The Race to Legislate Creationism

The Politics of Primordial Ooze

by CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI

“Darwin’s theory, like all other attempts to explain the origin of life, is thus far merely conjectural.”
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, Evolution and Permanence of Type (1874)

It’s time for an update on the progress of evolution. Oklahoma and Tennessee are in a closely matched race to put a new law addressing this contentious issue on the books but who will win cannot be known at this time. Missouri is in third place.   New Hampshire and Indiana hoped to be part of the race but their efforts were sidetracked so they’re out of the running for 2012.

Oklahoma and Tennessee’s legislators’ most recent attacks on evolution started in each state’s legislative session in 2011 and were carried forward into this year’s sessions.  House Bill 1551 that has passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives and is now before the Oklahoma Senate’s Education Committee has the catchy name of the Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act.  (Bills that want creationism taught often include the word “Scientific” in their titles to give added luster to their efforts.) Its sponsors are opposed to letting teachers teach science exclusively as it is commonly accepted by those knowledgeable in the field.  The Bill says its purpose is to “create an environment within public . . . schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions. . . and respond appropriately to differences of opinion about controversial issues. . . . Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught.”  One of the scientific theories proponents of the Bill think should be thought is “creationism.”

“Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education” commented on the proposed legislation saying:  “Promoting the notion that there is some scientific controversy [about evolution] is just plain dishonest. . . .” With respect to the bill’s reference to the “weaknesses” of evolution the scientific group describes them as “phony fabrications, invented and promoted by people who don’t like evolution.”  Their comments were seconded by Douglas Mock, a Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma who said:  “Wrapped in the deceptive language of promoting critical thinking, they aim to get the nose of a malodorous camel (pseudoscience) inside the tent of science. . . . The low scientific literacy of our citizens is a serious concern that’s not helped by adding fake controversies.” 

Although it cannot be said with certainty that the bill will get through the senate and be signed by the governor, the odds would seem to be in its favor.  The Oklahoma legislature  was one of the first states in the country to  refer to voters for approval a resolution known as “Save Our State.” It was passed by 70 percent of Oklahoma voters and it forbids Oklahoma courts “from considering or using Sharia law.”  (A temporary injunction was issued against its enforcement within a few days of its approval by voters and on January 11, 2012 the injunction was made permanent by the United States Court of Appeals in Denver.) If Oklahomans can take a stand against Sharia that had never been used in its courts,  it seems like a good bet its Senate and governor will have no trouble taking a stand against evolution that its action suggest has little effect in Oklahoma.

On  March 19^th, four days after the Oklahoma House approved HB 1551 and sent it off to the Oklahoma Senate,  the Tennessee Senate passed Senate Bill 893 that is with one minor exception, a virtual carbon copy of the Oklahoma statute. The Tennessee legislation was attacked by the Tennessee Science Teachers Association as being “unnecessary, anti-scientific , and very likely unconstitutional.”  Having passed the Tennessee House it is now before the Republican controlled Senate where its approval seems assured. Tennessee’s governor has not indicated whether or not he will sign the bill.  He told  The Tennessean  that he intended to discuss the legislation with the Tennessee Board of Education before deciding whether or not to sign the Bill.   As he explained to the newspaper:  “That’s why we have a state board of education.”  There are no reports on whether the Oklahoma governor feels the need to consult with any professional or can rely on the proven good sense of the legislators.

Missouri is the other state that is currently contemplating enhancement of its curriculum by introducing alternative theories about how it all happened.  Rick Brattin, a new member of the Missouri House has introduced House Bill 1227.  The Bill would require “intelligent design” to be taught in the schools. Explaining the reason for this legislation, Mr. Brattin told the Kansas City Star that “ the jury is sill out on evolution.” (He did not say to which jury he was referring.)   He expressed dissatisfaction that “our schools only teach that we emerged from primordial ooze.  I think students should get both sides of the issue and get to come to their own conclusions.”  The Bill has been referred to the committee on Elementary and Secondary Education.

Given the history of these kinds of bills and the climate of the states in which they’re being considered, it is not unlikely that all three bills will become law.  When they emerge they will be covered with some kind of ooze.  Probably not primordial, since everyone knows there’s no such thing.

