…and this is a 
The Institute for Creation Research had been trying to get approval from the state of Texas to offer graduate degrees in science education — they failed. Now they have actually publicly admitted defeat, which is gratifying to see.
So we won't be seeing a wave of teachers with master's degrees in science ed and absolutely no science training emerging from the state. Instead, though, they'll be offering this:
Replacing it, apparently, is the ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics, which offers a Master of Christian Education degree; Creation Research is one of four minors. The ICR explains, "Due to the nature of ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics — a predominantly religious education school — it is exempt from licensing by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Likewise, ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics is legally exempt from being required to be accredited by any secular or ecumenical or other type of accrediting association."
This isn't a problem. Their lunacy will be clearly and accurately labeled, and that's all we should care about.
Comments
Posted by: Chuck
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September 2, 2010 8:55 PM
I love how these organizations trumpet their own incompetence. "We don't have to meet stringent requirements for excellence! That's a good thing!"
Chuck
http://www.irreligiosophy.com
Posted by: raven
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September 2, 2010 9:01 PM
What is really strange is that they charge a lot of money for their degrees. IIRC, most of their courses are internet options.
One could get the same "education" for free by cruising the internet for a few hours. How hard is it to say, "goddidit".
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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September 2, 2010 9:14 PM
woot!
Posted by: jeffery.g.davis
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September 2, 2010 9:14 PM
Lol, translation: we are so bat shit insane that we are neither legally required to hold or desire to hold any accreditation.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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September 2, 2010 9:21 PM
We don't have to meet stringent requirements for excellence!
"We don't need your pathetic level of detail!"
-W.(DR.DR.)Dembski
Posted by: Zeno
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September 2, 2010 9:24 PM
It seems that ICR saw the writing on the wall (how appropriate). The "Christian Education" degree has been advertised in ICR's publications for months now. The fall-back position was prepared well in advance. And they give us a sickly smile and claim to be happy about their new endeavor.
Posted by: paulmurray
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September 2, 2010 9:26 PM
If only they would subject their biblical apologetics to peer review. Bible scholarship and philosophy does have a community, and it's every bit as savage and rigorous as the scientific one. My, wouldn't it be entertaining to see serious - say - roman catholic scholars rip apart their centuries-old and discredited heresies.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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September 2, 2010 9:27 PM
Why yes, the Dragon won (their words) this battle.
Funny how God favors the competent. It's almost as if stupid religiosity had no deity that would cause them to win...
Glen Davidson
Posted by: MadScientist
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September 2, 2010 10:33 PM
I'm glad the state refused to give the diploma mill any accreditation. Reading the words of the extremely annoyed and exasperated judges was also great entertainment; angry judges often do a great job of chastising someone.
Posted by: Aquaria
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September 2, 2010 11:00 PM
When you're too insane for Texas to accredit you, you're off the deep end of stupid.
Posted by: Justin Rosario
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September 2, 2010 11:18 PM
Just you wait, we'll be seeing lawsuits by "graduates" of this crap against real schools for not hiring them to teach there. They'll argue that they are being discriminated against for their religious views and not because they don't actually know anything.
Posted by: Coryat
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September 2, 2010 11:31 PM
"Forget your stupid education system! I'm gonna make my own! With hookers! And blackjack! In fact, forget the education system!"
Posted by: skeptifem
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September 3, 2010 12:21 AM
Holy crap, I want one of their textbooks so badly.
I have a weird affinity for secondary religious literature, the really awful kind. Especially stuff like chick tracts and Awake!. I am pretty sure their textbooks are exactly like that but 40x more content, because I have no idea how else they would fill a college legnth course on creation research with information.
They should take a page from the LDS church's religious college degree program (the Institute of Religion) and put all their materials online for free. Good times.
Posted by: Malachi Constant
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September 3, 2010 1:09 AM
Well, I just went back to school to finish my a degree in science and teaching here in Texas (at an actual accredited school!).
There are actual science educators here, you know. I'm being taught by some of them.
And I just found out today that there's a freethought group on campus, so yay(?) Texas.
Posted by: AlisonS
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September 3, 2010 2:10 AM
I love the word apologetics. It sounds as if they should be figuring out ways to apologize for the drivel they peddle.
Posted by: Jim
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September 3, 2010 3:26 AM
I love the way they rephrase "can't get accredited" as "is exempt from being required to be accredited." - as if they're so good they get automatic exemption from having to prove the quality of their education programmes.
Actually, I'm lying. I hate it. Fucking loonies.
Posted by: Aliasalpha
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September 3, 2010 4:36 AM
So they have a "school of apologetics", when will they have a school of "sticking ones fingers in their ears and going LALALALALALALA"? Or is that a subject offered by the SOA?
Are non-accredited places allowed to offer degrees in america? Unless I'm mistaken, thats illegal in Australia, you can get certificates out the wazoo (and probably even a certificate for coming out of the wazoo) but the degree is considered a protected term
@skeptifem:
I have a weird affinity for secondary religious literature, the really awful kind.
I have something similar with 1950s/1960s science fiction B Movies, side splittingly hilarious stuff because they all take it so seriously.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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September 3, 2010 7:24 AM
So would Naked Bunny's School of Startrekology, and for the exact same reason.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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September 3, 2010 8:12 AM
@17
Yes they can give non-accredited degrees. Which have as much weight really as the Capetian Midnight Decoder ring. The problem is lazy people who don't bother to check where someone's degree came from before hiring them.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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September 3, 2010 8:14 AM
@17
"Because the heart is a single cell..."
"He forgot that man was a feeling creature..."
Posted by: darvolution proponentsist
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September 3, 2010 8:17 AM
It's not a bug, it's a feature ?
Posted by: dobbinriddle
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September 3, 2010 8:18 AM
Cool! Sign me and the better half up for that one!
