Richard Day: Opposition to science standards a plot by coal companies

I posted a comment on the most recent silliness coming from Richard Day's blog, where anti-religious conspiracy theories take the place of rational arguments. Richard's most recent fantasy involves The Family Foundation taking coal money to advocate against climate change.

Seriously.

Maybe, as I point out my response, which I have included below, that is why I have publicly opposed mountain-top removal.

These are the people who are going to be teaching your children "critical thinking skills."

I'm not sure quite what Richard means when he says that I will "go with whatever argument gets [me] movement." Is he saying that I try to use the best arguments for my position? If so, I'm fail to understand what the problem with that is. Is he implying that I use arguments that I don't believe in myself? If so, he's questioning my motives. 

When you start questioning people's motives, it usually means you don't have much in the way of arguments. You owe it to your opponent in an argument to refute his best arguments, not his worst motives. 

The problem with Richard and some of his readers is that they can't seem to answer the main argument I presented, which is that the standards are weak on content knowledge (which they are). Instead, they launch off into speculation about my being a closet creationist (which I'm not) and go off into spinning conspiracy theories about me wanting to foist my religion on everyone. 

Richard and his followers don't have a shred of evidence for this, so they have to manufacture things. 

For example: that The Family Foundation of Kentucky's "new interest" in the climate change issue (the only comment in regard to which I can even remember being the two or three paragraphs in that one op ed) is due to "donations from pro-coal interests." 

This is absolutely false. In fact, it's pretty close to a smear. But that was conspiracy theorists do: they charge their opponents with things that they don't have a shred of proof for that make them feel comfortable in their own ignorance. Charges like this are not only reckless, they are ethically questionable and they don't belong in a civilized exchange of beliefs. 

And besides, how does this charge square with my publicly-stated opposition to mountain-top removal? 

One thing you can say for Richard, he can pack a lot of falsehoods into one pretty brief comment. He claims that I "roused up church folks to go testify." I presume he means at the recent Administrative Regulations Review Subcommittee meeting in which the science standards were rejected.  

In fact, although The Family Foundation urged people to call legislators (because of the content issue), no one in that organization, including myself, ever asked anyone to go to the meeting to testify. In fact, when the chairman asked for the seventeen people who had signed up to testify against the regulation to decide among themselves which one would speak for them, Richard Innes of the Bluegrass Institute and I went to the table and told the chairman that we had no idea who the other 15 people even were, so it was hard for us to "decide." It was then he allowed both of us to speak briefly--in a smaller space of time than the advocates got to give their case. 

But even if it were true we were "rousing up church folks" to testify at the meeting, how would that act be "specifically anti-evolution"? 

I think the real answer is for Richard and his friends to get out more. Maybe actually acquainting himself with religious people would help him realize that they don't go around thinking anti-evolution thoughts all day. It also might diminish the necessity of him having to lay awake nights worrying that someone, somewhere might be thinking creationist thoughts if he realized that not all people who take their religion seriously are creationists. 

But the best thing to do is to stop trying to discern people's private thoughts just because they can't answer their public arguments.

You can read more about the secret plot by Christians to foist a knowledge of nature on poor, helpless school children here.

In Defense of Facts: Students know too much, say science standards advocates

While most of us think that it is ignorance that needs to be stamped out, advocates of Kentucky's new unapproved and forcibly implemented science standards are targeting ... knowledge.

Just take a gander at the responses to my opinion piece in the Louisville Courier-Journal which were published on Monday. According to Brad Matthews, former director of curriculum and assessment for the Jefferson County Public Schools, one reason we need these unapproved and forcibly implement standards is to extirpate that bane of all modern permissivist educators: memorization.

"Science education has moved away from the memorization of many facts," says Matthews, "and toward understanding how the laws and principles of science are applied."

That's right: students have memorized too many facts. Their heads are bursting with scientific facts. There is not enough room in their tiny little brains for an understanding of how these facts should be applied because all the room us currently taken up by scientific facts which these students have memorized. There is simply no space in those fact-crowded little heads for scientific concepts.

The solution is obvious to people like Matthews: clear all that knowledge out of there so they will be able to apply the knowledge they will no longer have under these standards.