How to Make a Creationist Weep

 (And remember kids, no where in the theory of evolution does it state that man evolved from monkeys--the monkeys, the great apes, and man all evolved from the same common ancestor, not from each other. Sorry, it's a creationist pet peeve of mine.--jef)


Thursday, September 22, 2011 by The San Francisco Chronicle

by Mark Morford

 

 

Do you want to know the real reason Barack Obama is going to win the 2012 election? The big, grinning hunk of overwhelming evidence that has little to do with the not-very-terrific job he's doing and not nearly enough to do with the fact that the man has actually accomplished quite a lot, despite being savaged and hobbled and compromised at nearly every turn? 

The reason, as most comparable explanations are, is sort of awesome in its pure form power. The most interesting part is that it has almost nothing to do with Obama at all and everything to do with the fact that his opponents are, largely and comfortably, insane.
What, too harsh? Too mean? Not even close, honeybomb. 

Let me back up for a second. Because here I am, reading over this swell little science item that whipped through the newswires recently, all about how some paleoecologists just discovered some stunning prehistoric feathers locked in a tiny hunk of amber they calculate to be about, oh, 70 million years old. 

It's a fascinating little finding, really, one of thousands like it happening all the time in the science world; it tells of life long past, how protofeathers later evolved into actual feathers, how flight first came to be. Wonderful. 

Then it strikes me. There was that magic word, "evolved." Oh my sweet goddess, to many Americans, these scientists are totally lying. They are part of some mass liberal conspiracy begun hundreds if not thousands of years ago, specifically designed to ruin homeschooled kids' minds and taint the blood of virgins and demean angry Almighty God. 

Is it not true? Is this not the belief of many of the nation's current crop of top GOP presidential candidates? You bet it is. 

See Rick Perry over there? He doesn't really believe in evolution. Says "It's a theory that's out there" which "has some gaps in it," which is not even remotely true, but he's been far too busy killing inmates in his home state and rallying evangelical homophobes to, you know, care much for book learnin'. 

Perry "knows" only one thing. We came from God. That's it. He's just not really sure what happened next. Probably some combination of confused monkeys and flying iguanas and, like, oil or something. Poor Rick. The world must be so weird. 

Over there, it's Michele "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann, who, aside from being a grade-A nutball conspiracy theorist of terrifically paranoid dimensions, is an avowed creationist, believing all existence began less than 10,000 years ago, during which man and dinosaurs co-existed, prehistoric cave paintings never happened and the planets are nothing but God's little sack of marbles. 

Bachmann believes in teaching creationism in schools. She says we should "put all the science on the table and let kids decide," as if creationism has the slightest whiff of fact behind it, as if there was some sort of valid debate happening anywhere but in her own madly short-circuited brain, as if kids were somehow savvier than, say, Richard Dawkins. Isn't she adorable? Keep her away from your pets. 

Mitt Romney! He's not so bad, right? Romney actually believes evolution is fact, more or less. He believes God created everything and then, well, then Joseph Smith found it all etched on some shiny plates under a rock one day while out evading his seventeen petulant wives. Yes! Who needs creationism when you've got a whole religion to "translate" on a whim? 

Awesome. Let's sum up! To the majority of the "serious" GOP presidential hopefuls -- and let's toss Sarah "I Really Love the NBA" Palin in there for kicks and adulterous, coke-snortin' giggles -- our little 70-million-year-old golden nugget, well, it does not actually exist in current spacetime. 

It's a fake. A sham. It cannot be real. Carbon dating is a gimmick. The Ph.D scientists in question are frauds and swindlers as are the major university programs and departments to which they belong. And the media? Oh, honey. The media is clearly the devil himself for reporting such bogus findings as "fact." 

Do you see? It all provides a deliriously high level of raging ignorance against which, I firmly believe, the nation will calmly recoil when it comes time to weigh the presidential options at the polling place. 

Put the other way: No matter what you think of Obama's performance to date, the man's intelligence is undeniable, his education formidable, his values regarding science and truth unshakable. Among this gaggle of science-denying misfits, he's the only real adult in the room. 

