a gorilla fetus talking about how they only differ by one amino acid. Therefore, universal common decent. So that is of some concern. And I am not quite sure if we are going to have the votes to overturn that. We will work diligently to rectify and correct some of that. But remember we lost a conservative seat, so we’re down to six.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLhsWMaNQ-0]
In this unguarded moment, Cargill drops the double-speak and is honest about her plan for the first meeting over which she will preside as chair — pressure publishers to censor scientific information from their materials and to insert bogus information questioning evolution. And she knows exactly what her task is: to get the extra votes necessary to accomplish this.
Stay tuned to TFN Insider on Thursday and Friday as we give you a front-row seat at the contentious hearing and board vote.
Gee, how I wish educated people voted. People moved from other states and progressives could stop this.
People whose “science education” comes from conservative ministers who never looked into a microscope
during seminary (and probably haven’t even visited a modern zoo) are not qualified to plan for public school
curriculums. Ms. Cargill and the five like her are scaring me as much as Phyllis Schafly does.
Very tragic, that there is a widespread and concerted effort to promote an anti-intelligence agenda. By killing off our capability as a society, to respond to issues and problems rationally, our nation will not long persevere in this day and age.
How many amino acids removed, are the Cargill, set from a rock ?
“…a graphic of a human fetus next to a gorilla fetus talking about how they only differ by one amino acid.”
Beg pardon, Ms. Cargill? I know you aren’t a biologist – I’m not either. But that particular statement isn’t even coherent enough to be wrong. It’s just nonsensical. Do you think the rest of us could get the url of the “supplemental materials” that said that? Just, y’know, to see what it actually said?
How do you spell ideologue? Babs! Babble on Babs, it’s a great performance.
It’s too bad that Cargill is so willfully ignorant that she can’t spend 5 minutes on Google to at least get the story right, but, then, it would be science and not a “story” for her to tell.
It is old news that gorilla and human hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood, differ by a single amino acid. Nothing to do with fetus pictures, Cargill.
However, Cargill missed an opportunity to shock the bluenoses at the Family Eagle Family Forum, or whatever, by mentioning that the alpha and beta hemoglobins of humans and chimps are identical. Yep, same same.
But this is really old news, from the 60’s. Science has moved on quite a bit since then leaving creationists and ideologues like Cargill stuck in the past. What’s next, Cargill, a flower decal for your VW bus?
Well, that does suggest why the reading comprehension standards got trashed a few years back.
It’s more likely the material was actually talking about how much of the comparable portions of the human and gorilla genomes differ by one-amine SNP changes (tinyurl.com/28epote).
It’s also possible Ms. Cargill was making stuff up.
Admittedly, it’s even conceivable that some publisher made a slide saying there’s only a one amine difference between humans and gorillas; amazing levels of idiotic misinformation all too frequently creep into K-12 materials. However, that seems a less likely source of such an egregious mistake. Still, TFN should keep an eye out just in case, in case some publisher is in dire need of a public excoriation. (No doubt the NCSE will help, if that’s needed.)
“It is old news that gorilla and human hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood, differ by a single amino acid.”
Heh. And that various human hemoglobins differ by at least one amino acid, too. HbS and HbC are just two that I know of that aren’t “standard issue.”
Well, that would explain Uncle Alonzo who was “extra, specially hairy.”
So Barbara Cargill wants the SBOE to adopt a policy that actively lies to Texas children?
Charming.
When Cargill gave her little snippet of misinformation about evolution is when we needed a Marshall McLuhan moment. Cargill said, “Remember, I’m a science teacher,” to establish authority. Then she pulled out two of the oldest chestnuts from the creationist’s crypt: gaps in the fossil record; and macroevolution is a problem for evolution.
Both wrong. Both debunked for decades if not 100 years. Both examples of abject intellectual dishonesty by someone who claims to be a science teacher. It’s absolutely disgraceful.
It would have been nice for Richard Dawkins to step in from the side and say something like, “Uh, excuse me, allow me to establish my credentials as a scientist, an evolutionary biologist who has studied evolution and performed experiments, and who has written several textbooks on the subject, and I am here to tell you that you, madam, are speaking total rubbish.”
It appears to me that Ms. Cargill’s science education has not progressed beyond Adam naming all the animals. IIRC she has a masters degree in science education, but it is obvious that she got that degree without understanding anything about modern science. Or, maybe her raving religiosity has made her reject all of her exposure to real science.