1. Comment #161581 by steve8282 on April 15, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Is there any more detail backing the reason for this up?


Unless she gave them somthing else to hang her, I think this would be better than winning the lottery in Merca, home of the lawsuit.

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2. Comment #161586 by Gymnopedie on April 15, 2008 at 12:30 pm

I thought this crap would end after Dover.

What the hell?

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3. Comment #161595 by Mitchell Gilks on April 15, 2008 at 12:40 pm

I seen a new lawsuit crowning the horizon! They should make a movie "Science education: No science allowed"

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4. Comment #161614 by Styrer- on April 15, 2008 at 12:59 pm

While I am sure our US members will have ideas on making suitably loud noises over there, and on who should be hearing them, I wonder if there is any advice for a willing European as to how to join in the fray?

This is an absolute disgrace, my hackles are risen and I'd be grateful for any contact information.

No doubt the magnificent Eugenie Scott will be involved in securing justice for poor Ms. Comer, but as wide an attack as possible is surely nonetheless in order.

Best,
Styrer

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5. Comment #161627 by JayLee on April 15, 2008 at 1:09 pm

The title of this news blurb is not accurate. Comer was NOT fired for not teaching ID. She was fired for forwarding an email that suggested she wasn't neutral about the issue. Being fired under the circumstances is bad enough. Texas does not advocate ID or require it to be taught anywhere. Please get your facts straight. Advocates of ID are attempting the same stupid things they try in other states re education. This is certainly an attempt to influence the educational system but it wasn't an attack on a teacher. For accurate information see:

http://www.texscience.org/

"The Mexican government has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, the public domain, and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government."

Texas Declaration of Independence
March 2, 1836

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6. Comment #161630 by haris on April 15, 2008 at 1:11 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Comer
Is this the person?

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7. Comment #161633 by MelM on April 15, 2008 at 1:13 pm

This story isn't accurate. She was a memeber of a Texas state committee. It was a big shot at the state level who came up with the neutral bit. Because of her position, the consequences are worse than if it had been a teacher firing. I'll see if I can find a link.

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8. Comment #161637 by will young on April 15, 2008 at 1:15 pm

"We must stand up and keeps science out of our public science education."

Huh?
Somebody slap me upside the head or translate this for me because either I'm way too dense this afternoon or something is missing here.

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9. Comment #161638 by MelM on April 15, 2008 at 1:15 pm

haris,

Yes, she's the one. Good link.

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10. Comment #161642 by rod-the-farmer on April 15, 2008 at 1:18 pm

Yes, is this not old news, with a new YouTube video ? I thought we all got fired up about this back in November 2007, and applied pressure where we thought appropriate. IS there some new news here ?

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11. Comment #161645 by will young on April 15, 2008 at 1:19 pm

This has already been discussed here...

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1941,Evolution-Debate-Led-to-Ouster-Official-Says,The-AP

Nice to see the person speak for herself though.

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12. Comment #161646 by akado on April 15, 2008 at 1:19 pm

hmph.....pitiful

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13. Comment #161647 by eclampusvitus on April 15, 2008 at 1:20 pm

This is outrageous. I certainly hope Ms. Comer pursues a legal remedy.

ECV

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14. Comment #161648 by Tezcatlipoca on April 15, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Hey JayLee

"educated and enlightended"? In Texas? With a post taken from the Texas declaration of independence? So they justify with words the kind of land grab Hitler was guilty of 100 years later. What did they need? Breathing room?

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15. Comment #161651 by cam9976 on April 15, 2008 at 1:25 pm

Wasn't this settled in Pennsylvania?

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16. Comment #161653 by MelM on April 15, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Here's a link to the NCSE story along with the e-mail at issue.

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2007/TX/950_texas_education_official_force_11_29_2007.asp

will young (#161645 by will young)
found the old Dawkins link.

Recently, some important elections results in Texas were pro-evolution.

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17. Comment #161661 by will young on April 15, 2008 at 1:33 pm

The (suspected) real reason she was forced to resign. It wasn't because of the eMail...

http://www.washingtonspectator.com/articles/20080101evolution.cfm

(starts five or so paragraphs into the article)

Comer has said that since her resignation, many teachers in rural Texas have told her that they are being forced to teach creationism.

Baja Oklahoma is getting more like my Tulsa, and that ain't a good thing.