And me, I believe in intuition. I believe in a certain collective wisdom, a deep instinct among the hoi polloi when it comes time to pull the lever. I still believe most Americans, if they actually vote, will sense at some deep level just how destructive it would be to basic human intelligence to have a single one of these mental infants at the helm. 

Of course, I said the same thing about Bush versus Gore. And Kerry. Whoops. But now the chasm is, unbelievably, even wider. 

We must be careful. We must not deride these creationist nutballs too nonchalantly. We must remember that a mere 20 years ago the vast majority of the nation, upwards of 93 percent of us, knew evolution to be a fact, and only seven percent walked around smacking themselves in the face with coloring books and wondering when Jesus was going to return with lollipops and hugs. 

And now? Bad news, America. According to a new survey, in a scant two decades, the number of Americans "uncertain" about evolution has tripled. What's worse, roughly one third of the nation believe evolution to be "absolutely false." Only Turkey ranks lower in such basic smarts. Thanks, megachurches! 

But is this sad report really irrefutable evidence that we're on a collision course with a great wall of dumb and the gas pedal is nailed to the floor and the passengers are all snorting oxycontin and chortling at Rush Limbaugh as we hurl toward the great Walmart in the sky? I'm not so sure. 

For here is our not-so-big secret. (And here, for that matter, is how to make a creationist weep. I know! Finally!) 

Tell them advanced civilizations do not ever really intellectually degenerate. Tell them that, developmentally speaking, the human brain is not really designed to unfurl and regress, to suddenly erase complex, deeply learned wisdom. It is not our nature to understand, say, electromagnetic waveform and photosynthesis and suddenly revert to thinking it's all magic fairies and gnome spit. 

You can say we will never return to slavery. Our hospitals will never again lop off gangrenous limbs with rusty hacksaws and no anesthesia. Never again will we believe the earth is flat, that we are the center of the universe, that trepanning will release evil spirits from your skull. And sorry, but we will never again believe that everything was created when angry bearded grandpa suddenly snapped his fingers and belched. 

You can thusly summarize: If the arc of history bends toward justice, it also lurches, hiccups and stumbles toward basic progressive intelligence. Barring some sort of environmental cataclysm and starting all over, there really is no going back. 

As the tears begin to flow, you can offer solace: "It's OK," you can smile, "we just evolved that way."

Top 10 Myths About Evolution...

 ...(and how we know it really happened)

1. If Humans Came From Apes, Why Aren’t Apes Evolving Into Humans?

Humans, apes, and monkeys are only distant evolutionary “cousins.” We come not from apes but from a common ancestor that was neither ape nor human that lived millions of years in the past. In fact, during the last seven million years many human-like species have evolved; some examples include Homo habilis,
Homo erectus, and Homo neanderthalensis. All of these went extinct at different times, leaving just us to share the planet with a handful of other primates.

2. There Are Too Many Gaps in the Fossil Record for Evolution to Be True

In fact, there are lots of intermediate fossils. Archaeopteryx, for example, is one of the earliest known fossil birds with a reptilian skeleton and feathers. There is now evidence that some dinosaurs had hair and feathers. Therapsids are the intermediates between reptiles and mammals, Tiktaalik is an extinct lobe-finned fish intermediate to amphibians, there are now at least six intermediate fossil stages in the evolution of whales, and in human evolution there are at least a dozen intermediate fossil stages since hominids branched off from the great apes six million years ago. Considering the exceptionally low probability that a dead plant or animal will fossilize it is remarkable we have as many fossils as we do. First the dead animal has to escape the jaws of scavengers. Then it has to be buried under the rare circumstances that will cause it to fossilize instead of decay. Geological forces have to somehow bring the fossil back to the surface to be discovered millions of years later by the handful of paleontologists looking for them.

3. If Evolution Happened Gradually Over Millions of Years Why Doesn’t the Fossil Record Show Gradual Change?

Sudden changes in the fossil record are not missing evidence of gradualism; they are extant evidence of punctuation. Species are stable over long periods of time and so they leave plenty of fossils in the strata while in their stable state. The change from one species to another, however, happens relatively quickly (on a geological time scale) in a process called punctuated equilibrium. One species can give rise to a new species when a small “founder” group breaks away and becomes isolated from the ancestral group. This new founder group, as long as it remains small and detached, may experience relatively rapid change (large populations are genetically stable). The speciational change happens so rapidly that few fossils are left to record it. But once changed into a new species, the individuals will retain their phenotype for a long time, leaving behind many well-preserved fossils. Millions of years later this process results in a fossil record that records mostly stability. The punctuation is there in between the equilibrium.

