Still a long way to go, but there is hope in Texas. “Strengths and weaknesses” garbage narrowly defeated in a preliminary vote. Texas Freedom Network is a great source for up to date info.
Time for deep breaths. One: The failure of creationists to reinsert “strengths and weaknesses†into the standards is a huge victory for sound science education. We need to fight to keep it out in tomorrow’s formal vote and again in the final March votes on the standards.
Second: Board members — none of whom are research scientists, much less biologists — appeared confused when they were asked to consider amendments with changes to specific passages of the standards. That’s why it’s foolish to let dentists and insurance salesmen play-pretend that they’re scientists. The result is that the standards draft includes language that is more tentative. Not good, but not necessarily disastrous overall.
Third, and this is more of a problem, McLeroy has succeeded in inserting language that would have students waste time evaluating evidence on a concept that is established science — in fact, it’s a core concept in the study of evolution, common descent. Even worse, it’s such a complicated and bizarre standard that teachers will have a very difficult time even translating it, much less teaching about it. (TEA has not yet posted it.) What we saw is what happens when a dentist pretends that he knows more about science than scientists do.