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18. Comment #161663 by thewhitepearl on April 15, 2008 at 1:38 pm

Here is a copy of the actual email that was sent:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/education/chris-comers-actual-email/

I live in Dallas (Tx) and have not heard of any recent news on the subject. It's something I should look into.

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19. Comment #161666 by Chris Jackson on April 15, 2008 at 1:41 pm

This is absolutely abhorrent. Not only are the IDiot clan foisting their mumbo-jumbo on the world of science, but they're also strong-arming out any opposition? There aren't exclamations strong enough to express my rage at this. What gives these people the right to not only break the traditional non-overlapping magisterium agreement, but also to attack the truth of the matter.

It's fair enough if creationists and other invertebrates want to tout their own specific brand of Bronze-age ignorance, that's their right. But to actively attack schoolteachers for not being neutral? I'm incandescent. Show me someone who can remain neutral over the issue of creationism, and I'll show you an ignorant c**t.

This just ruined my night.

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20. Comment #161667 by Tezcatlipoca on April 15, 2008 at 1:42 pm

-Will Young-

Thanks for the link. I claim "Shenanigans!" on Texas. (My state of birth...besides alive, human and male...)

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21. Comment #161673 by exquisitetruth on April 15, 2008 at 1:50 pm

I've had the link to expelledexposed.com on my site for weeks. Ben Stein has paid so much money that I can't keep his banner off of it.

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22. Comment #161674 by rod-the-farmer on April 15, 2008 at 1:50 pm

I note that the person who actually forced Ms. Comer out, has a degree in political science (there's that word again) yet no background in education, and worked for President Bush in Texas. Good thing I am not a Texas resident or I would be all over this like a rash.

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20080410&name=Bizarro

Thanks to Dan Piraro for the above. Somewhat relevant.

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23. Comment #161678 by MorituriMax on April 15, 2008 at 1:53 pm

Please tell me there are lawyers who are going to jump in and help this woman? Maybe the people who cracked the whip on ID with Judge Jones should get in touch with her, if they aren't already.

Geez, what's left, voodoo rites being required curriculum in medical school?

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24. Comment #161691 by JayLee on April 15, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Tezcatlipoca,

My bad. I forgot "educated and enlightened" can't possibly be associated with Texas. It isn't politically correct and certainly doesn't fit in the dogma associated with this website.

I apologize. I had forgotten that comments are only welcome from the converted. I will never, ever post again in fear of your rapier wit and powerful intellect. Please post a website where I can purchase a compilation of Tezcatlipoca's Thoughts on Everything.

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25. Comment #161702 by Double Bass Atheist on April 15, 2008 at 2:13 pm

This story was originally posted here last December 4:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1953,Evolution-and-Texas,NY-Times

...and it's just as irritating the second time around!

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26. Comment #161722 by D'Arcy on April 15, 2008 at 2:31 pm

I believe I made a similar comment on the above link (Double Bass Atheist 25):

Surely there are enough guns in Texas to shoot down this nonsense. Everything's bigger in Texas, including the lies.

6004 year old Earth (plus universe)? Now that is a LIE. But since when did Christians ever worry about lying? They don't even believe in their own commandments.

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27. Comment #161730 by Tezcatlipoca on April 15, 2008 at 2:39 pm

JayLee,

A "Don't mess with Texas" would have sufficed...geez...hahaha!

"brevity is the soul of wit" after all!

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28. Comment #161751 by MelM on April 15, 2008 at 3:48 pm

What's "news" in this is the link to NCSE's new "EXPELLED EXPOSED" web site. It even looks into the real stories behind the people that were "expelled." Check it out.

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

I think this new web site really should have been the main point of this post.

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29. Comment #161764 by JayLee on April 15, 2008 at 4:19 pm

I've noticed that the movie trailer has been running for Expelled Exposed. What happened to the lawsuit re the plagiarism? Was there some talk that the lawsuit might delay the movie opening?

The movie trailer that I saw featured Ben Stein and mentioned little about the content. People could easily be misled about the nature of the movie.

When I asked other professors what they knew about the "Ben Stein movie" none of them had heard anything. Hope it flops.

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30. Comment #161794 by mrgoodjob on April 15, 2008 at 5:18 pm

She'll be offered a better job teaching somewhere else for more money, write at least one book, be paid for public appearances, and be recognized for as hero... Good for her!

