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.

More Science Follies: UK science professor defends former professor who says that scientific method is a Medieval superstition

Someone must have spiked the contents of the water cooler over at the faculty lounge of the University of Kentucky's science department.

Yesterday's claim by a former UK science professor in the comments section of my Lexington Herald-Leader op-ed that the scientific method is obsolete is being defended by a current UK science professor.

Our own Art, a UK science professor now under the influence of the Next Generation Science Standards Kool-Aid, says that his former colleague "can be excused" for saying that the teaching of the scientific method is "a return to early 13th century standards in teaching science."

Why?

Because, says Art (still clearly suffering the after-effects of one cup too many), I believe science consists of "rote memorization of Latin names" and think scientific inquiry consists of falling "on your knees and ask[ing] the voices in your heads for the answer."

This is not the first time Art has suffered such hallucinations, but I think maybe the Kool-Aid touched off an unusually serious visitation.

Perhaps he should seek some kind of treatment for this. I suggest an emetic, followed immediately by a laxative, followed by frequent repetitions of this same regimen over a period of several days. It may not make him feel better, but a few of the rest of us will certainly be cheered by it.

Of course, it might just be the result of his humors being out of balance, in which case a good bloodletting might be in order.

I wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't find a leechmaster right there in the UK science department. I mean, after all, I understand they still practice the scientific method there.

Scientificus Contralogicus

If you can't deal with someone's argument, simply change the subject something completely unrelated.

In response to my op-ed on the science standards in yesterday's Herald-Leader, we get this from Paul Vincelli, an extension professor and Provost's Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Kentucky who apparently wandered into the comment section of my op-ed from a totally different article:

I use the word "theory" in the sense of modern science: a set of well-established concepts that fit observations. In other words, no one doubts the existence of electricity, our understanding of which is based on the theories of electromagnetism, atomic structure, and quantum mechanics. In that sense of the word "theory", the theory of evolution and the theory of human-influenced climate change are fundamental to modern science. 

This is in response to my argument that the Next Generation Science Standards Kentucky just implemented are lacking in content knowledge. Don't you see the argument?

Evolution and global warming are fundamental to modern science
Therefore, content knowledge of nature is not fundamental to modern science

Maybe we should just take this as an indication of what is coming in the "critical thinking skills" program that the Common Core people still haven't produced.

Scientific method obsolete, says defender of state science standards

Okay class, next question: Which planet are defenders of science standards from?

Here is Tom Kimmerer, a former science professor at the University of Kentucky, responding to my article in yesterday's Lexington Herald-Leader:

Mr. Cothran is trying to blur what his organization is after: a return to early 13th century standards in teaching science. The scientific method, consisting of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and independent verification, was developed beginning in the mid-1200s, mainly by the clergy of several faiths. It is absolutely in the interest of all Kentuckians that we teach our children a 21st century view of science. Children are natural-born scientists, observing, playing and hypothesis testing in a natural way. Mr. Cothran wants to wring this ability out of students by appealing to didactic fundamentalism. Those of us who live in the current century should thank the Governor for ignoring the forces of ignorance.

Oh my. The scientific method. A medieval superstion. I think. I'm going. To laugh now.

Defenders of science standards way ahead of their time

Why is it that proponents of the Next Generation Science Standards want to inject religion into the discussion of the standards?

In response to my op-ed in the Herald-Leader today, Pete Landfield, who is involved in Information Systems at the University of Kentucky, says, "Let's all remember that the "family foundation" is a religious group comprised of right wing evangelical 'christian' dominionists."

 Really? Is he talking about me? I'm a Catholic, which makes it theologically impossible for me to be a "dominionist."

Amazing the strange bedfellows that reckless stereotyping can make.