4. No One Has Ever Seen Evolution Happen

Evolution is a historical science confirmed by the fact that so many independent lines of evidence converge to this single conclusion. Independent sets of data from geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics, molecular biology, developmental biology, embryology, population genetics, genome sequencing, and many other sciences each point to the conclusion that life evolved. Creationists demand “just one fossil transitional form” that shows evolution. But evolution is not proved through a single fossil. It is proved through a convergence of fossils, along with a convergence of genetic comparisons between species, and a convergence of anatomical and physiological comparisons between species, and many other lines of inquiry. (In fact we can see evolution happen—especially among organisms with short reproductive cycles that are subject to extreme environmental pressures. Knowledge of the evolution of viruses and bacteria is vital to medical science.)

5. Science Claims That Evolution Happens by Random Chance

Natural selection is not “random” nor does it operate by “chance.” Natural selection preserves the gains and eradicates the mistakes. To illustrate this, imagine a monkey at a typewriter. In order for the monkey to type the first 13 letters of Hamlet’s soliloquy by chance, it would take 2613 number of trials for success. This is 16 times as great as the total number of seconds that have elapsed in the lifetime of the solar system. But if each correct letter is preserved and each incorrect letter eradicated, the phrase “tobeornottobe” can be “selected for” in only 335 trials, or just seconds in a computer program. Richard Dawkins defines evolution as “random mutation plus nonrandom cumulative selection.” It is the cumulative selection that drives evolution. The eye evolved from a single, light sensitive spot in a cell into the complex eye of today not by chance, but through thousands of intermediate steps, each preserved because they made a better eye. Many of these steps still exist in nature in simpler organisms.

6. Only an Intelligent Designer Could Have Made Something as Complex as an Eye

The anatomy of the human eye shows that it is anything but “intelligently designed.” It is built upside down and backwards, with photons of light having to travel through the cornea, lens, aqueous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion cells, amacrine cells, horizontal cells, and bipolar cells, before reaching the light sensitive rods and cones that convert the light signal into neural impulses, which are then sent to the visual cortex at the back of the brain for processing into meaningful patterns. For optimal vision, why would an intelligent designer have built an eye upside down and backwards? This “design” only makes sense if natural selection built eyes from available materials, and in the particular configuration of the ancestral organism’s pre-existing organic structures. The eye shows the pathways of evolutionary history, not intelligent design.

7. Evolution is Only A Theory

All branches of science are based on theories, which are grounded in testable hypothesis and explain a large and diverse body of facts about the world. A theory is considered robust if it consistently predicts new phenomena that are subsequently observed. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are explanatory ideas about those data. Constructs and other nontestable statements are not a part of science. The theory of evolution meets all the criteria of good science, as determined by Judge William Overton in the Arkansas creationism trial:

• It is guided by natural law.
• It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law.
• It is testable against the empirical world.
• Its conclusions are tentative.
• It is testable and falsifiable.

If you can find fossil mammals in the same geological strata as trilobites then evolution would be falsified. No one has ever found such contradictory data.

8. Evidence for Human Evolution Has Turned Out to Be Fake, Frauds, or Fanciful
Eager to discredit evolution, creationists ignore hominid fossil discoveries and cherry pick examples of hoaxes and mistakes in the belief that mistakes in science are a sign of weakness. This is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of science, which constantly advances by using both its mistakes and the successes. Its ability to build cumulatively on the past is how science progresses. The self-correcting feature of the scientific method is one of its most powerful assets. Hoaxes like Piltdown Man, and honest mistakes like Nebraska Man, Calaveras Man, and Hespero-pithecus, are, in time, corrected. In fact, it wasn’t creationists who exposed these errors, it was scientists who did so. Creationists simply read about the scientific exposé of these errors, and then duplicitously claimed them as their own.

