Stephen Hawking; Texas SBOE; FrontBurner comments

The Nightly Build

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News of His Death Exaggerated

The famous physicist Stephen Hawking was taken to hospital Monday and was reported to be "very ill." On Tuesday, he was reported to be resting comfortably and his family is looking forward to his complete recovery, according to a statement issued by Cambridge University.

How did local media cover the story? Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, headlined his thoughts, "Stephen Hawking: obit editorial material?" When readers objected to "yack[ing] up someone's obituary before they're dead", Dreher deftly laid off responsibility on his co-workers: "Keven said we should take this to the blog. She was right to do so, because (as Nicole put it), part of this blog's raison d'etre is to show readers how we do our jobs."

Discussing the guidelines the paper uses to decide which figures merit an obit editorial is a fair subject for this blog.

Assigning writers to prepare obit editorials well in advance for significant public figures who may merit an obit editorial is sensible.

But asking the blog, whether a particular person who takes ill merits an obit editorial should he die, is in bad taste. That's true whether or not it's consistent with the purpose of the blog.

Now that we've settled that it's too early to talk about Stephen Hawking's obituary, is it too late to ask that The Dallas Morning News revive its Science section?

P.S. Kudos to Trey Garrison, who caught Dreher explaining that whether or not a famous person's death merits an editorial often comes down to a "matter of space and timing." "You did that on purpose" Garrison said.

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Terri Leo on the Defensive

The Texas State Board of Education recently took votes to decide the standards for science textbooks used in Texas schools. Conservatives on the SBOE have long championed language that requires textbooks teach "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories such as evolution. Scientists have no objection to teaching strengths and weaknesses, but some do object to non-scientists like the SBOE members using such language to push schools to teach non-scientific notions such as Creationism, or its pseudo-scientific variant, intelligent design.

The recent SBOE votes on new standards were mixed. Creationists were unsuccessful in retaining the old "strengths and weaknesses" language in the science standards. But the Creationists were successful in inserting similar language requiring Texas students learn "all sides of scientific evidence." Again, there's nothing wrong with that, provided that Creationism and intelligent design are not passed off as scientific.

Will Lutz Terri Leo, a Creationist member of the SBOE, goes on the attack in an op-ed column in Dallas Blog (naturally!). Or is she on the defensive? She objects to recent moves in Austin to shift some responsibilities away from the SBOE. SB 2275, for example, would take away from the SBOE authority over curriculum and texbooks.

Leo defends the SBOE and its anti-scientific actions. She says it is popularly elected (as if scientific questions are best answered by popular vote). She says the SBOE holds public hearings at which all sides are presented (she doesn't say expert opinion is consistently ignored by some members). She says the SBOE has accomplished much (like suppressing environmentalism and multi-culturalism in schools).

But it's what she doesn't say that is the tell-tale sign that she and the Creationists on the SBOE are on the defensive. She doesn't bring up evolution or intelligent design at all. Perhaps the SBOE has finally gone too far, their attempts to push Creationism in public schools have finally gotten the public's attention, the legislature is finally saying enough is enough. It's time to put science curriculum and textbook decision back in the hands of experienced educators and scientific experts and take it away from ideological politicians like Terri Leo.

P.S. Texas voters can end this educational travesty once and for all by voting to remove these members from the SBOE as their terms expire: Terri Leo, David Bradley, Barbara Cargill, Cynthia Dunbar, Gail Lowe, Don McLeroy and Ken Mercer. Do it for the sake of quality science education in Texas.

Correction: The Dallas Blog article was apparently written by Will Lutz, not Terri Leo. See the comments for more information.

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"Shut up he explained"

Wick Allison, publisher of D Magazine announced on its FrontBurner blog today that henceforth, reader comments will be disabled.

"Many of our commenters have been thoughtful and intelligent, but as months turned into years, Gresham's Law took hold. Comments became increasingly intemperate, irrelevant, and illiterate. Some good people hung on, but many good people left. The concept of user-generated content is fine -- for other Internet sites. But for ours, it has not been a successful experiment."

Like no one could see that coming. FrontBurner, which prides itself on being a "snarky celebration of ignorance," becomes overwhelmed by ignorant, snarky readers. Poetic justice. Hoist on his own petard and all that.

Are there alternatives? Allison hints that, in time, FrontBurner may be technologically capable of allowing comments from invited participants. Perhaps FrontBurner will consider a system like Yahoo! Groups, which can be set to require comments from new readers to be approved before being posted. Readers who demonstrate their ability to be thoughtful would be approved to post directly. Or perhaps FrontBurner will consider a system like Slashdot's, where reader comments are rated and, by default, only the highest rated are visible. Or perhaps FrontBurner is just not interested in readers' opinions. This latest action is the equivalent of Wick Allison sticking his fingers in his ears and saying, "Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. I can't hear you!" Which, come to think of it, is a snarky celebration of ignorance, as well.