But Landfield, the informationally challenged information systemetizer, goes on: "What Mr. Cothran fails to remember is that there is a separation of church and state in this country, and teaching religion in the public sphere is prohibited. If Mr. Cothran were to get his way and have right wing evangelical 'christian' version of creationism taught and climate science ignored, then I say we should also teach Satanism, Voodoo, Hoodoo, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wiccanism, paganism, and lest I forget, Flying Spaghetti Monstorism in school. After all, isn't that the jist of religious 'freedom'?"

And I recommended teaching religion ... where?

Had Landfield paid attention to the informational aspect of what I said he would have noticed a curious fact: That I not only made no recommendation to teach religion, but made no reference to religion whatsoever. So what exactly is he referring to? It's hard to say.

In pondering the kind of intellectual care Landfield and other commenters on the article take in interpreting what I actually said in the article, I'm seeing some interesting things in our scientific future.

I'm thinking of alchemy and leechcraft here.

My article on the sham approval process of state science standards in today's Herald-Leader

Here is an excerpt of my op-ed on Kentucky's science standards in today's Lexington Herald-Leader:

This is the problem with science education, we are told: students have memorized too many facts. Their heads are bursting with them. There is not enough room in their tiny little brains for an understanding of how these facts should be applied because all the room is currently taken up by facts. There is simply no space in those fact-crowded little heads for scientific applications. 

This may be the first time anyone has argued that the problem with our schools is that students know too much.

Read more 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.

Unapproved but forcibly implemented state science standards advocate misrepresents my arguments

Robert Bevins, a former professor of biology at Georgetown College who is probably the most widely-quoted supporter of Kentucky's unapproved but forcibly implemented new science standards, said at a recent legislative hearing that Kentucky would be seen as a "backwater" if it didn't approve the science standards.

The problem is that if the science standards are passed, Kentucky students won't know what a backwater is.

In the legislative committee meeting in which the standards were rejected, Bevins gave testimony asserting that my word counts were incorrect when I asserted, in my Lexington Herald-Leader article, that climate science terms were used 130 times while other terms one would expect to be more common in a set of science standards were far fewer--or absent altogether.

I made some notes while Bevins was speaking, just before I gave may own testimony on Bevins' attempted refutation of my argument. Then, I discovered his more extensive response to my arguments on the website of the group he heads, Kentuckians for Science Education.

Here is what he says in the post on his site responding to my arguments: "An examination of the Next Generation Science Standards by word count and context regarding claims of excessive focus on climate change." He then goes on to give his own findings about what he found in the NGSS document.

First problem: Bevins misrepresents the document I claimed to have analyed
The first thing to note about his response is that he completely misrepresents what I claimed. He says I claimed to have done a word search on the Next Generation Science Standards document: "Mr Cothran’s initial analysis of the NGSS document," he says, "vastly overestimates the importance of anthropogenic climate change in the NGSS document, especially in elementary and middle school grades."

Mr. Bevin's assertion is simply false.

I said very specifically in my op-ed that I did the word search on the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document, which is the actual document in question in this debate. Here are my exact words: "If you do a simple word search through the Kentucky Core Academic Standards document, the problem becomes apparent ..." [Emphasis added]

In other words, Bevins' entire attempted refutation is based on a mistaken understanding of the document at issue.

Now obviously the Kentucky Core Academic Standards includes the Next Generation Science Standards as well as a number of other subject areas. In addition, I have not done a careful comparison between the science sections Kentucky standards document and the NGSS document. I suspect they are substantially the same, although Kentucky Department of Education officials said at the legislative meeting last Wednesday that they had made some modifications which sound minor.

In any case, I never claimed to have done any kind of content analysis on the Next Generation Science Standards document itself, as Bevins claims, and therefore the word counts he claims as corrections of my word counts are irrelevant.

Second problem: Bevins overstates what I said the document emphasized
He also asserted that my word count involved terms related to climate change and that, in fact, the terms I found in my word search were related to climate science in general, but not climate change in particular. What I in fact said was that these were terms related to climate science.

