The Texas Board of Education approved a science curriculum that opens the door for teachers and textbooks to raise doubts about evolution. Critics of evolution said they were thrilled with Friday's move.
by Stephanie Simon
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal
"Texas has sent a clear message that evolution should be taught as a scientific theory open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned," said Dr. John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that argues an intelligent designer created life.
Kathy Miller, president of the pro-evolution Texas Freedom Network, said, "The board crafted a road map that creationists will use to pressure publishers into putting phony arguments attacking established science into textbooks." ...
Friday's meeting started with a victory for backers of evolution. The board voted to remove a longstanding requirement that students analyze the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory. ...
Through the afternoon, board members offered up a series of amendments and counter-amendments designed to shape presentations in biology classes across the state. The board voted down curriculum standards questioning the evolutionary principle that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry.
Yet the board approved standards that require students to analyze and evaluate the fossil record and the complexity of the cell. Social conservatives on the board, led by chairman Don McLeroy, have made clear they expect books to address those topics by raising questions about the validity of evolutionary theory.
For instance, they want textbooks to suggest the theory of evolution is undercut by fossils that show some organisms -- such as ferns -- haven't changed much over millions of years. They also want texts to discuss the explosion of life forms during the Cambrian Era as inconsistent with the incremental march of evolution. ...
Board members also deleted a reference to the scientific consensus that the universe is nearly 14 billion years old. The board's chairman has said he believes God created the universe fewer than 10,000 years ago. Read the full article here.