Posted by: Stardrake
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September 3, 2010 9:01 AM
I just like the way they admit that religion has no standards...
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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September 3, 2010 9:45 AM
@dobbinriddle: Unfortunately, unlike God, Paramount actually exists, and will go Old Testament on your ass if you use their properties in vain.
Posted by: WCorvi
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September 3, 2010 10:06 AM
I taught in an Earth Science dept in the bible belt of Iowa for a while. One of our students came to me with a problem. His plan for college was to enroll for a degree in our dept as a 'naive young freshman' only to find that geology was unbelievable, and that gradually he figured out for himself that the bible held all the answers.
His problem was that he was realizing that it was his minister's version that was unbelievable. Geology actually held a lot of ideas that better explained the data, once he actually looked at the real data. He was asking me what he should do to get back on his minister's track.
I told him that he should NOT get his geology from his minister, any more than he should get his religion from his geology professor.
Posted by: the_leander
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September 3, 2010 10:35 AM
Is this a common occurrence in the US? I mean in the UK you there are legally required checks that have to be done before a teacher can even step foot into a classroom. I would have thought that similar requirements were present in most US states?
Or do they get around that by going the private religious college route?
Posted by: Kagehi
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September 3, 2010 11:05 AM
I am reminded of about 10 years back, or so, where there was a big grumble over people in the software industry being labeled "engineers", without having any clear, non-corporate, and precise definition of what one had to know, do, or what quality of code one wrote, to be classed as an engineer, unlike real engineers, which a) had to meet certain standards, and b) potentially having their status revoked, if they fucked up badly enough. Personally, I have the *same* reaction to people receiving "degrees" of one sort or another, never mind people receiving diploma mill style degrees, whether they order them via the mail, or get them from some stupid assed "Christian" delusions college. If you have no standards by which one gains a title, what the frak is the point of using one to imply successfully passing the course work needed to prove you gained **something** from the experience, never mind something useful.
Oh, and, the *huge* problem here, imho, is that the average person, who doesn't have a degree of any sort, is highly unlikely to know the difference between, "We don't have accreditation", and, "We are fully accredited." All they see is a damn title, much as all they see is some moron calling themselves "Doctor", while peddling woo and nonsense in the altie medicine branch of gibberish pseudoscience (which is basically the same thing these people are doing, in a slightly wider range of subjects).
So.. Not sure I agree with your assessment that the important thing is "proper labeling". That would only be true if they where not still mislabeling themselves as having met some non-arbitrary, self defined, standard, to qualify as having a "degree". Saying you have a Masters is *more* useful than having to stick a label on it, like its an herbal supplement or something, which says, "May not actually do what the rest of the label claims." And, in the end, the only people reading the fine print are the ones that would have thrown it out in the first place, as useless.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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September 3, 2010 11:10 AM
Yes this happens, though the institution handing out the degree is still easily verified for accreditation etc...
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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September 3, 2010 11:20 AM
@26
A press agent for NASA got in before it was discovered amidst controversy that he had lied about graduating and in reality had no degree.
Posted by: raven
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September 3, 2010 11:32 AM
In some states it is illegal to list diploma mill degrees on a job application, resume, or CV.
These might be a small minority though, who knows.
And enforcement is likely to be minimal to nonexistent.
But the USA isn't that big and the internet is quick and easy. International Creation Research society shouldn't be hard to figure out.
As to where their graduate degree holders go, that would be the private fundie Xian schools of which there are lots and lots. But even there it is a waste. Teaching kids to say goddidit and then shut their minds off doesn't require an extensive knowledge of a few pages of an old book of mythology.
Posted by: the_leander
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September 3, 2010 12:11 PM
Wouldn't holding such a degree make them more attractive to such schools though? Sort of proof that they're not just fundie, but qualified in fundie.
Posted by: raven
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September 3, 2010 12:19 PM
Got me.
Who knows what toads find attractive? And how important is it to know anyway?
Posted by: Dhorvath, OM
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September 3, 2010 1:56 PM
The almost useless piece of paper could certainly help get you a job as a security guard at the Creationist Museum.
Posted by: tankiawee
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September 3, 2010 3:06 PM
For hilarity over and above PZ's post, read this:
http://ncse.com/webfm_send/1380
ICR got reamed.
Posted by: the_leander
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September 3, 2010 4:02 PM
@34
Didn't they just!
They absolutely tried every way to squirm their way through the review process.
I haven't seen anything this slippery since kitzmiller.
Posted by: goldfinch
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September 3, 2010 9:57 PM
Ing said:
Well, it depends. Try getting a job after getting a degree from Maharishi University of Management or its predecessor, Maharishi International University. You write MUM or MIU on your resume, but people still figure out that you went to a cult school.
Posted by: skeptifem
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September 3, 2010 10:58 PM
How are they *not* engineering software? It seems to me like they are, but you don't like that some people didn't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get what you have, or that maybe a bunch of computer nerds take away from your prestige somehow. It seems reallllllly petty.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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September 3, 2010 11:16 PM
Repeated due to skepchecks inability to grasp basic sentences.
Posted by: kev_s
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September 4, 2010 5:21 AM
From the judgement LOL! ...
Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on this issue is accordingly DENIED.
Having addressed this primary issue, the Court will proceed to address each of ICRGS’s causes
of action in turn, to the extent it is able to understand them. It appears that although the Court has twice required Plaintiff to re-plead and set forth a short and plain statement of the relief requested, Plaintiff is entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering, and full of irrelevant information.
Wonderful stuff!!
Posted by: ddb
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September 7, 2010 10:35 AM
You guys don,t know what your talking about ,you sound very biased and uneducated, you don,t have a clue
Posted by: Dania
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September 7, 2010 10:41 AM
?