Check out this video of Rick Perry trying to defend the Texas school policy of teaching abstinence only sex education in public schools.

This is one of the reasons why I can never vote for this guy…no matter what the facts are, he won’t change his views.  It doesn’t matter that abstinence only sex education doesn’t work, to him that’s the only way to teach it.  It’s not effective, but he doesn’t care.  No amount of evidence will change his mind.

I don’t have an issue with trying different approaches, but once it is determined an approach doesn’t work, it’s time to try something else.  If you’re not willing to look at the data and make modifications, then you’re not interested in solving the problem.

So what is his goal?  To prevent teen pregnancies? To prevent the spread of STD’s?  No, he either doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of the religious voters in the state or he truly believes it’s okay to withhold vital information that can in all reality save young peoples lives.

My daughter went through the sex education program last year in middle school here in Texas.  At the end of it, I asked a simple question.  Did they talk to you about condoms?  She said yes they did.  Ok,  I said, what did they tell you about them?  She said “that they didn’t work”.

Wow…not that they are effective but can fail, but just that they didn’t work.  Sure, condoms have a failure rate, but that failure rate is rather small and is greatly reduced when people learn how to properly use them.  Condoms have been shown to be an effective way to prevent pregnancy and to prevent the spread of disease.  But that’s not what they teach here in Texas.  Abstinence is the rule of the land.  And I guess, as Perry says, that works….well, most of the time.

If Texas was smart and paid attention to the facts, it would realize that abstinence only education isn’t the answer.  If it were, Texas wouldn’t be #3 in teen pregnancies.  I would prefer Texas have a comprehensive sex education program to insure out kids know the facts and how to protect themselves from what they inevitably will do at some point in their young lives.  But that just makes me a godless liberal in Perry’s eyes.

So Texas will continue with a program that has failed over and over again expecting a different result in the future.

Tim Minchin does some great musical comedy, and he made his American TV debut on Conan the other night with this little number.

My favorite part of that was the piano solo…wonderfully done.

And of course, I can’t argue with his opinion on the level of disbelief of Evolution by Americans.

This video has been posted on quite a few sites over the last week, but I felt I would go ahead and include it here.  Why?  Well, I can certainly understand the feelings he expresses about the wonders of the Universe…I’ve felt that myself.  And he does a wonderful job of packing in tons of information.  In fact, I had to watch it twice to try to get it all.

As well made as this video is, I think it’s worth pointing out that his generic description of religion is a bit over the top, but it does provide a stark contrast to the science he is presenting.

So with that short introduction, here’s the video.

Lots of great lines in there, so here’s my top 3.

• “I stepped out of a supernova…and so did you.”
• “Religion tells children they might go to hell and they must believe, while science tells children they came from the stars and presents reasoning they can believe.”
• “When I looked at the galaxy that night I knew the faintest twinkle of starlight was a real connection between my comprehending eye along a narrow beam of light to the surface of another sun.  The photons my eyes detect, the light I see, the energy with which my nerves interact came from that star.  I thought I could never touch it yet something from it crosses the void and touches me.”

Stephen Hawking is in the news again as his new book, The Grand Design, is getting ready to be released.  It’s gotten some attention because of his assertion that God is not required for the Universe to exist.  In fact, he said.

"The Universe can and will create itself from nothing."

Of course, this has sparked many on the religious side to say he’s obviously wrong.  To me, it’s like the old adage about what holds the world up?  At that time it was assumed to be flat.  The answer was, it sits on the back of a turtle.  The next obvious question would be, what is the turtle sitting on?  And the answer, it’s turtles all the way down.

So the same logic can be applied here.  If God created the Universe where did God come from?  It seems the obvious answer must be, it’s Gods all the way up.

Well, from the Jehovah’s Witnesses anyway.  While I was on the phone the other day I heard a knock at my door.  I didn’t bother to answer it since I was busy, but once I got off the phone I went to the door and saw a pamphlet had been left outside.  When I retrieved it I saw the title "The WatchTower, Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom".  (I assume it was left by the Jehovah’s witnesses, but since I didn’t see them, it could have been Jehovah himself!)

