The new Texas standards leave plenty of room for authors to explain the robustness of evolutionary theory, [Kenneth Miller] says, and that's precisely what he and his publisher, Prentice Hall, plan to do. "The advocates of these standards underestimate the strength of the scientific evidence for structures and phenomena that they mistakenly believe evolution cannot account for," Miller says. "The new wording is an opportunity to make biology texts even stronger."

For example, Miller intends to "introduce more material on the evolution of organelles" within the cell to show that the cell's complexity is in fact explained by evolution. Likewise, he sees the standard requiring explanations of "sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record" - although written with the intent to undermine evolution - as "an invitation to introduce students to punctuated equilibrium."

Steve Nowicki, a biologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, plans to take the same approach when he asks Texas to adopt his biology book, published by Holt McDougal. "I understand that there may be a political agenda behind the standards, but I am taking them at face value," he says. "If a state thinks students need more information to understand evolution, I am happy to provide that."