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31. Comment #161798 by black wolf on April 15, 2008 at 5:28 pm

Over at Panda's Thumb someone listed cases of teachers and scientists who were expelled, threatened, injured and even killed for their views. There are 11 people on the list so far. Even if all the stories the ID/creationist people mentioned were accurate, which they are evidentially not, they would still be significantly behind in 'body count'.

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32. Comment #161806 by riki on April 15, 2008 at 5:43 pm

They should be sued for 'wrongful dismissal'.

BTW looks like the http://www.expelledexposed.com/ site is down with database problems.

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33. Comment #161931 by dragonfirematrix on April 15, 2008 at 8:47 pm

This sounds like something the Islamic would do.

Religion should be banned.

Science is The Truth, The Light, and The Way. No person comes unto the truth except by proof.

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34. Comment #161956 by madame_zora on April 15, 2008 at 9:20 pm

Banning just makes martyrs, we need to ridicule religion into oblivion so that people are too embarrassed to admit they believe in the great faerie in the sky.

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35. Comment #161973 by MorituriMax on April 15, 2008 at 10:31 pm

I still love the commercial I keep seeing where Stein asks the Professor how life began...

D'Oh! Must be the world record for how fast can we imply Evolution = Abiogenesis in the creationist mind. And act like it is what Evolution is actually about...

"And on the 7th day... God created Fossils!"

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36. Comment #161978 by will young on April 15, 2008 at 11:26 pm

On the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed...

"If you take a look at the career trajectory of Ben Stein, all signs point to natural selection rather than intelligent design." - Film critic Richard Horgan, FilmStew.com

"The man made famous by Ferris Bueller, however, quickly wades into waters far too deep for him." - Film critic Jeffrey Kluger, Time Magazine

via RottenTomatoes.com and so far they're 3 for 3 thumbs down!

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37. Comment #162008 by robotaholic on April 16, 2008 at 2:01 am

she should lose weight- they fired her because she's fat- atheism is just an excuse

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38. Comment #162010 by lievemebe on April 16, 2008 at 2:03 am

It is difficult to see how the TEA expects anyone to be neutral on the subject of Intelligent Design. Balancing on an politically correct tightrope is not conducive to education. I feel for Texas teachers in such a dreadful situation.

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39. Comment #162017 by Christopher Davis on April 16, 2008 at 2:15 am

Here's my question...What if Comer had sent an e-mail informing people of a speaker who was going to talk about the tradgedy of the Holocaust? After all,some people deny it happened.

If the TEA has to remain neutral regarding science wouldn't it be required to remain neutral about history?

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40. Comment #162019 by bamboospitfire on April 16, 2008 at 2:20 am

Justin Chang of Variety wrote:

Stein does find some eloquent ID supporters in movement co-founder Stephen C. Meyer, Paris-based mathematician David Berlinski and Oxford professor Alister McGrath, who argue that scientists have become slaves to their own dogma, willingly misreading the evidence to support their claims. Pic is most compelling when it contrasts this level-headed reasoning with the vitriol of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, whose brief screen time constitutes a thorny, fascinating study of atheism taken to hateful extremes.

Is that so? I wonder what Professor Dawkins thinks of Chang's comments... I would be particularly interested to know whether the Professor even mentioned atheism during the clips of his interview. If not, it would leave Chang looking rather prejudiced...

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41. Comment #162037 by PJG on April 16, 2008 at 3:10 am

How about this being shown after every showing of "Expelled" - or better still, after every trailer, advert or mention of his film?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNGK3y5Ypg

Edit - yes, I know there is a slight inaccuracy or two - "evolution" wasn't first proposed by Darwin - but you get the point of the video!

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42. Comment #162057 by Edouard Pernod on April 16, 2008 at 4:49 am

This is no surprise to me. In 1993 in my 10th grade Biology class at a public school called Ooltewah High School in Tennessee, my "Biology" teacher started out the class this way: He told us all to turn to chapter 8 of our text books, so we did, and saw that it was the chapter on Evolution. He then took out a roll of electrical tape, and wrapped it around that chapter in his teacher's edition of the text, and said "We won't be going over this chapter in class because we know man didn't come from no monkey". Several in the class clapped, but I did not.

