CFI attacks dismissal of Texas educator for her pro-evolution actions

Scholars at the Center for Inquiry (CFI) were dismayed that the Texas Education Agency forced a distinguished educator out of her job because she spoke favorably of evolution and forwarded messages about lectures on evolution. Christine Castillo Comer, with more than three decades of experience as an educator, was recently forced out of her position as the state's director of science curricula after she forwarded an e-mail message about a talk to be given at CFI/Austin by Barbara Forrest, a critic of intelligent design. Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, is a fellow at the Center for Inquiry and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

CFI's director of research and legal affairs, Ronald A. Lindsay, said he believed Comer's legal rights may have been violated. "But regardless of the legality of the state's actions," he said, "it is incredible that in the twenty-first century an educator would be punished for saying something favorable about evolution. Does an educator have to be silent about the existence of pathogens or about [the] truth that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not vice-versa? It appears that the Texas Taliban now controls education in that state."

Forrest authored a position paper titled "Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement" released by CFI this past July. It's available online at http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/intelligent-design.pdf. In the paper, she provided an insightful analysis of the intelligent design (ID) movement. She demonstrated convincingly that the ID movement is simply a continuation of Creationism. (Her related article "The 'Vise Strategy' Undone: Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District" was published in the January/ February 2007 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.)

Experts at CFI warn that Corner's recent experiences with authorities from the Texas Education Agency may indicate an insidious agenda on the part of certain parties within the Austin educational system to introduce students to intelligent design via the state science curriculum. Comer pointed out to the New York Times (December 2, 2007) that "state education officials seemed uneasy lately over the required evolution curriculum."

CFI chairman and founder Paul Kurtz said the foundations of our democratic society are now under attack. "The social and scientific progress we take for granted has been advanced by a basic scientific philosophical point of view: scientific naturalism," said Kurtz. "The methods of the sciences, and the assumptions upon which they are based, are being challenged culturally in the United States today as never before. Despite its success in providing us with unparalleled benefits, religious fundamentalists seek to inhibit free inquiry and to misrepresent the tested conclusions of scientific naturalism. This is a highly charged political issue--both science and secularism are under political attack. We seem not to have come far culturally since the Scopes 'monkey' trial if educators risk their jobs promoting academic lectures on scientifically uncontroversial topics."

Others likewise slammed the action. John Young of the Waco Tribune-Herald wrote a sarcastic column. "Imagine. Someone devoted to real science forwarding an e-mail about someone devoted to the same thing." This, he says, was "unfathomable ... an offense that calls for termination."

Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education said Comer lost her job due to "the politicalization of science education." Steve Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, said Comer now joins the ranks of "martyrs of science, much like Galileo and Nickolai Vavilov," who was jailed by Stalinist Russia for studying genetics.

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