Just check out some of those Jefferson County schools Matthews had a hand in overseeing and you'll see the extent to which kids are overstuffed with memorized factual knowledge.

What exactly is it that modern educators have against memorized knowledge of facts? And why is it that they are always pitting facts against application and concepts? Is the possession of memorized facts really inconsistent with an ability to apply scientific procedures and an understanding of scientific ideas?

Since we're now abandoning memorization, we can apparently look forward to the prospect of Kentucky students knowing fewer facts than ever before.

What a relief.

Talking about "critical thinking skills," but not knowing what that means

HT: Bill's Eye

Defenders of state science standards explain why they ignore plants and animals

Is a word count "text analysis"?

Richard Day castigates me in his comment for taking a swipe at him for not recanting on the charge he passed along on his blog post that I was dealing with the wrong document when I criticized the state's science standards when, in fact, the person he quoted with approval was looking at the wrong one.

Richard said, "Why did my name get brought back into this? We already settled this." I looked back at some of the previous comments on Vital Remnants and I see that he sort of/kind of back-tracked on this matter and I should probably just take it as a retraction, although I never did see anything on his blog, where he published it, correcting it. So, oh well, we'll just call it even.

In addition, as to his comment that the Department of Education's Statement of Consideration did in fact, contrary to my previous post, address my argument, he's right. I read through it and either missed it or forgot I saw it when I wrote the post. My bad. I'll take responsibility for it. I don't know how I missed it.

However, the Department says does not offer any argument in response to what I said. As Richard himself quotes from the report:

The agency has determined that comments asserting a heavy weighting toward climate science, to the exclusion of other disciplines, are not supported by a careful examination of the standards themselves.

Oookay.

So where did I go wrong? They don't say. They just make an assertion that it ain't so. Anyone can do that. Where is the counter-argument? I realize that they may not be required by law (I'll have to check) for offering one, but, in any case, they don't.

I have asked at least once (maybe twice) for someone to falsify my figures or come up with some other analysis which would render them incorrect. So far, nothing--from Richard or anyone else.

Richard says:

I responded to Cothran’s argument. I objected to his drawing such definitive conclusions on the scant evidence produced by a simple word search methodology. But Cothran carried on the debate by defending his method, claiming that I was wrong to have questioned - what he had now switched to calling - a “text analysis.” 

The only problem is that Cothran had not done a “text analysis.” He did a word count.

If he had done a text analysis - which is much more involved research technique and produces much higher quality information, I would have likely had nothing to say about it. 

After objecting to my posting a claim made by another author, Cothran finally conceded that his method was not sufficient for the conclusions he drew, writing, “I fully admit it's not "definitive." I admit the possibility that I could be wrong.” 

"Cothran finally conceded"? This makes it sound like I was holding out on him. If Richard will look back, he will see that I readily said not only that my analysis was not "definitive," but that I had never said it was. Richard makes it sound like I had said it was and reluctantly admitted it wasn't. This is simply a mischaracterization of the facts.

"Definitive" has the sense of being "better than all others" or "final or conclusive." Richard implied that I had said (or implied) that, but I never did and I pointed that out. He needs to drop the pretense, unless he can demonstrate that that's what I said.

And let's address this issue of "text analysis."

Richard says I didn't do a "text analysis"; I did a word count. Okay, first, I should probably explain to Richard that words are, in fact, text. And that analysis is the process of, if I may quote the dictionary (which has authority in most places, although I am uncertain if departments of education are one them) "a process of studying or examining something in detail in order to understand it or explain it." So maybe he would like to explain to me, given the common usage of words, how a word count is not text analysis.

I was using the term "word count" generically, of course. However, I am willing to concede that Richard may have some specialized technique in mind the rules for which I have violated. If so, he should say what it is. To simply keep repeating the expression "text analysis" as if this is a universally agreed-upon technique to analyze documents is getting a little tiresome.

