stand up for REAL science

Here's another quote from one of the Texas Board of Education members who supported the failed attempt to re-insert "strengths and weaknesses" into the Texas science curriculum standards:

"We have had a solid standard that has worked for this state. We are not separating evolution out and teaching it differently. That's where you get into trouble."

-Terri Leo

Terri Leo is exactly right, of course. Singling out evolution for special treatment is an anti-evolution strategy that has consistently failed in the courts. Judge Jones addressed this particular strategy on page 57 of his ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Intelligent Design case.

Quoting from an earlier ruling that struck down an evolution textbook disclaimer, Jones wrote:

In singling out the one scientific theory that has historically been opposed by certain religious sects, the Board sent the message that it "believes there is some problem peculiar to evolution," and "[i]n light of the historical opposition to evolution by Christian fundamentalists and creationists[,] . . . the informed, reasonable observer would infer the School Board's problem with evolution to be that evolution does not acknowledge a creator."

Ms. Leo obviously knows that, by singling out evolution for special treatment, a Board of Education is just asking for trouble. Based on previous court decisions, such a move would have very little chance of surviving a challenge in the courtroom.

It might therefore come as a surprise to the reasonable observer that Leo and some of her fellow Board members would propose amendments to the standards that do exactly that.

But don't take my word for it. Here's how the Discovery Institute's John West described the Board's actions:

It's true that the Board narrowly rejected a motion to preserve the language in the current science standards calling for students to study the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. But that's only half of the story. Later in the afternoon, the Board amazingly passed a series of amendments to the actual science standards dealing with evolution-both for general biology, and for a new course in earth and space science. These amendments, most of which were enacted by large margins, specifically require students to "analyze and evaluate" the evidence for common ancestry, natural selection, mutation, and a variety of other planks of modern evolutionary theory.

Among the amendments that passed, one addition to the Biology TEKS is particularly egregious. Board chairman Don McLeroy proposed an amendment that would expect students to:

"describe the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record."

In the famous words of quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "That's not right. It's not even wrong."

Common ancestry is an inference from the genetic, morphological, biogeographical, embryological, and fossil evidence. The "sudden appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record" is explained by various processes, including natural selection, speciation, the formation, preservation, and discovery of fossils, and other natural phenomena.

I like how Tony Whitson described McLeroy's amendment on his blog:

I should think that a HS student would get full credit for stating that Common Descent is completely insufficient to explain sudden appearance, stasis and the sequential nature of the fossil record, just (exactly) as it is insufficient to explain gravity or thermodynamics.

But those insufficiencies provide no grounds for doubting common descent.

Dr. David Hillis put it this way in today's New York Times:

The amendment "makes no sense to me," said David M. Hillis, a prominent professor of biology at the University of Texas, adding, "It's a clear indication that the chairman of the state school board doesn't understand the science."

To summarize, here's the current situation concerning the science curriculum standards in Texas:

The Texas Board of Education has voted to drop language mandating that students be taught the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. However, Board members knowingly invited trouble by supporting amendments to the standards that singled out evolution for special treatment, exposing their own scientific ignorance in the process.

Thankfully, supporters of REAL science have time before the final vote in March to alert the Board of the inaccuracy of these last-ditch attempts to cast doubt on evolution.

Edited for grammar, 11:05am, 01/25