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108-719: The district operates 2 campuses - In 2009, the school district was rated " recognized " by the Texas Education Agency . The district changed to a four-day school week in fall 2022. Students in Graford earn scores near local region and statewide averages on standardized tests. In 2018-2019 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) results, 75% of students in Graford ISD met Approaches Grade Level standards, compared with 79% in Region 11 and 78% in

216-472: A false dichotomy in the premise that evidence against evolution constitutes evidence for design. In 1910, evolution was not a topic of major religious controversy in America, but in the 1920s, the fundamentalist–modernist controversy in theology resulted in fundamentalist Christian opposition to teaching evolution and resulted in the origins of modern creationism. As a result, teaching of evolution

324-533: A tautology ; in his view, these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the Universe is able to support life. The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible: life as we know it might not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. A number of critics also suggest that many of

432-609: A Chief of School Safety and Security within the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to coordinate efforts across various agencies and divisions, ensuring effective implementation of safety policies and best practices. This position was to report directly to the Commissioner and have a direct line to the Governor’s Office, enhancing communication and collaboration without duplicating existing work. Abbott underscored

540-513: A conference titled "Sources of Information Content in DNA" in Tacoma , Washington . Stephen C. Meyer was at the conference, and later recalled that "The term intelligent design came up..." In December 1988 Thaxton decided to use the label "intelligent design" for his new creationist movement. Of Pandas and People was published in 1989, and in addition to including all the current arguments for ID,

648-511: A direct line to the Governor’s Office. He will coordinate safety efforts among multiple state agencies and school districts. Governor Abbott has also outlined significant actions to support the Uvalde community and enhance school safety statewide, including financial investments, mental health services, and legislative initiatives. The mission of the Office of School Safety and Security is to build

756-455: A federal investigation. State education officials set an arbitrary limit of 8.5% for the number of students who could receive special education services. By strictly enforcing district compliance with the benchmark, the rate of students receiving special education in Texas fell to 8.5% in 2015, far below the national average of 13%. School districts implemented a wide range of practices to reduce

864-527: A former education board chairman who was the leader of the conservative bloc. Ratliff said in 2013 that the board is "far different" in political complexion that it was in 2010. In 2022, the GOP captured an additional seat, bringing their total to 10 of the 15-member board. Many are social conservatives, campaigning against critical race theory and gender identity lessons. [1] To serve the large number of individual school districts and charter schools in Texas, TEA

972-776: A less than 1 in 10 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a tautology : complex specified information cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature. The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument has been discredited in the scientific and mathematical communities. Specified complexity has yet to be shown to have wide applications in other fields, as Dembski asserts. John Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry characterize Dembski's "explanatory filter" as eliminative because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. They argue that this procedure

1080-401: A letter dated June 9, 2022, to Commissioner Morath, Governor Abbott emphasized the urgent need to prevent future tragedies like the one in Uvalde by enhancing school safety measures. Despite the comprehensive school safety and mental health legislation passed in 2019 and subsequent efforts, he stated that further actions were necessary before the next school year. Abbott called for the creation of

1188-550: A logical proof." Irreducible complexity has remained a popular argument among advocates of intelligent design; in the Dover trial , the court held that "Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large." In 1986, Charles B. Thaxton, a physical chemist and creationist, used the term "specified complexity" from information theory when claiming that messages transmitted by DNA in

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1296-415: A new lexicon of creationist terminology to oppose evolution without using religious language. It was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its primary present use, as stated both by its publisher Jon A. Buell, and by William A. Dembski in his expert witness report for Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District . The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has criticized

1404-428: A perfect Creation and proposes that designers do not necessarily produce the best design they can. Behe suggests that, like a parent not wanting to spoil a child with extravagant toys, the designer can have multiple motives for not giving priority to excellence in engineering. He says that "Another problem with the argument from imperfection is that it critically depends on a psychoanalysis of the unidentified designer. Yet

1512-519: A powerful force or intelligent being to help create them." Although Zogby polls commissioned by the Discovery Institute show more support, these polls suffer from considerable flaws, such as having a low response rate (248 out of 16,000), being conducted on behalf of an organization with an expressed interest in the outcome of the poll, and containing leading questions . The 2017 Gallup creationism survey found that 38% of adults in

1620-410: A proponent of Old Earth creationism , believes that the efforts of intelligent design proponents to divorce the concept from Biblical Christianity make its hypothesis too vague. In 2002, he wrote: "Winning the argument for design without identifying the designer yields, at best, a sketchy origins model. Such a model makes little if any positive impact on the community of scientists and other scholars. ...

