I am a skeptic.

Specifically, I’m a scientific or empirical skeptic.

Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our right to claim knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Scientific skepticism utilizes critical thinking and attempts to oppose claims made which lack suitable evidential basis.

Skeptics such as myself have various areas of concern but they usually involve the claims of pseudoscience in such areas as UFOs, alien abductions, psychics, and all the various so called “alternate” health modalities that fail the evidence-based test. We are also concerned when religions try to influence education, public policy, and scientific research because the evidence conflicts with their ideology. (Oddly enough, they usually call the evidence-based positions “ideology,” ignoring the lack of evidence to support their own positions.)

There are many examples of this in current events. One is the stem cell debate (including Bush’s veto of research funding in that area.) One that is not as well known, is the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).

DSHEA opened the floodgates for store shelves to be packed with “supplements” for every ailment and human condition. Essentially, DSHEA created a new category of health claims, referred to as “structure or function” claims. Under DSHEA products could be labeled with claims that they either enhance, improve, or support a biological structure or function without any FDA oversight. For example, a company could claim that their product “boosts the immune system” without first having to meet any burden of evidence. The FDA has no power to regulate such a claim. link

– Steven Novella, M.D. A neurologist and prominent skeptic. President of the New England Skeptics Society

While this was offered as attempt to give us consumers access to more options, what it really did is make these supplement companies billions of dollars selling products that did little to no good and in some cases, actual harm.

And one of the more obvious examples is evolution and “creation science” and “intelligent design.” (The first one is actual science and the middle one is simply religion and the other one is more cunningly hidden religion.) Every time you test the claims of creation science and intelligent design they don’t hold up. Every further investigation of the Theory of Evolution simply confirms and refines it.

I have stated in this blog before that I don’t care what people believe. I care how they act. If they act toward the public good because it just makes sense or because their relgious belief’s demand it, I don’t care. But I very much care when public policy is decided on the basis of non-evidence based beliefs.

So, when Rick Perry, Governor “Good Hair” of Tejas, recently appointed conservative Dr. Don McLeroy to head the state’s Board of Education it really concerns me.

According to Kathy Miller, president of the liberal Texas Freedom Network:

Since his election in 1998, Mr. McLeroy, a Bryan dentist, has dragged the Texas State Board of Education into a series of divisive and unnecessary culture war battles:– He voted in 2001 to reject the only advanced placement environmental science textbook proposed for Texas high schools even though panels of experts – including one panel from Texas A&M – found the textbook was free of errors. In fact, Baylor University used the same textbook.

– In 2003 Mr. McLeroy led efforts by creationism or “intelligent design” proponents to water down 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 scientific account of evolutionary theory.

– In 2004, Mr. McLeroy voted to approve “abstinence-only” health textbooks that failed to include any information about responsible pregnancy and STD prevention, despite state curriculum standards requiring that students learn such information.

Move over, Kansas, here comes Texas.