In fact, I took the trouble to do a little investigation on the Internet concerning "text analysis." If you Google the term, you find several interesting things:

1. There seems to be no one commonly agreed-upon or universally recognized technique for text analysis. In fact, many of the discussions of text analysis discuss the wide disagreement as to what the term means.
2. The term "text analysis" is frequently used synonymously with "content analysis," which, according to most of the definitions, would fit more closely with what I was doing.
3. Most definitions of both "text analysis" and "content analysis" would clearly include word counts or analysis of word frequency.
4. Both "text analysis" and "content analysis," but particularly content analysis, frequently and explicitly employ word counting or analyses of word frequency as at least part of their methodology.

Now Richard clearly believes word counts and text analysis are two entirely different things ("Cothran had not done a 'text analysis.' He did a word count.") The problem is that this just doesn't seem to be the view among most of those who are discussing text analysis (or content analysis).

So maybe Richard would like to enlighten us on this one-and-only true method of text analysis he's trying to hold me accountable to and explain why his definition would seem to differ with the many others one can find easily on an Internet search.

Finally, Richard took offense and told me to go soak my head. This was the most sensible thing he's said so far.

This is what I like about Richard: If you hit him, he hits you right back. You gotta respect that. He fights like a man.

Oops, there I go again.

I'm sure that saying that will offend his Politically Correct sensibilities and he will prescribe some supplementary treatment in addition to the head soaking. But I am so refreshed by his candor that I am even now filling the bucket and awaiting whatever additional prescriptions he might suggest, which I will follow enthusiastically.

It could only help.

Responses to my op-ed on state science standards

The Lexington Herald-Leader today printed not one, but two responses to my op-ed on the state's science standards today. I'll treat them in separate posts.

The first response, by Daniel Phelps, a geologist with the Kentucky Paleontological Society, "Study of climate change is search for evidence," calls my op-ed "odd and irrelevant." He then proceeds to refute arguments I never made and mis-portray the issues involved in the science standards.

He says:

Cothran, a political lobbyist for the Family Foundation of Kentucky, lacks a background in science. Furthermore his organization is an extremely conservative religious one and does not have science advisors.

As to the Family Foundation not having science advisors, how does he know this? We have had plenty of occasion to employ scientists in our policy work--particularly on issues such as abortion and human cloning. But, as it happens, we didn't need them in this case because we were not dealing with scientific questions.

This is why my science background is completely irrelevant. Why would that matter unless the questions at issue on the state's science standards were uniquely scientific questions? In fact, the questions at issue in the state's science standards are policy questions, not scientific questions and the fact that Phelps can't tell the difference is at least one indication that scientific expertise is inadequate in dealing with the questions he says I'm inadequate to address.

If Phelps thinks that the issue I addressed in my article--whether there is an inordinate emphasis on climate topics in the standards--is a scientific question, maybe he would care to tell us to which branch of science this belongs. Is the balance of a particular topic in standards a biological question? Is it a matter of chemistry? Perhaps the relative emphasis of scientific subjects is a matter of particle physics.

If Phelps believes that the questions I addressed in my op-ed were scientific questions and they required specialized scientific knowledge to adequately assess, then why isn't Phelps concerned about the State School Board, one of the bodies chiefly responsible for assessing and approving the standards? The Board is not made up of scientific experts, nor are the legislative panels whose role it is to affirm the Board's decisions.

But the central problem with Phelp's editorial is that it completely skirts my point. He clearly thinks the issue is whether evolution is a valid theory of biological development and whether global warming is a debatable issue in the scientific community.

He says:

Evolution and climate change are included in the standards because there is overwhelming consensus within the scientific community in support of these ideas.

But as a response to my op-ed, this is oddly irrelevant. It has absolutely nothing to do with the balance of emphasis on individual scientific topics, which was my thesis. These assertions could be completely true and my point would be unaffected.

In fact, Phelps spends most of his article talking about the truth of the evolution and global warming theory.
But these are not the issues I addressed. In fact, I nowhere even said what my opinion was on these issues. The only mention I made of evolution--and I only made it in passing--was that there had been a controversy over the emphasis in the standards. And on climate change, I stated very clearly, "Whatever your views on global warming, it is hard to understand how such an inordinate emphasis on a single fashionable topic could be justified." [emphasis added]

Phelps may have a scientific background, but he seems to be lacking a background in basic logic.