1728-483: A real-life example of an extraterrestrial intelligent designer view that "make[s] many of the same bad arguments against evolutionary theory as creationists". The authoritative description of intelligent design, however, explicitly states that the Universe displays features of having been designed. Acknowledging the paradox , Dembski concludes that "no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over

1836-556: A science curriculum. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science ." The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience . Others in

1944-501: A scientific concept that has implications with which their personal religious beliefs happen to coincide. She writes that the leading proponents of intelligent design are closely allied with the ultra-conservative Christian Reconstructionism movement. She lists connections of (current and former) Discovery Institute Fellows Phillip E. Johnson, Charles B. Thaxton, Michael Behe, Richard Weikart , Jonathan Wells and Francis J. Beckwith to leading Christian Reconstructionist organizations, and

2052-499: A system, rather than by adding them. This is sometimes called the "scaffolding objection" by an analogy with scaffolding, which can support an "irreducibly complex" building until it is complete and able to stand on its own. In the case of Behe's mousetrap analogy, it has been shown that a mousetrap can be created with increasingly fewer parts and that even a single part is sufficient. Behe has acknowledged using "sloppy prose", and that his "argument against Darwinism does not add up to

2160-410: Is natural theology , while still presenting ID as supporting the argument for the existence of God. While intelligent design proponents have pointed out past examples of the phrase intelligent design that they said were not creationist and faith-based, they have failed to show that these usages had any influence on those who introduced the label in the intelligent design movement. Variations on

2268-648: Is Mike Morath. A former member of the Dallas Independent School District's board of trustees, he was appointed commissioner of education by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on December 14, 2015. The commissioner's role is to lead and manage the Texas Education Agency. The commissioner also co-ordinates efforts between state and federal agencies. TEA is overseen by a 15-member State Board of Education (SBOE) elected from single-member districts. There are no term limits . Terms are four years in length, with one two-year term each decade. Similar to

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2376-563: Is a Roman Catholic ; Paul Nelson supports young Earth creationism; and Jonathan Wells is a member of the Unification Church . Non-Christian proponents include David Klinghoffer , who is Jewish , Michael Denton and David Berlinski , who are agnostic , and Muzaffar Iqbal , a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim . Phillip E. Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments that are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism

2484-631: Is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute , a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States. Although the phrase intelligent design had featured previously in theological discussions of the argument from design , its first publication in its present use as an alternative term for creationism

2592-523: Is a necessary first step for ultimately reintroducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson explicitly calls for intelligent design proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having intelligent design identified "as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message." Johnson emphasizes that "...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of

2700-434: Is a separate entity not under TEA oversight. In addition to primary and secondary education, TEA has oversight duties with respect to driver's education courses (initial permits) and defensive driving courses (used to have a ticket dismissed and/or for lower insurance premiums). On November 7, 2007, Christine Comer resigned as the director of the science curriculum after more than nine years. Comer said that her resignation

2808-493: Is based upon "foundational assumptions" of naturalism that were as much a matter of faith as those of "creation theory". In November of that year, Thaxton described his reasoning as a more sophisticated form of Paley's argument from design. At a conference that Thaxton held in 1988 ("Sources of Information Content in DNA"), he said that his intelligent cause view was compatible with both metaphysical naturalism and supernaturalism . Intelligent design avoids identifying or naming

2916-544: Is better able to explain the observed complexity, as is evident from the use of selective evolution to design certain electronic, aeronautic and automotive systems that are considered problems too complex for human "intelligent designers". Intelligent design proponents have also occasionally appealed to broader teleological arguments outside of biology, most notably an argument based on the fine-tuning of universal constants that make matter and life possible and that are argued not to be solely attributable to chance. These include

3024-503: Is divided in the monitoring and technical assistance division and the school readiness division. Intelligent design Intelligent design ( ID ) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God , presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection ." ID