Curious, I took a look inside.  One article stood out to me, entitled "A Creator Worthy of Our Praise".  It wasn’t so much the title that struck me, but the opening sentences.

"Have you ever wondered ‘What is the meaning of life?’  Those who believe that life is the result of mindless evolution grope in vain for the answer."

Really?  That’s quite a supposition.  Have they surveyed every person who accepts evolution?  Do they not realize that many religious individuals also accept evolution?  Ignoring this blatant generalization, I was curious how they would answer that question.  Certainly with an opening statement like that, they must be sure they can answer the question clearly and it must be within the article.  I didn’t have to read much farther to get their answer.

"Not so those who accept the well-established truth that Jehovah God is the Source of life."

Mkay…so from this I can gleam that they think evolution is not well established and that it is a known fact that God is the source of life.  What reference do they provide for this?  Well a bible verse of course.  Hence begins the circular logic.  They also miss the fact that evolution says nothing about the "source" of life, only its diversity.  But beyond that, even if you accept that God is the "source" of life, that does not answer the question, "What is the meaning of life?"  But they go on:

"They know that he had a purpose in creating us.  That purpose is stated at Revelation 4:11."

Now we’re getting somewhere…a defacto reference to where the meaning of life is revealed!  I pulled out my copy of the New Testament, provided to me by the Gideons when I was in 5th grade public school many years ago, and read the passage.  No comment on the constitutionality of this now…maybe for another post.

Revelations 4:11, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and dominion, because You have created all things, and by Your will they were and have been created."

Hmm…not sure I get it from that alone, it seems to me to be saying we need to worship God and give him praise because he is the creator, not telling me the meaning of life…Maybe I need to read more of the article.  They go on about how we should see the "invisible qualities" in God’s creations and how he is "deserving of our reverential respect", but nothing more about why we are here.  WAIT, here it is…clearly in the last paragraph.

"Why, then, are we here?"  The last part of Revelation 4:11 answers:  ‘Because of your will they [all created things] existed and were created.’  We did not will ourselves into existence.  We exist because of God’s will.  For this reason, life lived solely for self-interest is empty and meaningless.  To find inner peace, joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment, we need to learn what God’s will is and then bring our life into harmony with it.  Only then will we find the purpose of our creation and existence."

So there version of Revelations 4:11 is worded slightly differently than the Gideons.  Never mind that, I think we get the point.  Those who believe in "mindless" evolution obviously are self-centered people who care nothing for the rest of mankind.  And they can never have true joy or satisfaction with their lives?  Only those who reject evolution are loving caring people.

Ignoring yet another blatant generalization, they didn’t answer the question!!…it just says you have to believe in God and then decipher what his purpose for you is.  Why is it so hard to figure out?  Why isn’t God more clear about what he wants us to do?

But wait, what if there is no purpose?  What if you spend your life groping for a purpose that does not exist?  How is that a joyful, fulfilling or satisfying life?  Why not just accept that your existence is, and enjoy your life without the dogma of a religion pulling you down searching for a meaning that may not exist.

What’s wrong with being good because you care about your fellow man and understand as a society we all benefit if we work together.  Why not make the world a better place because you care about your children and your grand-children instead of because of the fear of retribution from a vengeful God?

I for one want more from a God than generalizations and demands of praise.  So until they can answer the question more concretely, I will continue to live my life and derive satisfaction, joy and fulfillment without the dogma, guilt or fear from religion.

In science education that is.  An article entitled "Why Science Standards are Important to a Strong Science Curriculum and How States Measure Up", was recently published that surveyed the states handling of Evolution in their Science curriculum.  It also compared the results to the same survey performed back in 2000 to show how things have changed.  The abstract states:

In 2000, Lawrence Lerner and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation reviewed state science standards in 49 states and the District of Columbia, specifically with respect to the coverage of evolution. We repeat his survey for all current standards publicly available as of May 2009 and discuss the history and role of state science standards in American public education. Our survey indicates that science standards tend to cover evolution more extensively than they did a decade ago, and that the average quality of the treatment has increased. However, certain types of creationist
language are also becoming more common in state standards. We also discuss the history and role of state science standards in American public education.

