Think Progress

A Textbook Case of Misinformation and Bias

Last week, the Center for Inquiry, a Hudson, NY think tank, announced that "a civics textbook used in many secondary schools around the country contains inaccurate and misleading statements, in particular in its analysis of certain constitutional law issues, including school prayer, and global warming." The Center had been notified by Matthew LaClair of Kearny, NJ, a high school senior whose Advanced Placement (AP) Government class uses American Government, written by James Q. Wilson and John DiIulio, Jr. The Center's critique is forcing the book's publisher, Houghton Mifflin, and the College Board (which runs the AP program) to review the book, now in its 11th edition. According to President Bush, Wilson "may be the most influential political scientist in America" and DiIulio is "one of the most influential social entrepreneurs in America." Wilson is the Ronald Reagan Professor for Public Policy at Pepperdine University and the chairman of the Council of Academic Advisors of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. DiIulio, a University of Pennsylvania professor, was the first head of Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives but later became disillusioned with the "Mayberry Machiavellis" inside the White House. By co-authorizing this textbook, DiIulio threatens to jeopardize his impressive academic record on criminal justice and American public life.

GLOBAL WARMING 'ACTIVISTS': The Associated Press reported that LaClair "was particularly upset about the book's treatment of global warming." It is no wonder: the 10th edition he and students across the nation are now using has "a large number of clearly erroneous statements." The book claims that "the scientific community is divided over the issue" and that "activist scientists say that the earth is getting warmer; skeptical ones note that the earth's atmosphere has been getting cooler." Furthermore, it claims, "Science doesn't know whether we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming or how bad the greenhouse effect is, if it exists at all." Environmentalists are portrayed as "elites who often base their arguments on ideology as much as facts." The section on global warming is illustrated, without explanation, by a photograph of a snowstorm. Despite the publisher's claims that the 11th edition was revised to "reflect current developments in environmental policy research," there are no new citations. Additionally, the revised text still questions the human impact on global warming and misrepresents its effects. Friends of the Earth has launched an e-mail campaign to Houghton Mifflin, and esteemed climate scientists Dr. James Hansen of NASA and Dr. Michael MacCracken have already written to the publisher to voice their objections.

DENIER MACHINE: Of the nine sources cited in the environmental chapter about global warming, five question climate change science. Among them are Bjorn Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist, a book found guilty of scientific dishonesty, and Gregg Easterbrook's A Moment on the Earth (cited twice), a book "replete with errors and misinterpretations of the scientific evidence." When prominent climate scientists like Stephen Schneider or public figures such as Al Gore are cited, they are labeled "activists" and contrasted to three "skeptics." The "skeptics" cited are Easterbook, Frederick Seitz -- a solid-state physicist who co-founded the Marshall Institute, a conservative think tank -- and Patrick J. Michaels -- an industry-funded climatologist supported by the Marshall Institute. In addition, Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist who claimed the ozone hole didn't exist and also works for the Marshall Institute, is cited twice. Despite the publisher's claim that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is cited, none of the references are from an IPCC publication.

DISTORTING THE CONSTITUTION: With a similar combination of falsehoods and misleading arguments, American Government provides a distorted view of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. For example, it  misrepresents the landmark 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision that state law may not ban sexual relations between same-sex partners, which The New York Times called a "sweeping declaration of constitutional liberty for gay men and lesbians." The authors falsely write that the six-to-three ruling was a "five-to-four vote" and write, "The benefit was to strike down a law that was rarely enforced," an argument the Supreme Court itself said discloses a "failure to appreciate the extent of the liberty at stake." The coverage of the Supreme Court's handling of school prayers is similarly egregious. In a passage painting the Supreme Court as opposed to school prayer, the authors claim that "since 2001 it has been unconstitutional for a student, elected by other students, to lead a voluntary prayer at the beginning of a high school football game." In fact, in that very decision, the Court wrote that "nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the school day." Wilson and DiIulio also rewrite the history of the Constitution: "To the colonists all of mankind suffered from original sin, symbolized by Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Since no one was born innocent, no one could be trusted with power. Thus the Constitution had to be designed in such a way as to curb the darker side of human nature." As the Center for Inquiry notes, "[T]here is no evidence that the concept of original sin played any significant role in the design of the United States Constitution." The doctrine of original sin was explicitly rejected by Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams. The Constitution is indeed designed with checks and balances because the Founders recognized the fallibility of mankind, but "their conclusions about human nature were based on historical experience, not religious doctrine." In fact, in the Federalist Papers, the records of the Constitutional Convention, and the state ratification conventions, there is not a single reference to "original sin."

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