3132-813: Is divided into 20 regions, each containing an Education Service Center (ESC, sometimes called regional service center or regional education service center). Under Chapter 8 of the Texas Education Code, ESCs perform the following tasks on behalf of TEA: The assistance applies to both districts and schools, including charter schools. Notably, the ESCs have no regulatory authority over districts or schools (TEA headquarters reserves this right to itself). ESCs are not political units, and as such have no taxing authority. They are funded by state and federal funding, as well as by contracts made with individual districts and schools. TEA rates schools and districts using

3240-558: Is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions. Richard Dawkins , evolutionary biologist and religion critic, argues in The God Delusion (2006) that allowing for an intelligent designer to account for unlikely complexity only postpones the problem, as such a designer would need to be at least as complex. Other scientists have argued that evolution through selection

3348-502: Is part of God's general revelation ... Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology [ materialism ], which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ." Both Johnson and Dembski cite the Bible's Gospel of John as the foundation of intelligent design. Barbara Forrest contends such statements reveal that leading proponents see intelligent design as essentially religious in nature, not merely

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3456-464: Is religious in nature and thus cannot be taught in public school science classrooms. Intelligent design is also presented as science and shares other arguments with "creation science" but avoids literal Biblical references to such topics as the biblical flood story or using Bible verses to estimate the age of the Earth . Barbara Forrest writes that the intelligent design movement began in 1984 with

3564-646: Is the branch of the government of Texas responsible for public education in Texas in the United States. The agency is headquartered in the William B. Travis State Office Building in downtown Austin . Mike Morath , formerly a member of the Dallas Independent School District 's board of trustees, was appointed commissioner of education by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on December 14, 2015, and began serving on January 4, 2016. Prior to

3672-433: Is to instill a culture of constant vigilance and accountability across all Texas schools. A statutory addition from HB3 charged the agency with establishing the Office of School Safety and Security - a division consisting of individuals with substantial expertise and experience in school or law enforcement safety and security operations. The passage of this bill created Texas Education Code, Section. 37.1083 and 37.1084. In

3780-708: The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution . ID presents two main arguments against evolutionary explanations: irreducible complexity and specified complexity , asserting that certain biological and informational features of living things are too complex to be the result of natural selection. Detailed scientific examination has rebutted several examples for which evolutionary explanations are claimed to be impossible. ID seeks to challenge

3888-434: The Universe , such as galaxies , to form. Thus, proponents argue, an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome. Scientists have generally responded that these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence. Victor J. Stenger and other critics say both intelligent design and the weak form of the anthropic principle are essentially

3996-470: The argument from design to explain complexity in nature as supposedly demonstrating the existence of God. The argument from design, also known as the teleological argument or "argument from intelligent design", has been presented by theologists for centuries. Thomas Aquinas presented ID in his fifth proof of God's existence as a syllogism . In 1802, William Paley 's Natural Theology presented examples of intricate purpose in organisms. His version of

4104-445: The intelligent design movement (IDM), supported by the Discovery Institute, advocated inclusion of intelligent design in public school biology curricula. This led to the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, which found that intelligent design was not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and that the public school district's promotion of it therefore violated

4212-595: The intelligent designer —it merely states that one (or more) must exist—but leaders of the movement have said the designer is the Christian God. Whether this lack of specificity about the designer's identity in public discussions is a genuine feature of the concept – or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science – has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District court ruling held

4320-460: The methodological naturalism inherent in modern science, though proponents concede that they have yet to produce a scientific theory. As a positive argument against evolution, ID proposes an analogy between natural systems and human artifacts , a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God . ID proponents then conclude by analogy that the complex features, as defined by ID, are evidence of design. Critics of ID find

4428-570: The watchmaker analogy argued that a watch has evidently been designed by a craftsman and that it is supposedly just as evident that the complexity and adaptation seen in nature must have been designed. He went on to argue that the perfection and diversity of these designs supposedly shows the designer to be omnipotent and that this can supposedly only be the Christian god . Like "creation science", intelligent design centers on Paley's religious argument from design, but while Paley's natural theology