His name was Jim Lovell. I'm not sure if he's still refusing to teach science to children as a science teacher, but it's probably worth looking into. I was too busy with other class work to look into Evolution on my own, and unfortunately didn't get to learn more about it until late in college, and I felt behind all the other students in class thanks to the Creationist ignoramus that taught my 10th grade "biology" class.

I hope this brave woman in Texas sues the school for wrongfully terminating her. This doesn't even really have anything to do with atheism, but has to do with the even bigger issue of teaching science that student's MUST know if they are to excel at science on a college level, and stupid Creationist cretins can't even tolerate that. It always greatly upsets me when I see taxpayer funded educational establishments aggressively defending ignorance and trying to imbue that ignorance into innocent children.

What a bunch of pricks.

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43. Comment #162062 by Double Bass Atheist on April 16, 2008 at 5:24 am

Comment #162057 by Edouard Pernod

This is no surprise to me. In 1993 in my 10th grade Biology class at a public school called Ooltewah High School in Tennessee, my "Biology" teacher started out the class this way: He told us all to turn to chapter 8 of our text books, so we did, and saw that it was the chapter on Evolution. He then took out a roll of electrical tape, and wrapped it around that chapter in his teacher's edition of the text, and said "We won't be going over this chapter in class because we know man didn't come from no monkey". Several in the class clapped, but I did not.

His name was Jim Lovell.

What a crime!
Looks like Science was "Expelled" from your school.

Question:
If Evolution is part of public school's core curriculum, how can a teacher simply refuse to teach said curriculum? This could/should be cause for disciplinary action. After all, that is why state school boards set the core curriculum in all subjects... it is supposed to insure that all subject matter is covered.

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44. Comment #162076 by Saerain on April 16, 2008 at 6:10 am

43. Comment #162062 by Double Bass Atheist on April 16, 2008 at 5:24 am

Question:
If Evolution is part of public school's core curriculum, how can a teacher simply refuse to teach said curriculum?

Answer:
Tennessee.

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45. Comment #162199 by Epinephrine on April 16, 2008 at 10:08 am

My understanding of the situation was that she was fired for passing on information about an anti-ID talk, using her work email.

It wasn't about her not teaching creationism in science class, unless things have changed since I last read about her case.

I'm not suggesting that the TEA were in the right (they most definitely are imbeciles), but I'd like to be clear on what the issue actually is; the article text above says

Chris Comer, a Science Teacher in Texas was Expelled for not teaching Intelligent Design in her science class. It's a scary day indeed when our science teachers get fired for recognizing that creationism is not science.

and if that's not the case it should be removed - we don't need to distort the truth, it's already bad enough.

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46. Comment #162246 by MelM on April 16, 2008 at 12:35 pm

Here's a YouTube audio session of Mark Mathis with some Scientific American editors. Mathis showed the film to the editors. It's on the "Atheist Media Blog" site:

http://atheistmedia.blogspot.com/2008/04/scientific-american-vs-mark-mathis.html

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47. Comment #162295 by post-theological on April 16, 2008 at 2:15 pm

Slightly off-topic, but the tv advertising has started running for Expelled, anyone else notice? I saw Richard on tv for the first time; that made me smile. The rest of the commercial was slightly amusing, and if I didn't already know better, I might be tempted to go see it.

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48. Comment #162324 by Border Collie on April 16, 2008 at 3:24 pm

I'm a Texan and this is embarrassing ... Though certified, it's why I'll never teach in Texas public schools ... can't teach truth any longer ... except the truth as defined by a bunch of microcephalics ...
Even if she did break some little piss-ant rule like Epinephrine says, it's nothing to be fired over. Look at the tectonics, the trends, of the situation, not the minutiae. This is not the first time something similar has happened in Texas public schools. Teachers should have freedom of communication and expression, not simply be megaphones for the dictates, paradigms and propaganda of the state.
If someone wants to learn about ID and creationism, fine with me, GO TO CHURCH!

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49. Comment #162354 by A on April 16, 2008 at 5:47 pm

>>We must stand up and keeps science out of our public science education. <<

What does this concluding line even mean ?

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50. Comment #162357 by chuckgoecke on April 16, 2008 at 6:05 pm

When this story broke, I fired off a livid letter to this women's supervisory chain, and to the Dallas Morning News letters to the editor. I'm a parent of high schoolers in an affluent Dallas suburb, so this crap directly affects me. Never heard a peep back from any of them, bastards!

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