Again, Bevins misrepresents what I said. Here is what I said: "If we had only Kentucky's science standards to go by, we would have to conclude that climate and weather issues are more important than gravity, photosynthesis, electricity, genetics, radiation and quantum mechanics." [Emphasis added] I then said, very specifically, exactly which terms I was counting: "...the terms "climate," "weather" and "global warming" are together mentioned over 130 times."

I did say, prior to those specific claims, that there was "an avalanche of terms related to climate change." I said that because my assumption was that the reason for having all of those climate and weather related terms in the standards was because of the recent interest in climate change. In other words, the prevalence of climate science terminology was my evidence for an emphasis on climate change in the standards.

Now I suppose someone could argue with my assumption that the reason for the inclusion of all the climate science emphasis in the standards is not due to the interest in climate change (and Bevins tries to do this), but that would be rather hard to believe. It would also not square with the responses by standards supporters to my argument, which was not that I was wrong about the emphasis on climate change, but rather that the standards were, in fact, correct in emphasizing it (through an emphasis on climate science). Just see the two responses that appeared to my article in the Herald Leader two weeks later.

In any case, my claims about the data itself had to do specifically and explicitly with climate science terminology.

So the two chief assumptions of Bevins refutation are mistaken.

And in regard to his claim that Kentucky will be seen as a backwater if it doesn't pass the standards, so what? We should mis-educate our children in order not to look bad?

Kentucky children are not stupid

For Immediate Release

September 13, 2013

LEXINGTON, KY—The Family Foundation today decried what it called "ugly rhetoric" from supporters of the state science standards. "Supporters of the science standards need to tone down their criticism of Kentucky students before they make the standards more unpopular than they already are."

Comments made by a liberal blogger and supporters of the standards who testified before a legislative committee in favor of the standards prompted the group to speak out. After the science standards were rejected by a legislative panel yesterday, Jake Payne, who runs Page One, Kentucky, said in response to the vote, "Wondering why Kentucky kids tend to be the dumbest mother****ers on the planet these days? That’s why."

Cothran said the current science standards are not better than previous standards and leave out even more science content. "If Kentucky students were as stupid as Payne thinks they are," said Cothran, "then it would be the result in part of the last set of standards we passed in this state. Remember them? The ones that were supposed to make everything better? The people who are now telling us that the Next Generation Science Standards will fix things are the same people who told us that the Last Generation Science Standards were going to solve our problems. "

"Kentucky children are not stupid. But they are ill-served by an education establishment that ignores basic content knowledge as the new science standards do. And people like Payne should stop blaming children."

###

Media coverage of legislative rejection of Next Generation Science Standards

Below is a list of media outlets carrying my remarks on the rejection by the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee of the states new science standards which are based on the Next Generation Science Standards:

Kentucky panel to review state's new science standards

...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge...