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4536-413: The 1993 revised edition of Of Pandas and People . Behe defines it as "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". Behe uses the analogy of a mousetrap to illustrate this concept. A mousetrap consists of several interacting pieces—the base,

4644-520: The 2018–2019 school year, the ethnic distribution of the school district was 84.4% White, 13.0% Hispanic, 0.3% Asian, and 2.3% from two or more races. (No African American, American Indian, or Pacific Islander students were reported.) Economically disadvantaged students made up 58.8% of the student body. This article about a school district in Texas is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Texas Education Agency accountability ratings system The Texas Education Agency ( TEA )

4752-429: The Bible out of it'" and thereby unwittingly aided and abetted the modern rejection of the Bible. Wieland explained that "AiG's major 'strategy' is to boldly, but humbly, call the church back to its Biblical foundations ... [so] we neither count ourselves a part of this movement nor campaign against it." The unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science and has no place in

4860-472: The Institute affirms its Christian, evangelistic orientation: Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to "popularize" our ideas in

4968-526: The Institute claimed the increasing number of signatures indicated mounting doubts about evolution among scientists. The statement formed a key component of Discovery Institute campaigns to present intelligent design as scientifically valid by claiming that evolution lacks broad scientific support, with Institute members continuing to cite the list through at least 2011. As part of a strategy to counter these claims, scientists organised Project Steve , which gained more signatories named Steve (or variants) than

5076-583: The Institute's petition, and a counter-petition, " A Scientific Support for Darwinism ", which quickly gained similar numbers of signatories. Several surveys were conducted prior to the December 2005 decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover School District , which sought to determine the level of support for intelligent design among certain groups. According to a 2005 Harris poll , 10% of adults in the United States viewed human beings as "so complex that they required

5184-502: The United States hold the view that "God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" when asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, which was noted as being at the lowest level in 35 years. Previously, a series of Gallup polls in the United States from 1982 through 2014 on "Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design" found support for "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced formed of life, but God guided

5292-641: The arrangement of the Texas Senate , SBOE members are divided into two groups based in part on the intervening Census: As such, every two years, about half of the SBOE is on the ballot. The board devises policies and sets academic standards for Texas public schools, and oversees the state Permanent School Fund and selects textbooks to be used in Texas schools. Since 2011, the board can still recommend textbooks, but public school districts can order their own books and materials even if their selections are not on

5400-407: The assertion that the designer does not need to be explained as a thought-terminating cliché . In the absence of observable, measurable evidence, the question "What designed the designer?" leads to an infinite regression from which intelligent design proponents can only escape by resorting to religious creationism or logical contradiction. The intelligent design movement is a direct outgrowth of

5508-525: The bacterial flagellum of E. coli , the blood clotting cascade , cilia , and the adaptive immune system . Critics point out that the irreducible complexity argument assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary and therefore could not have been added sequentially. They argue that something that is at first merely advantageous can later become necessary as other components change. Furthermore, they argue, evolution often proceeds by altering preexisting parts or by removing them from

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5616-500: The book The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories , co-written by the creationist and chemist Charles B. Thaxton and two other authors and published by Jon A. Buell's Foundation for Thought and Ethics . In March 1986, Stephen C. Meyer published a review of this book, discussing how information theory could suggest that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell show "specified complexity" and must have been created by an intelligent agent. He also argued that science

5724-468: The book for presenting all of the basic arguments of intelligent design proponents and being actively promoted for use in public schools before any research had been done to support these arguments. Although presented as a scientific textbook, philosopher of science Michael Ruse considers the contents "worthless and dishonest". An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer described it as a political tool aimed at students who did not "know science or understand

5832-439: The broader culture. Barbara Forrest , an expert who has written extensively on the movement, describes this as being due to the Discovery Institute's obfuscating its agenda as a matter of policy. She has written that the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it." Although arguments for intelligent design by

5940-449: The capacity of the regional education service centers (ESCs) and local education agencies (LEAs) to promote the physical and psychological well-being of students and staff - recognizing that safer schools positively impact student outcomes. We align school safety and security expertise with guidance provided through technical assistance to ensure effective best practices are implemented across the state. The Office of School Safety and Security

