In an earlier post, I noted that Texas State Board of Education member Terri Leo is apparently well aware that singling out evolution for special treatment in the public school classrooms has been a losing proposition in the Federal courts.
Recently, Leo displayed her knowledge of this important legal precedent on the "Wallbuilders Live" radio program:
"...what the Federal law actually says is that you cannot pull evolution out and treat it separately or differently than you have treated other theories."
On this point, Leo is enitrely correct. Adopting an educational policy that singles out evolution for special treatment in the public school science classroom practically guarantees a costly lawsuit and the eventual rejection of that policy by the federal courts.
Too bad Leo does not realize that this is exactly what she and her fellow antievolutionists on the Board have been doing.
Seemingly oblivious, Leo continued:
"So, in Texas, we have not done that. We applied the strengths and weaknesses language to all theories."
They're applying the language to all theories?
Riiiight.
I guess that's why Terri Leo proposed and passed five amendments to the evolution standards, each of which would require students to "analyze and evaluate" certain aspects of evolutionary theory, even when the change of wording makes no sense.
The desire to apply the "strengths and weaknesses" language to all theories must have been why be why Chairman Don McLeroy proposed and passed his ill-conceived and dubiously supported amendment on the fossil record and common ancestry. McLeroy has also announced his plans to propose an amendment that would require students to learn about "the insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of cells."
Board member Barbara Cargill also proposed 13 amendments to the Earth and Space Science standards (5 of which passed), each dealing with well-established scientific principles that are consistently rejected by Young Earth Creationists.
And let us not forget what happened in 2003 when McLeroy, Leo, and others tried to persuade textbook publishers to include bogus "weaknesses" of evolution - and only evolution - in Biology textbooks.
And yet, Terri Leo says that they're not pulling out evolution and treating it differently from other theories.
You know, I heard what she said, but I'm just not buying it.
In fact, I think it was particularly telling how Leo described the function of the "strengths and weaknesses" language that she and her fellow anti-evolutionists hope to re-insert into the standards when the Board meets next week.
"So therefore it is lawsuit-clad, iron-clad...it's a solid way of doing it."
Doing what, Ms. Leo?
Oh, you're talking about singling out evolution for special treatment, aren't you?
Yeah, I thought so.
Hat-tip: TFN Insider
posted by Jeremy Mohn