Sounds like a mix of both good and bad news.  But how did the individual states fare, especially Texas?  Well, as the title of this post implies, we’ve gone from a C to an F in the last decade, thanks mostly to our creationist State Board of Education and their re-writing of the science curriculum standards.  Texas is listed as "Generally comprehensive except for creationist jargon."  However, this is what they go on to say about the inclusion of creationist jargon.

"Five states, however, fail in their treatment of evolution. In these cases, the treatment of evolution is absent or made useless by the inclusion of creationist jargon and/or disclaimers.

Texas is among those five states, along with Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama and West Virginia.  Not a great group to be associated with. Hell, even Kansas gets an A.  At least it appears they woke up after their national embarrassment a few years ago.

Below is a graphic showing how all the states measure up.  Click on the thumb to view full size.

The good news is, there are a large number of states with a grade of A or B.  This gives me hope, but we really need Texas to step up and start taking the future of their children seriously.  Teaching your child superstitions and to disregard evidence is not the way to prepare them for the real world.  To try to put a positive spin on it, there is no way to go but up from here.

There are many problems with religion, but I wanted to highlight one based on this article.  It’s regarding some elementary school students in Florida who were sent home for wearing shirts that said

"Islam is of the Devil"

Now, I don’t blame the students, they are clearly too young to understand the ramifications of what they’re doing, but instead I blame their parents and religious leaders.  To begin teaching your child intolerance at this age is appalling.  And to basically use your child to make a statement like this is bordering on abuse.

It also sends the message that they think their religion is superior to any other.  And that’s one of the problems I see with religion.  All religions think they are the "true" way to salvation while every other religion is obviously misguided and in this case considered evil.  This is simply another form of tribalism which I would hope at some point we as a species can outgrow, but obviously not anytime soon.  In fact, it seems to be expanding.

Then within the article was this quote from the Senior Pastor of the church.

"Spreading the church’s message is more important that education."

Really?  I guess this goes with what religion wants.  An uneducated flock so they don’t know how to question their faith or to think rationally.  In this case, they got their wish as the students were sent home for violating the dress code of the school.

The ironic part of this is the church is called the Dove World Outreach Center.  What a great way to reach out to the world.  I’m sure this irony was missed by those in the church.

We’re about a week away from the final vote that will determine the Texas Science curriculum standards for the next 10 years.  This vote will also heavily influence what gets put into the Science textbooks students will use.  The Texas State Board of Education meeting is scheduled for next week, March 26-27th.  There have been some improvements in the standards, such as the removal of the "strengths and weaknesses" language.  But our creationist members of the board have proposed amendments to insert "sufficiency or insufficiency" language in its place.  The creationist members are trying to insert language that would allow teachers the flexibility to introduce non-scientific ideas into their classrooms.  Specifically, the idea of creationism and intelligent design.

There are some very good write-ups about this already, so I won’t go into detail but instead just refer you to the links below.

• Texas Science Standards: Game on! 
• Texas Freedom Network on Don McLeroy
• Austin American Statesman article on Don McLeroy
• Quote mining by Don McLeroy to defend his postion

What I do want to encourage is people to send emails to Don McLeroy, who is the Chairman of the Texas SBOE, reminding him of a quote he made during an interview with Texas Monthly Talks in May of 2008.  He said:

"I certainly don’t want to force my views on anybody else." – Don McLeroy

If only he would follow what he said and instead of trying to impose his personal religious views on the rest of Texas he should listen to the throngs of educators and science experts who support good science education.

All the board members use the same email address, so please enter his name in the subject line:  sboesupport@tea.state.tx.us

This can make a difference.  The overwhelming public outcry has helped so far, but until the final vote we need to keep our voices heard.