6048-408: The catch, the spring and the hammer—all of which must be in place for the mousetrap to work. Removal of any one piece destroys the function of the mousetrap. Intelligent design advocates assert that natural selection could not create irreducibly complex systems, because the selectable function is present only when all parts are assembled. Behe argued that irreducibly complex biological mechanisms include

6156-442: The cell were specified by intelligence, and must have originated with an intelligent agent. The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed in the 1990s by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William A. Dembski . Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and "specified", simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it

6264-557: The citizens, then we ought to take) a thorough look at what they are doing." In 2010, Al Jezeera stated that it was "drafting its own version of American history", including altering school textbooks to remove what it said was a "left-leaning bias" and making changes that are said to have "religious and racial overtones". A series of reports in 2016 by the Houston Chronicle found that since at least 2004, TEA denied special education services to thousands of students, prompting

6372-566: The collective responsibility to provide a safe environment for all students, educators, and staff. Governor Greg Abbott announced the appointment of John P. Scott as the new Chief of School Safety and Security within the Texas Education Agency (TEA) on October 3. This position was created following the tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde to ensure the implementation of school safety policies and best practices across Texas. Scott, who has an extensive background in security and intelligence, will report directly to Commissioner Mike Morath and have

6480-409: The controversy " campaign and their other related programs. Leading intelligent design proponents have made conflicting statements regarding intelligent design. In statements directed at the general public, they say intelligent design is not religious; when addressing conservative Christian supporters, they state that intelligent design has its foundation in the Bible. Recognizing the need for support,

6588-465: The controversy over evolution and creationism". One of the authors of the science framework used by California schools, Kevin Padian , condemned it for its "sub-text", "intolerance for honest science" and "incompetence". The term "irreducible complexity" was introduced by biochemist Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box , though he had already described the concept in his contributions to

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6696-482: The creationism of the 1980s. The scientific and academic communities, along with a U.S. federal court, view intelligent design as either a form of creationism or as a direct descendant that is closely intertwined with traditional creationism; and several authors explicitly refer to it as "intelligent design creationism". The movement is headquartered in the Center for Science and Culture, established in 1996 as

6804-651: The creationist insists that an intelligent design must have been there in the first place." The most common modern use of the words "intelligent design" as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry began after the United States Supreme Court ruled in June 1987 in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard that it is unconstitutional for a state to require the teaching of creationism in public school science curricula. A Discovery Institute report says that Charles B. Thaxton, editor of Pandas , had picked

6912-428: The creationist wing of the Discovery Institute to promote a religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes. The Discovery Institute's intelligent design campaigns have been staged primarily in the United States, although efforts have been made in other countries to promote intelligent design. Leaders of the movement say intelligent design exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of

7020-469: The curriculum controversy, was released. In late January 2013, PBS's Independent Lens aired an abridged version the film. Texas House Speaker Joe Straus of San Antonio, Texas said that the government should "take a look" at the structure of the board and consider a nonpartisan or appointed board if the elected members are "not getting their job done and they're not pleasing the Legislature or

7128-529: The designer creates for a purpose, giving the example that in his view AIDS was created to punish immorality and is not caused by HIV , but such motives cannot be tested by scientific methods. Asserting the need for a designer of complexity also raises the question "What designed the designer?" Intelligent design proponents say that the question is irrelevant to or outside the scope of intelligent design. Richard Wein counters that "...scientific explanations often create new unanswered questions. But, in assessing

7236-543: The designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in The Design Inference (1998), speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements. Of Pandas and People proposes that SETI illustrates an appeal to intelligent design in science. In 2000, philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock suggested the Raëlian UFO religion as

7344-525: The discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." The strategy of deliberately disguising the religious intent of intelligent design has been described by William A. Dembski in The Design Inference . In this work, Dembski lists a god or an " alien life force " as two possible options for

7452-465: The evidence, "either life resulted not from intelligent design, but from evolution; or the intelligent designer is a cosmic prankster who designed everything to make it look as though it had evolved." Intelligent design proponents such as Paul Nelson avoid the problem of poor design in nature by insisting that we have simply failed to understand the perfection of the design. Behe cites Paley as his inspiration, but he differs from Paley's expectation of

