Writing in the journal, Evolution: Education and Outreach, David Zeigler has an article entitled, "The Question of Purpose." Zeigler's argument is twofold: Darwinian science teaches us that there is no purpose or meaning outside of ourselves and teachers can improve evolution education by better stressing the non-teleological nature of evolution and reality. You can read this for yourself here (pdf file). I'm hoping to comment on several aspects, but I thought you'd like to check it out first and have an opportunity to correct me if I have wrongly mischaracterized it.

It remains unclear why Billy became a target at age 12; schoolyard anthropology can be so nuanced. Maybe because he was so tall, or wore glasses then, or has a learning disability that affects his reading comprehension. Or maybe some kids were just bored. Or angry.

Whatever the reason, addressing the bullying of Billy has become a second job for his parents: Curt, a senior data analyst, and Penney, the owner of an office-supply company. They have binders of school records and police reports, along with photos documenting the bruises and black eyes. They are well known to school officials, perhaps even too well known, but they make no apologies for being vigilant. They also reject any suggestion that they should move out of the district because of this.

-Here

The Books section of the weekend New York Times offers this article:
Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

It begins…

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from "American Idol," appearing on the Fox game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: "Budapest is the capital of what European country?"

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. "I thought Europe was a country," she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. "Hungry?" she said, eyes widening in disbelief. "That's a country? I've heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I've never heard of it."

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A New York Times editorial entitled Evolution and Texas is a practical illustration of a teflon movement that avoids labels indicating existing political and financial motives. The ousting of Christine Comer sparked the editorial response. Comer's departure is not applauded but neither is the spin attached to the incident. From the linked article:

Is Texas about to become the next state to undermine the teaching of evolution? That is the scary implication of the abrupt ousting of Christine Comer, the state's top expert on science education. Her transgression: forwarding an e-mail message about a talk by a distinguished professor who debunks "intelligent design" and creationism as legitimate alternatives to evolution in the science curriculum.

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It would be a sin here at Telic Thoughts to pass up a story about bunnies, animal rights extremists, and teaching the controversy.

Students at the Community Building Children's Center arrived at their downtown preschool Monday morning to discover that their pet rabbit Sugar Bunny had been kidnapped over the weekend. Teachers found anti-circus flyers in his hutch.

"Somebody stoled him," said five-year-old Zion. "I'm sad."

At the bottom of the "anti-cicus flyers" were "PETA and the Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN)."  Thankfully, however, this teacher was able to use this incident to "teach the controversy":

"We talked about how some people have different ideas about animals. Some people don't think they should be in cages," said Peters.

The critical thinkers at SMU have made some changes in the course web page. Gone is the ID = BS equation at the bottom of the page. Instead, the class reading now includes this:

The professors also feel the need to explain themselves:

New! For those of you who think incorrectly that both sides of every issue should be presented just to be fair, a webpage cataloguing all of the scientific evidence in favor of Intelligent Design and a list of all the articles published by Intelligent Design proponents in peer-reviewed science journals showing that Intelligent Design is a valid research program.

LOL. I, for one, certainly do not expect these peer reviewers to be fair. I just thought that a class on critical thinking would teach students how to critically think. Silly me.

David Heddle offers some good criticisms of the web page for the the SMU course, "The Scientific Method - Critical and Creative Thinking (Debunking Pseudoscience)." You might want to check out this example of higher education. You'll learn that ID = religion, yet also learn that ID = science (it's just that it is BAD science). You'll learn that ID = crap and ID = BS. And of course, the people who propose ID are"¦..you guessed it, IDiots. All the links about ID are written by hardcore ID critics. And the source for information about the players? Wikipedia.

In other words, the way to teach critical thinking is to teach ridicule, peddle stereotypes, present one side of the issue, and rely on Internet sources that can be written/edited by anyone who breathes.

Enlightenment at its best.

UPDATE

Loved the teaching. Loved the science. Couldn't take the politics. Couldn't take the tenure stress. That about sums it up.

Another one bites the dust. It's not always about dueling metaphysics. Sometimes it's just about politics and money. I can't comment on this story better than He Who Lives It (and makes the best of it), so here you go…

A farewell to academia

Over on his blog PZ Myers is doing his job of spreading Richard Dawkins' religion = child abuse meme in this thread.

Interesting to me is that it's finding a lot less knee-jerk support among Myers' amen choir than I would have expected. Sure, there are lots who don't mind asserting their authoritarian tendencies with vigor, and the situation in question (another young street corner preacher) is certainly debatable.

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Unfurling a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" at an Olympic torch procession may seem like a teenage prank, but to school administrators, it is nothing less than an affront to the school's "educational mission." From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

It was off school property, though during school time, and principal Deborah Morse ordered [student Joseph Frederick] to take it down. He refused, she tore it down and suspended him, so he sued. Morse objected to the sign's apparent advocacy for marijuana. Frederick said it was simply taken from a snowboard slogan to be "meaningless and funny" for the TV cameras - a typical teen prank.

This seems to be much ado about very little, but it has reached the Supreme Court as a test of previous court rulings over the rights of school administrators to limit student speech when it conflicts with the school's "educational mission." …

Whether you think a student ought to or should be allowed to advocate drugs, even in apparent jest and even away from school, is one thing. But the government here is arguing something far more sweeping - that administrators have the right to ban virtually any speech that conflicts with the "educational mission," and that they have the right to define that mission as they wish.

This is a case with far-ranging implications. After all, if teaching evolution is part of a school's "educational mission", surely it also has the right to muzzle students whose beliefs conflict with that mission - like creationist students giving presentations or handing out materials on creationism.