9 The Second Law of Thermodynamics Proves That Evolution is Impossible
The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed, isolated systems. Since the Earth receives a constant input of energy from the sun—it is an open-dissipative system—entropy may decrease and order increase (though the sun itself is running down in the process). Thus, the Earth is not strictly a closed system and life may evolve without violating natural law. As long as the sun is burning, life may continue thriving and evolving, just like automobiles may be prevented from rusting, burgers can be heated in ovens, and all manner of things in apparent violation of Second Law entropy may continue. But as soon as the sun burns out, entropy will take its course and life on Earth will cease.

10. Evolution Can’t Account For Morality
As a social primate species we evolved a deep sense of right and wrong in order to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation, and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. As well, evolution created the moral emotions that tell us that lying, adultery, and stealing are wrong because they destroy trust in human relationships that depend on truth-telling, fidelity, and respect for property. It would not be possible for a social primate species to survive without some moral sense. On the constitution of human nature is built the constitutions of human societies.

The Dumbing Down of America

Saturday, February 5, 2011 by The Miami Herald
by Leonard Pitts Jr.

ITEM: Only 28 percent of high school science teachers consistently follow National Research Council guidelines encouraging them to present students with evidence of evolution. Thirteen percent ``explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design.''

These are among the findings of Penn State political scientists Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer after examining data from a representative survey of 926 high school biology teachers. Writing in the Jan. 28 issue of Science magazine, they report that most science teachers -- 60 percent -- cheat controversy by such stratagems as telling students it does not matter if they ``believe'' in evolution, so long as they understand enough to pass a test. Or they teach evolution on a par with creationism and encourage students to make up their own minds.

* * *

Once upon a time, there lived a stupid giant.

The giant had not always been stupid. Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say the giant had once revered intelligence, reason and the byproducts thereof. Indeed, the giant was renowned for an ingenuity and standard of living that made it the envy of the world.

But much of the world did more than envy the giant. Much of the world admired and respected it. Its basic decency, along with its strength and intelligence, set it apart.

There came a time, however, when, though the giant retained its strength and arguably even its decency, it lost its intelligence.

No one can say exactly how and when the loss occurred. There was no great blast of thunder and lightning to herald it, no sudden instant when the giant's intelligence plummeted dramatically from the instant before.

No, stupidity crept over the giant with the stealth of twilight, a product less of one abrupt moment than of a thousand moments of complacency, of resting on laurels, of allowing curiosity to be teased and bullied out of bright children, of dumbing down textbooks so kids could get better grades with less work, of using ``smart'' like a curse word. And, of behaving as if knowing things, and being able to extrapolate from and otherwise make critical use of, the things one knows, was a betrayal of some fundamental human authenticity -- some need to keep it real.

Stupidity stole over the giant until it could no longer tell science from faith, or conventional wisdom from actual wisdom and in any event, valued ideological purity above them all. Stupidity snaked over the giant until science teachers shrank from teaching science, history books contained history that wasn't history, late-night comics got easy laughs from people on the street who could not say when the War of 1812 was fought, political leaders told outright lies with blithe smiles and no fear of being caught and you would not have been surprised to hear that someone had fixed mathematics, so that 2+2 could now equal 17, thus preserving the all-important self esteem of second-grade kids.

Some regarded the giant's stupidity as a danger. They reasoned that when one is so big that one's merest movement or slightest utterance affects the entire world, it's a good idea if those movements and utterances are animated by something more than autonomic function.

Others saw the giant's stupidity as an opportunity. They learned eagerly until they surpassed the giant's intellect. They grew until they rivaled the giant's size and strength. They did not attempt to match the giant's decency. They considered decency a hindrance.

And the giant? It sat on its haunches in the mud as the world changed about it and new giants rose and shook their fists. The giant did not notice. It was watching The Jersey Shore on MTV.

And it lived obliviously ever after.

Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism

Belief in evolutionary origins of humans slowly rising, however
by Frank Newport - December 17, 2010

PRINCETON, NJ -- Four in 10 Americans, slightly fewer today than in years past, believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago. Thirty-eight percent believe God guided a process by which humans developed over millions of years from less advanced life forms, while 16%, up slightly from years past, believe humans developed over millions of years, without God's involvement.