7560-713: The extent of the funding provided the Institute by Howard Ahmanson, Jr. , a leading figure in the Reconstructionist movement. Not all creationist organizations have embraced the intelligent design movement. According to Thomas Dixon, "Religious leaders have come out against ID too. An open letter affirming the compatibility of Christian faith and the teaching of evolution, first produced in response to controversies in Wisconsin in 2004, has now been signed by over ten thousand clergy from different Christian denominations across America." Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe ,

7668-496: The form of requiring the district to submit corrective action plans and regular status reports, assigning monitors to oversee operations (including the authority to assign a management board, which essentially replaces and performs the duties of the elected school board), and in extreme cases closure of a school campus or even the entire school district. The University Interscholastic League (UIL), which oversees academic and athletic interscholastic competition in Texas public schools,

7776-411: The goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept. All leading intelligent design proponents are fellows or staff of the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture. Nearly all intelligent design concepts and the associated movement are the products of the Discovery Institute, which guides the movement and follows its wedge strategy while conducting its " teach

7884-504: The heading " A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism ", with the claim that listed scientists had signed this statement expressing skepticism: We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged. The ambiguous statement did not exclude other known evolutionary mechanisms, and most signatories were not scientists in relevant fields, but starting in 2004

7992-504: The identity of the designer; however, in his book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology (1999), Dembski states: Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners don't have a clue about him. The pragmatics of a scientific theory can, to be sure, be pursued without recourse to Christ. But the conceptual soundness of the theory can in the end only be located in Christ. Dembski also stated, "ID

8100-456: The intelligent design movement are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer, the majority of principal intelligent design advocates are publicly religious Christians who have stated that, in their view, the designer proposed in intelligent design is the Christian conception of God . Stuart Burgess, Phillip E. Johnson, William A. Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer are evangelical Protestants ; Michael Behe

8208-436: The late 1940s, many school districts in Texas did not operate schools but spent money to send children to schools operated by other districts. In the late 1940s, state lawmakers passed a bill abolishing those districts, prompting a wave of mass school district consolidation. TEA is responsible for the oversight of public primary and secondary education in the state of Texas, involving over 1,000 individual school districts in

8316-484: The latter to be the case. Since the Middle Ages , discussion of the religious "argument from design" or "teleological argument" in theology, with its concept of "intelligent design", has persistently referred to the theistic Creator God. Although ID proponents chose this provocative label for their proposed alternative to evolutionary explanations, they have de-emphasized their religious antecedents and denied that ID

8424-623: The nearest mainland, even when the environments are very different" as evidence that species were not placed there by a designer. Previously, in Darwin's Black Box , Behe had argued that we are simply incapable of understanding the designer's motives, so such questions cannot be answered definitively. Odd designs could, for example, "...have been placed there by the designer for a reason—for artistic reasons, for variety, to show off, for some as-yet-undetected practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason—or they might not." Coyne responds that in light of

8532-741: The need to enhance and expand school safety measures in Texas following the Robb Elementary School tragedy. It highlights the efforts and trainings by the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) and outlines specific actions for school districts to improve safety and security. These actions include reviewing and updating Emergency Operations Plans, training staff, conducting safety assessments, and ensuring compliance with state laws. The letter also mandates random inspections to test security measures and calls for legislative support to secure necessary resources. The overall goal

8640-451: The number of students, including cutting services for certain children with autism and dyslexia, refusing to conduct eligibility evaluations in other languages, and refusing to accept medical records from other countries. Students who are English Language Learners (ELL) also faced a disproportionate impact resulting in a 20% difference in the rate of ELL students getting special education services compared to native speakers. In Houston ISD ,

8748-404: The origin of the universe or the origin of life." The leading proponents have made statements to their supporters that they believe the designer to be the Christian God, to the exclusion of all other religions. Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in

8856-586: The overhaul of its special education practices. Advocates raised concerns about the lack of a competitive bidding process and the Georgia-based company's qualifications, and a former TEA special education director filed a federal complaint about TEA violating state procurement processes. In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education found that "Texas violated federal law by failing to ensure students with disabilities were properly evaluated and provided with an adequate public education." A multi-year strategic plan