09/11/13 12:39 | United States | courierpress.com No Title ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/12/13 06:13 | United States | westkentuckystar.com Gov. Beshear overrides decision to spike science standards ...was political. “I pretty well predicted this,” Holliday said. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards shouldn’t be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/12/13 04:26 | United States | state-journal.com Kentucky's new science education standards rejected ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 16:58 | United States | wdrb.com Kentucky legislative panel finds science standards lacking ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 16:27 | United States | wpsdlocal6.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | timesunion.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | newstimes.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | stamfordadvocate.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 11:18 | United States | ctpost.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 10:18 | United States | beaumontenterprise.com Legislative Panel Finds Science Standards Lacking ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 09:26 | United States | lex18.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 08:18 | United Kingdom | sfgate.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran , spokesman for The Family Foundation , said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 08:18 | United States | seattlepi.com Governor to implement new science standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 04:07 | United States | palmbeachpost.com Legislative panel opposes new science standards | Politics and Governm... ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 01:11 | United States | kentucky.com Legislative panel finds science standards lacking ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/10/13 19:16 | United States | wkyt.com Legislative panel finds science standards lacking | State News ...standards as “low level” and “woefully deficient in engineering.” Martin Cothran of the Family Foundation, another conservative advocacy group, claimed the standards exhibit “an over emphasis on climate control”... 09/11/13 19:09 | United States | thetimestribune.com Governor To Implement New Science Standards ...inadequate" and he said the subcommittee vote was political. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards shouldn't be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 21:09 | United States | lex18.com Local teachers cautiously optimistic about newly proposed science stan... ...practices and critical thinking for kids," said Ladd. It's a move Martin Cothran with The Family Foundation said is a mistake. "That aspect of science which is the most useful for the most students is going... 09/11/13 20:18 | United States | wpsdlocal6.com No Title ...new standards would be a horrible embarrassment for the state. Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the standards should not be approved because they neglect basic science knowledge... 09/11/13 19:33 | United States | westkentuckystar.com Legislators finds science standards lacking, but governor orders them... ...standards as “low level” and “woefully deficient in engineering.” Martin Cothran of the Family Foundation, another conservative advocacy group, claimed the standards exhibit “an over emphasis on climate control”... 09/11/13 14:03 | United States | richmondregister.com Blogs 1 new results New Science Standards Defeated in Committee In his testimony* before the committee, Martin Cothran of The Family Foundation criticized the standards ... standards for Kentucky. My name is Martin Cothran, I am with The Family Foundation of Kentucky. I would like... 09/12/13 08:48 | savetherevolution.com No Title I'm saddened, but not surprised by this group. And then I had to listen to Martin Cothran on NPR lamenting the gay agenda on Sunday. Education in Kentucky? An educated Kentucky? Me thinks not... 09/10/13 19:55 | theprincipal.blogspot.com Kentucky governor approves new science curriculum despite conservative... ...basic knowledge about the natural world,” foundation spokesperson Martin Cothran told the Associated Press. But the NGSS still won backing from both the state Board of Education and local education groups... 09/11/13 21:33 | rawstory.com Kentucky School News and Commentary: Kentucky's proposed science standards... Wednesday in the State Capitol Annex in Frankfort. Martin Cothran, senior policy analyst with the conservative ... the Bluegrass Institute and Martin Cothran and those folks have some valid concerns," he said. "We... 09/11/13 10:27 | theprincipal.blogspot.com

PRESS RELEASE: Governor’s action “crisis in educational legitimacy”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
September 12, 2013 

LEXINGTON, KY—"This creates a crisis of educational legitimacy," said a spokesman for The Family Foundation after Gov. Steve Beshear said he was going to ignore the decision of a legislative panel that voted down controversial new state science standards on Wednesday.

"The Governor has basically told parents to take a hike," said Martin Cothran. "We told the committee that the approval process for these standards was a sham and now the Governor has proven our point." The Kentucky Department of Education had not made a single change to the standards in response to criticism, Cothran had told the committee.

"If there is any doubt that the approval process for education standards is a joke, the Governor has dispelled it." Cothran said that there has only been rag-tag opposition to the standards up to this point. "What was ripple could now turn into a tsunami," said Cothran.

The Family Foundation opposed the standards because they lack an emphasis on basic science knowledge about nature while overemphasizing climate change and other trendy science topics.

###

Kentucky state science standards rejected by legislative committee

LEXINGTON, KY—The state’s science standards were defeated today in a bipartisan vote in a legislative committee. “This is a sign of the level of discomfort many people in this state have with science standards that ignore basic aspects of science in order to make room for trendy topics like climate science.”

In his testimony before the vote, Cothran criticized the standards for ignoring basic scientific knowledge about animals, plants, rocks and minerals. “Half of science is left out of the science standards,” he told the members of the Administrative Regulations Review Subcommittee.

Cothran also criticized the approval process for the science standards and said that, despite all the criticism and comment, the Kentucky Department of Education hadn’t made a single change. “The Department has never intended to change anything. Even the Commissioner of Education said yesterday that there is no way to change them. If that’s correct, then why did we spend all this time going through an approval process?”