A small minority of Americans hold the "secular evolution" view that humans evolved with no influence from God -- but the number has risen from 9% in 1982 to 16% today. At the same time, the 40% of Americans who hold the "creationist" view that God created humans as is 10,000 years ago is the lowest in Gallup's history of asking this question, and down from a high point of 47% in 1993 and 1999. There has been little change over the years in the percentage holding the "theistic evolution" view that humans evolved under God's guidance.

Americans' views on human origins vary significantly by level of education and religiosity. Those who are less educated are more likely to hold a creationist view. Those with college degrees and postgraduate education are more likely to hold one of the two viewpoints involving evolution.

Americans who attend church frequently are most likely to accept explanations for the origin of humans that involve God, not a surprising finding. Still, the creationist viewpoint, held by 60% of weekly churchgoers, is not universal even among the most highly religious group. Also, about a fourth of those who seldom or never attend church choose the creationist view.

The significantly higher percentage of Republicans who choose a creationist view of human origins reflects in part the strong relationship between religion and politics in contemporary America. Republicans are significantly more likely to attend church weekly than are others, and, as noted, Americans who attend church weekly are most likely to select the creationist alternative for the origin of humans.

Implications
Most Americans believe in God, and about 85% have a religious identity. It is not surprising as a result to find that about 8 in 10 Americans hold a view of human origins that involves actions by God -- that he either created humans as depicted in the book of Genesis, or guided a process of evolution. What no doubt continues to surprise many scientists is that 4 out of 10 Americans believe in the first of these explanations.

These views have been generally stable over the last 28 years. Acceptance of the creationist viewpoint has decreased slightly over time, with a concomitant rise in acceptance of a secular evolution perspective. But these shifts have not been large, and the basic structure of beliefs about human beings' origins is generally the same as it was in the early 1980s.

Americans' attitudes about almost anything can and often do have political consequences. Views on the origins of humans are no exception. Debates and clashes over which explanations for human origins should be included in school textbooks have persisted for decades. With 40% of Americans continuing to hold to an anti-evolutionary belief about the origin of humans, it is highly likely that these types of debates will continue.

Doonsbury on Creationists

Creationism

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A Victory for Texas School Children

McLeroy upset in SBOE elections
By Kate Alexander | Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 01:35 AM

Thomas Ratliff upset State Board of Education member Don McLeroy in a Republican primary nail-biter.

McLeroy, a dentist from Bryan, lost by about 800 votes. No Democrat has filed for the District 9 race so Ratliff will take the seat next year.

Appointed board chairman in 2007, McLeroy has been the poster-child for the board’s conservative bloc with his affable tone but strident ideology. Last year, his nomination as chairman was blocked by Democrats in the Texas Senate.

His defeat is substantial blow to the conservatives, who have largely driven the recent rewrites of curriculum standards. Ratliff, son of former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, has made it clear that he will be a more moderate vote on the closely divided 15-member board.

*****************************

Why is this a victory for Texas school children?

from Wikipedia:

In 2003 McLeroy led efforts by proponents of creationism and intelligent design to de-emphasize discussion of evolution in proposed new biology textbooks. He was one of only four board members who voted against biology textbooks that year that included a full account of evolution.[15]

Over objections by experts in 2004, McLeroy voted to approve health textbooks that stress "abstinence-only" in regard to instruction about pregnancy and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.[15]

In 2005, McLeroy conducted a sermon in his church, talking about the Board of Education, saying naturalism is "the enemy" and he said: "Why is Intelligent Design the big tent? Because we’re all lined up against the fact that naturalism, that nature is all there is. Whether you’re a progressive creationist, recent creationist, young earth, old earth, it’s all in the tent of Intelligent Design."[16] An mp3 of the sermon remains online[6] as well as McLeroy's powerpoint[17] and notes.[18]

According to a 2008 article in The New York Times, "Dr. McLeroy believes that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. 'I believe a lot of incredible things,' he said, 'The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.'”[19] McLeroy's statements regarding science have been criticized.[20] McLeroy and other Board members who want to challenge evolution have received criticism from more than fifty scientific organizations over an attempt to weaken science standards on evolution.[21] In particular, biologist Kenneth R. Miller called McLeroy's statements on science "breathtakingly" incorrect.[22]