8964-550: The past and has failed, and it will fail today. The reason it won't work is because it is not the Biblical method." According to Morris: "The evidence of intelligent design ... must be either followed by or accompanied by a sound presentation of true Biblical creationism if it is to be meaningful and lasting." In 2002, Carl Wieland , then of Answers in Genesis (AiG), criticized design advocates who, though well-intentioned, "'left

9072-633: The phrase appeared in Young Earth creationist publications: a 1967 book co-written by Percival Davis referred to "design according to which basic organisms were created". In 1970, A. E. Wilder-Smith published The Creation of Life: A Cybernetic Approach to Evolution . The book defended Paley's design argument with computer calculations of the improbability of genetic sequences, which he said could not be explained by evolution but required "the abhorred necessity of divine intelligent activity behind nature", and that "the same problem would be expected to beset

9180-400: The phrase up from a NASA scientist. In two successive 1987 drafts of the book, over one hundred uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "Creation Science", were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design", while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, " cdesign proponentsists " [ sic ]. In June 1988, Thaxton held

9288-619: The ranking system. The Texas Education Agency is funded by the people of the State of Texas , at the direction of their elected legislature and with the consent of the Governor of Texas . The agency's budget must be approved on the legislature's biannual schedule. Revenues for the agency come from the state general fund (primarily sales taxes), the federal government, the Permanent School Fund (a sovereign wealth fund created by

9396-399: The reasons that a designer would or would not do anything are virtually impossible to know unless the designer tells you specifically what those reasons are." This reliance on inexplicable motives of the designer makes intelligent design scientifically untestable. Retired UC Berkeley law professor, author and intelligent design advocate Phillip E. Johnson puts forward a core definition that

9504-748: The relationship between the designer behind nature and the intelligently designed part of nature known as man." In a 1984 article as well as in his affidavit to Edwards v. Aguillard , Dean H. Kenyon defended creation science by stating that "biomolecular systems require intelligent design and engineering know-how", citing Wilder-Smith. Creationist Richard B. Bliss used the phrase "creative design" in Origins: Two Models: Evolution, Creation (1976), and in Origins: Creation or Evolution (1988) wrote that "while evolutionists are trying to find non-intelligent ways for life to occur,

9612-590: The same four criteria. According to the TEA, the number of state schools and districts receiving the top ratings of "exemplary" and "recognized" increased from 2,213 in 2005 to 3,380 in 2006. In 2020, all schools were given a "not rated" designator due to the COVID-19 pandemic . In addition to the state ranking, districts and schools can be awarded additional commendations (referred to as Gold Performance acknowledgements) for other noteworthy accomplishments not included in

9720-546: The scientific community have denounced its tactics, accusing the ID movement of manufacturing false attacks against evolution, of engaging in misinformation and misrepresentation about science, and marginalizing those who teach it. More recently, in September 2012, Bill Nye warned that creationist views threaten science education and innovations in the United States. In 2001, the Discovery Institute published advertisements under

9828-521: The secular philosophy of naturalism . Intelligent design proponents allege that science should not be limited to naturalism and should not demand the adoption of a naturalistic philosophy that dismisses out-of-hand any explanation that includes a supernatural cause. The overall goal of the movement is to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview " represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions". Phillip E. Johnson stated that

9936-532: The state and charter schools . It is also responsible for the safety of students. However, it does not have any jurisdiction over private or parochial schools (whether or not accredited ) nor over home schools . Although school districts are independent governmental entities, TEA has the authority to oversee a district's operations (either involving an individual school or the entire district) if serious issues arise (such as poor standardized test performance, financial distress, or mismanagement). This can be in

10044-418: The state of Texas. The average SAT score of students in 2017-18 was 1030, and the average ACT score is not available due to the small number of students taking the test. In the 2018–2019 school year, the school district had a total of 347 students, ranging from pre-kindergarten through grade 12. The class of 2018 included 18 graduates; the annual drop-out rate across grades 9-12 was reported as 1.0%. As of

10152-408: The state with revenues from public lands), and other sources. * Budget figure is projection; all other years are actual expenditure as reported by TEA After the Uvalde school shooting, Governor Greg Abbott instructed state school safety and education officials to conduct random assessments on access control in Texas public and charter schools. In a letter dated June 1, 2022, Gov. Abbott emphasized

