It looks like the forces attempting to open Texas’ science curriculum up to creationism and so-called “intelligent design” theories on the origin of life have failed in their efforts:
AUSTIN, Tex. — In an evenly split vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday upheld teaching evolution as accepted mainstream science.
But social conservatives on the board, using a series of amendments tailored to particular school subjects, succeeded in requiring teachers to evaluate critically a variety of scientific principles like cell formation and the Big Bang.
The debate over new curriculum requirements, to take effect in 2010, stands to influence educational standards nationwide. Once every decade, major textbook publishers revise their offerings to match the requirements newly set forth by Texas, which is one of their largest bulk customers.
More than 80 years after the biology teacher John Scopes was tried on charges of illegally teaching evolution in Tennessee, the controversy here has played out with more subtlety, involving political code words and efforts to undermine the theory itself.
The debate has centered on a longstanding clause that requires teachers to address the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Teachers quietly ignored the requirements for decades.
The board tentatively decided in January to drop the “strengths and weaknesses” language. On Thursday, Democrats and moderate Republicans on the board blocked a proposal by social conservatives to reinstate it. Even with one moderate board member missing, the measure was blocked with a preliminary 7-to-7 vote.
At the same time, they appear to have been successful at getting the camel’s nose under the tent in a few other areas:
Failing to overhaul the curriculum broadly, conservatives instead attached a series of measures specific to subjects like biology, where teachers would be newly required to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell.”
In the earth-science curriculum, conservatives weakened language concerning “the concept of an expanding universe” to address instead “current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe.”
So, the debate will continue to go on, which isn’t entirely surprising.
For the moment, though, the forces of psuedo-science have failed in the effort to drive a dagger through the heart of America’s science curriculum.
“One section required teachers to “analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information,” and the other required high school students to study the “sufficiency or insufficiency” of key principles of evolution.”
As long as we are allowed also to substitute similar language for critical discussion on creationism, then I’m fine. But these guys insist that their notion of “the beginning” is not open for questioning. What hypocrites!
It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly intelligent people can reject modern scientific knowledge but blindly accept archaic old myths and fairytales written thousands of years ago by primitive, ignorant people.