The vote seemed to come as a shock to educational officials who seemed simply to assume the legislature would give a rubber stamp. "This is a huge victory for families in Kentucky who want to know that their schools are teaching what they say they are teaching. This was a battle over educational integrity and educational integrity lost."

###

State can't do anything about problems in science standards, says KY commissioner of ed

In today's Lexington Herald-Leader story on Kentucky's science standards, Commissioner of Education Terry Holiday acknowledges that at least some of the criticisms Dick Innes and I have made are valid. The problem is, he says, it's too late to make any changes:

"We certainly recognize that the Bluegrass Institute and Martin Cothran and those folks have some valid concerns," he said. "We want to address the concerns, but we can't go back and revise the standards because they are a 26-state collaboration." 

We can't revise the standards? We just sign on to the Next Generation Science Standards project and we sign our educational integrity away to the feds? Really? You mean we could determine that these standards have problems but we are not allowed to do anything about it?

And what about this whole process of public comment on the regulation we are going through right now and which includes tomorrow's vote on the regulation concerning the standards in a legislative committee? Was this process supposed to just make us feel good--or bad, as the case may be?

Sheeez.

Read more here.

My "Science without Nature" appears in the CJ today

My op-ed on on Kentucky's science standards, based on the Next Generation Science Standards, appears in today's Louisville Courier-Journal here: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130909/OPINION04/309090007/Martin-Cothran-School-science-standards-fall-short

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.

KY education officials respond to my criticism of science standards with obfuscation

The Kentucky Department of Education has released its Statement of Consideration on the Kentucky's science standards. Once again, the defenders of the standards are obfuscating the issue.

I had argued in an op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader that there was an inordinate emphasis on climate science in the standards. As objective documentation of this I cataloged the number of words devoted to different topics in the standards and found climate science to dwarf any other single issue, and that, in fact, it dwarfed numerous other scientific issues when these issues were combined.

I made no comment about whether global warming was real or man-made. What was the response? The response was to argue that global warming was real and man-made.

Yo. Any intelligent life out there?

In other words, the defenders of the standards either can't make a basic distinction between these two issues, or they are intentionally confusing the issue. In other words, either we have people who are incapable of thinking very well in charge of the state's education standards, or we have people who are putting politics in front of science in charge of them.

In either case, it is hard to have confidence in this process with a dialogue like this.

In fact, no one has yet responded to my argument, so busy are they responding to arguments I never made. I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that the reason is that they can't.

The response of Daniel Phelps, President of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, in the Herald-Leader was plagued by a serious confusion about the difference between scientific issues and policy issues. But more to the present point, he employs the red herring defense too: he spends his time arguing about whether global warming is real rather than whether we need to be spending time on that one issue when there are so many others needed to education children in science.

Joseph Straley, the Provost's Distinguished Service Professor in physics and astronomy at the University of Kentucky, also responded to my article. He may be an example of distinction, but is unable, apparently to make one. He too tries to make this into a debate over global warming, when, in fact, it has nothing to do with whether the earth is warming or not.

It's as if someone said, "I think we're giving too much space to the topic of magnetism" and someone said, in response, "I disagree. I believe there are things that there are certain materials that attract or repel each other."

It's at this point you just have conclude that these people just don't have any fruit at the bottom of their scientific yogurt.

Then there is Richard Day, who responded by questioning my method of determining the emphasis in the standards, which employed the revolutionary technique of a) actually reading the document and b) counting the actual number of words having to do with certain issues. Day questioned this technique. I'm sure he had an alternative one consonant with the level of intellectual rigor that predominates in departments of education these days, possibly crystal healing or biofeedback or polarity therapy or perhaps some equally scientific fixture of the pop psychology that seems to predominate in his profession.

But he never offered an alternative method, so it's hard to tell.

He also repeated a false charge that I was looking at the wrong document and, as far as I can tell, never offered a correction.

This is the level of discourse we are having to contend with here--and all from people who champion rigorous thinking.

It's a shame.

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.