10260-411: The state's largest school district, after the 8.5% goal was met the standard was lowered to 8%. As a result, the district cut hundreds of special education positions, postponed diagnostic evaluations to second grade, and created a list of disqualifying factors that keep students from getting services. TEA issued a no-bid contract for $ 4.4 million to SPEDx in 2017 to analyze student records to assist with

10368-452: The state-approved list. So far, most districts have continued to follow the state-endorsed textbooks, but that trend is expected to change in the next two years as the districts become more cognizant of their available options. Thomas Ratliff, a moderate Republican and the son of former Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant , in 2010 unseated the Bryan dentist Don McLeroy ,

10476-412: The stated variables appear to be interconnected and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable. The contemporary intelligent design movement formulates its arguments in secular terms and intentionally avoids identifying the intelligent agent (or agents) they posit. Although they do not state that God is the designer,

10584-573: The time is right for a direct approach, a single leap into the origins fray. Introducing a biblically based, scientifically verifiable creation model represents such a leap." Likewise, two of the most prominent YEC organizations in the world have attempted to distinguish their views from those of the intelligent design movement. Henry M. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wrote, in 1999, that ID, "even if well-meaning and effectively articulated, will not work! It has often been tried in

10692-428: The value of an explanation, these questions are not irrelevant. They must be balanced against the improvements in our understanding which the explanation provides. Invoking an unexplained being to explain the origin of other beings (ourselves) is little more than question-begging . The new question raised by the explanation is as problematic as the question which the explanation purports to answer." Richard Dawkins sees

10800-477: The values of fundamental physical constants , the relative strength of nuclear forces , electromagnetism , and gravity between fundamental particles , as well as the ratios of masses of such particles. Intelligent design proponent and Center for Science and Culture fellow Guillermo Gonzalez argues that if any of these values were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, making it impossible for many chemical elements and features of

10908-448: The world of science. For example, Jerry Coyne asks why a designer would "give us a pathway for making vitamin C , but then destroy it by disabling one of its enzymes" (see pseudogene ) and why a designer would not "stock oceanic islands with reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and freshwater fish, despite the suitability of such islands for these species". Coyne also points to the fact that "the flora and fauna on those islands resemble that of

11016-493: Was a result of pressure from officials who claimed that she had given the appearance of criticizing the teaching of intelligent design . In 2009, the board received criticism from more than 50 scientific organizations over an attempt to weaken science standards on evolution . In October 2012, The Revisionaries , a documentary film about the re-election of the chairman of the Texas Board of Education Don McLeroy and

11124-539: Was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes. He provides the following examples: "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified." He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA. Dembski defines complex specified information (CSI) as anything with

11232-415: Was effectively suspended in U.S. public schools until the 1960s, and when evolution was then reintroduced into the curriculum, there was a series of court cases in which attempts were made to get creationism taught alongside evolution in science classes. Young Earth creationists (YECs) promoted "creation science" as "an alternative scientific explanation of the world in which we live". This frequently invoked

11340-459: Was in Of Pandas and People , a 1989 creationist textbook intended for high school biology classes. The term was substituted into drafts of the book, directly replacing references to creation science and creationism , after the 1987 Supreme Court 's Edwards v. Aguillard decision barred the teaching of creation science in public schools on constitutional grounds . From the mid-1990s,

11448-411: Was open to deistic design through God-given laws, intelligent design seeks scientific confirmation of repeated supposedly miraculous interventions in the history of life. "Creation science" prefigured the intelligent design arguments of irreducible complexity, even featuring the bacterial flagellum . In the United States, attempts to introduce "creation science" into schools led to court rulings that it

11556-410: Was released in 2018. In a grant application to the agency, TEA stated that they will not be able to ensure adequate services for special education students until June 2020. In September 2020, in the midst of several attempts to place Houston ISD under state control, TEA investigators recommended a state-appointed conservator be selected to oversee the district. The current commissioner of education

11664-403: Was the first book to make systematic use of the terms "intelligent design" and "design proponents" as well as the phrase "design theory", defining the term intelligent design in a glossary and representing it as not being creationism. It thus represents the start of the modern intelligent design movement . "Intelligent design" was the most prominent of around fifteen new terms it introduced as

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