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July 2005 News TBSEF formed! -
Texans for Better Science Education
Foundation, has been established as a formal
non-profit organization. The
Foundation is organized as a 501c3 entity
and will focus initially on obtaining and
distributing high quality science
instructional materials free or low cost to
teachers, administrators, and others.
All staff are currently The first project authorized by the Board of Trustees is a statewide distribution of the DVD, "Where Does the Evidence Lead", which is a public school classroom version of "Unlocking the Mystery of Life". Both are professionally done (similar to segments on Nova, the National Geographic Channel, or the Discovery Channel), and highlight well known scientific challenges to evolutionary theories, narrated by the working research scientists themselves. If you have a school or science teacher who should have a copy for their classes, please let us know where to send it! More information is on the TBSE Foundation website at www.tbsef.org . Liberty Bell
-
Do you know why the "Liberty Bell"
is named that? "Proclaim
liberty throughout all the land unto Here's
where it gets really interesting...the bell
was commissioned on the 50th anniversary of
the founding of Pennsylvania. The
inscription is a passage from Leviticus: School Update As we close this Fourth of July week, it seemed appropriate to let you know some of the independent efforts going on around the State and the United States. Nationwide: A new Harris Poll clearly shows American's preference for teaching weaknesses of evolution theories. In the poll, only 12% of Americans wanted evolution-only taught. The rest, including significant majorities of those who believed in some form of evolution, were in favor of teaching something else along with it or even something else exclusively! Further, it showed that the number of Americans who do NOT believe humans developed from some older common ancestor has INCREASED 8% in the past 11 years from 46% in 1994 to 54% now. Belief in what the poll termed 'creationism' led belief in 'evolution' in every single breakdown of education demographic, including at the PhD and post doctoral level. Intelligent design advocates increased with increasing education, as did also, evolutionists. The full article on the results is here. Texas #1: U.S. Declaration of Independence - It has come to our attention that the Texas Education Agency has censored our very Declaration of Independence. In a question on the 8th grade TAKS test recently done, a question quotes the Declaration but replaces "by their Creator" with an ellipsis ("..."). While the test is secret, unless "by their Creator" was the answer to the question, it is difficult to imagine why they would have changed what is one of the most important documents of recorded history in this way. The elected SBOE has received promises from the TEA that it will not happen again, but please let your elected officials know today of your displeasure with the TEA. Texas #2: If you've not been following, the Texas legislature is back in session tinkering with schools. A bill has now passed the House and Senate and at this writing is in conference committee. The Senate version is better. While there are numerous provisions in this 'omnibus' bill, the House version could weaken the SBOE control over publishers and the books approved for Texas schools, handing the responsibility back to the publishers and the TEA and asking us to trust them. This is outrageous. Public schools did not get in the shape they are in now by retaining parental and local control. They got there by having unaccountable, unelected officials get far too much power to tinker with things - like rainforest Algebra, inappropriate and explicit health books and alternative family definitions, new math, and oh yes - - teaching evolution-only as unquestionable dogma. In Texas, our elected State Board of Education's oversight has been critical in minimizing these problems, and we do not want to lessen their ability to do so. Again, please call your Texas Senator and Texas House member and politely ask them to strengthen the SBOE control over curriculum and content of instructional materials and to support the SENATE version. HB2
Conferees are: Texas #3: "How to Teach the Controversy" - If you have a broadband connection, be sure and watch the short video online containing five guidelines on how to legally teach the controversy regarding evolution theories. Contrary to what is often written in newspapers, it is completely legal for public school teachers to present scientific weaknesses of Darwinism The video is located here (www.discovery.org/csc/streamingMedia/Teaching_the_Controversy_Legally.wmv)' Other States - Kansas: After the pro-evolution-only crowd mostly boycotted public meetings designed to discuss the issues, the Kansas State Board of Education is poised to adopt improved science standards that will permit teaching weaknesses of Darwinism. As part of its report, the Kansas science committee concluded that it had "heard credible scientific testimony that indeed there are significant debates about the evidence for key aspects of chemical and biological evolutionary theory." A Discovery Institute report on this is located here, and the working draft standard itself is located here. Other States - Dover, Pennsylvania #1: In the recent primary election in Dover, Pennsylvania, which pitted pro-evolutionists against pro-intelligent design advocates in what is said to be the first district in the nation to openly and formally question Darwinism, every single GOP pro-ID candidate won, including all incumbents. In the smaller Democratic party primary, all evolutionist candidates won. There were more votes cast in the GOP primary than in the Democratic one, which one pro-ID incumbent observed bodes well for the 60% Republican area. Story here. Texas - Pennsylvania connection: The Richardson, Texas based Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), whose staff wrote the supplemental book "Of Pandas and People", has been sued by the ACLU in the Dover, Pennsylvania case, in part so that the ACLU can obtain an advance draft copy of the yet-to-be-printed major revision/sequel to "Pandas". And you wonder why we call them "Darwinian thought police"? FTE is fighting back, but their recent letter requests your support and prayers. http://www.fteonline.com . Other States - Georgia: The Cobb County school district began the physical process of removing stickers from books, as ordered by a local judge, even though the case is being appealed. The egregious sticker that the Darwinian thought police could not tolerate students reading is pictured below, approximately full size.
Other Places - Washington, D.C.: The new intelligent design video, The Privileged Planet, was formally débuted to about 200+ 'invitation only' government officials and other leaders at the Smithsonian. Viewers were universally positive on the documentary after seeing it. The film discusses how unique the Earth seems to be in the cosmos for both supporting life as we know it as well as being a platform from which to learn about the universe. The video is available on DVD from numerous groups trying to combat dogmatic Darwinism. Other States - California: The California Academy of Sciences has agreed to accommodate Larry Caldwell, an attorney in California who filed a lawsuit (reported earlier) alleging misstatements about him in one of their publications. Mr. Caldwell is attempting to get weaknesses of evolution taught in his school district. The California Academy of Science will issue a retraction, the online version of the story will be removed, and the Academy will print a lengthy letter by Caldwell explaining his position correctly. Full information here. As always, thanks for your time and support. Very truly yours, Mark Ramsey Evolutionist Quote: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. ... Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.”
Please
consider making a tax deductible donation to the
Foundation. TBSEF To add your address, or those of your friends and relatives to our list, simply reply with "Please send to a friend" in the subject line and the email addresses to add in the body of the note. To stop these newsletters, simply reply to this one with "Please remove" in the front of the subject line. Texans
for Better Science Education |
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(c) 2005 - All Rights Reserved, but permission to forward or print or copy in its entirety for non-commercial purposes is granted.
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volunteer. Any
money raised will go toward direct expenses
such as purchasing videos and mailing them
to teachers. The TBSEF website is 