Richard Day gets it wrong again on the state's science standards

Richard Day not only didn't like my column on Kentucky's science standards, he didn't like my response, claiming I not only did not refute, but supported his claim that my text analysis of Kentucky Academic Standards--using a word count--was not "definitive."

"Definitive" of what? Where did I say the analysis was "definitive"? "Definitive means, if my dictionary is correct, "final," or, as another has it, "supplying or being a final or conclusive statement." Not only did I not use the word "definitive," I didn't use any of the words that mean "definitive."

But maybe consulting the dictionary is too simplistic a way in Day's mind to determine the meaning of words.

I fully admit it's not "definitive." I admit the possibility that I could be wrong. All someone like Day would have to do is to go to the document and read it and come back with some kind of textual proof that what I said was an incorrect characterization of the text.

If I were wrong, it would be pretty easy to prove it. But what is interesting is that Day hasn't bothered to even attempt to do this. All he has done is carp at my method of determining the relative emphasis on particular topics in the state' standards, which consisted of the revolutionary procedure of seeing how many words had to do with that topic.

In fact, Day seems to be having continuing difficulty determining exactly what I said. He claims that I was looking at the wrong document when I did my word count, quoting someone by the name of Alex Grigg, who commented on my column in the Lexington Herald-Leader. Now I'm sure Grigg is a fine, upstanding ... whatever he is. But here is what Grigg said (and Day quoted approvingly on his blog):

Martin seems to need a little help counting. Here is the document in question, unless he is looking at something else: http://63960de18916c597c345-8e.... Global Warming is mentioned 0 times and Climate Change, which is the currently accepted scientific term for the effect in question, is only mentioned 16 times.

Uh, no. Sorry.

That is definitely (perhaps even definitively) not the document in question. The document Grigg links to is the Next Generation Science Standards, which is the national standards document on which the science sections of Kentucky's science standard are based. I stated very clearly what document I did the word search on. Here is what I said: "If you do a simple word search through the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document ..."

Note that the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document is not the same document a the Next Generation Science Standards.

Comprende?

In other words, Day is simply wrong about the document in question.

The former document is based on the latter one but what connection there is after that, I don't know because I have taken only a cursory look at the latter document. If Grigg is correct (which is apparently not a safe assumption), then there are some differences.

In fact, it is interesting to see how Grigg tries to refute my analysis: by using the same procedure (a word count), which happens to be the one Day says is not legitimate! He doesn't question word counts; he questions whether I word counted correctly. Had he be using the correct document, he might have had a telling point.

And here's another interesting thing: If Grigg is correct (again, I haven't checked his count), then the Kentucky Academic Standards contains more occurrences of the term "global warming" even than the national standards! In other words, they would have had to take the national standards and added an even greater emphasis on global warming.

If I'm Day, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead right at this point. But I get the sneaking suspicion that he's only going to dig himself in deeper.

Then Day charges me with "compounding the academic felony" (I'm still not sure what this exactly refers to) by "[extrapolating] speculations on what the authors of Next Generation Science Standards were thinking!"

Huh? I seriously have no idea what he is talking about, perhaps because he never says. Then, in another strange remark, he says, " Cothran’s word count argument proves only that things are a certain way. It tells us little about why they are so."

What the heck is that supposed to mean? "The Count’s [that's me] method, while arguably helpful on a surface level - if and only if one is not mislead by the data - is insufficient. The most useful analyses tell us something about why something is so."

Once again, Day seems have jumped to conclusions way down the road which I literally never made. I never said (and don't believe) that my analysis was "the most useful" analysis. I'm sure there are many other more useful analyses that could be done. But the question is not whether it is the "most useful" analysis, but whether it's useful at all. Does it show an inordinate emphasis on a trendy scientific topic?

I think it does. And if it's incorrect, Day is welcome to disprove it. Like I said, it should be very easy thing to do if Day is right. In fact, it would be a lot easier than just obfuscating the issue by assuming I said things I never said and refuting arguments I never made--and claiming that I used the wrong document when I didn't.

I'm waiting, Richard.