Evolutionary biology vanishes from list of acceptable majors for student federal grants

Today's NYTimes has a story on the Department of Education's list of acceptable majors for eligibility for federal grants. Suddenly and without explanation the major field of study in evolutionary biology has dropped of the list of acceptable majors.

These grants are for low income students in their 3rd or 4th year of study.

The program provides $4,000 grants to third- or fourth-year, low-income students majoring in physical, life or computer sciences; mathematics; technology; engineering; or foreign languages deemed "critical" to national security.

Go here:  http://www.nytimes.com/...

A Dept of Ed spokeswoman said that there is no explanation for the deletion. Another spokeswoman said that it would be restored but that as of last night it had not been restored.

Students must pick from a list of acceptable majors. Each major has it's own code.

If a major is not on the list, students in that major cannot get grants unless they declare another major, said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Mr. Nassirian said students seeking the grants went first to their college registrar, who determined whether they were full-time students majoring in an eligible field.

"If a field is missing, that student would not even get into the process," he said.

That the omission occurred at all is worrying scientists concerned about threats to the teaching of evolution.

snip

The list of eligible majors (which is online at ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/GEN0606A.pdf) is drawn from the Education Department's "Classification of Instructional Programs," or CIP (pronounced "sip"), a voluminous and detailed classification of courses of study, arranged in a numbered system of sections and subsections.

Part 26, biological and biomedical sciences, has a number of sections, each of which has one or more subsections. Subsection 13 is ecology, evolution, systematics and population biology. This subsection itself has 10 sub-subsections. One of them is 26.1303 -- evolutionary biology, "the scientific study of the genetic, developmental, functional, and morphological patterns and processes, and theoretical principles; and the emergence and mutation of organisms over time."

Though references to evolution appear in listings of other fields of biological study, the evolutionary biology sub-subsection is missing from a list of "fields of study" on the National Smart Grant list -- there is an empty space between line 26.1302 (marine biology and biological oceanography) and line 26.1304 (aquatic biology/limnology).

How convenient! It just happens that out of all the majors eligible for study evolutionary biology just happened to accidentally fall off the list. These bastards are sneaky. They realize that their agenda is not going over well among the majority of Americans and so seek to undermine science and education with half-assed stunts like these. Talk about subversive. And, they're so ham-handed at their criminality.

Mr. Nassirian said people at the Education Department had described the omission as "a clerical mistake." But it is "odd," he said, because applying the subject codes "is a fairly mechanical task. It is not supposed to be the subject of any kind of deliberation."

"I am not at all certain that the omission of this particular major is unintentional," he added. "But I have to take them at their word."

Scientists who knew about the omission also said they found the clerical explanation unconvincing, given the furor over challenges by the religious right to the teaching of evolution in public schools. "It's just awfully coincidental," said Steven W. Rissing, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio State University.

George Bush and his minions have set us on a course to the Dark Ages when scientific curiosity was condemned and lives were lost because of it. Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change.

As one of the scientists noted, this is not just some little nicety. We need to know how genetic changes affect us; how these changes are effected; what are the long term effects.  Where would we be if no one had studied the effects of radiation on genes and by extension, evolution?

It was also noted that some enterprising students and counselors will probably be able to figure out a work around but, why should they have to? Merely to satify some rigid pinhead's ideology. I don't think so.

It is with these small incremental changes that we lose our freedoms and our place among the giants of science. Our throne will not have been taken from us by force. We will have abdicated.