{"id":873,"date":"2009-01-22T06:49:06","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T11:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=873"},"modified":"2009-02-28T14:12:07","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T19:12:07","slug":"whats-happening-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=873","title":{"rendered":"What’s happening in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of Florida newspapers ran stories this morning about the fight over evolution instruction in Texas.<\/p>\n

Sarasota Herald: In Texas, a Line in the Curriculum Revives Evolution Debate<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Many biologists and teachers said they feared that the board would force textbook publishers to include what skeptics see as weaknesses in Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theory to sow doubt about science and support the Biblical version of creation.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153These weaknesses that they bring forward are decades old, and they have been refuted many, many times over,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kevin Fisher, a past president of the Science Teachers Association of Texas, said after testifying. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an attempt to bring false weaknesses into the classroom in an attempt to get students to reject evolution.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bradenton Herald: Texas wrestles with science standards, evolution<\/a><\/p>\n

Critics say the use of the word “weaknesses” has been used to undermine Darwin’s theory of evolution and promote creationism – or intelligent design.<\/p>\n

“In science education, ‘weaknesses’ has become a code word in the culture wars to attack evolution and promote creationism,” said Kathy Miller, president of the watchdog group Texas Freedom Network. “If it weren’t, we wouldn’t see this crusade by some of the board members and outside pressure groups to keep this single word in the science standards.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyone in the WInter Haven area? You might want to send in a letter to the editor to counter the garbage Grace Discher wrote in the News Chief: Evolution is a religion, not a provable science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When debating the validity of Creationism, versus Evolution, many evolutionists seem to believe that the conflict is a disagreement between a well-proven scientific fact and the Christian religion. In reality, it is a battle between two opposing religions and their subsequent world views. Evolution is as much a faith-based religion as Christianity, Islam, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of Florida newspapers ran stories this morning about the fight over evolution instruction in Texas. Sarasota Herald: In Texas, a Line in the Curriculum Revives Evolution Debate Many biologists and teachers said they feared that the board would … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-e5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":791,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=791","url_meta":{"origin":873,"position":0},"title":"Texas scientists strike back","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent survey takes the pulse of the Texas higher education folks to see where evolution stands. The TFN Education Fund's press release summarizes five key findings from the survey: \"1. Texas scientists (97.7 percent) overwhelmingly reject 'intelligent design' as valid science. 2. Texas science faculty (95 percent) want only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other states' news"","block_context":{"text":"Other states' news","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=28"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":874,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=874","url_meta":{"origin":873,"position":1},"title":"Texas updates","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strengths and weaknesses\u00e2\u20ac\u009d into the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":666,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=666","url_meta":{"origin":873,"position":2},"title":"Tomfoolery in Texas","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"July 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Dentist\" Don McLeroy, and the Texas Board of Education is gearing up to return science education in Texas back to the 19th century.This is the latest efforts by religious conservatives to discredit TOE after efforts to incorporate\u00c2\u00a0creationism into the science standards have repeatedly failed. Lessons in \"the weaknesses of evolution\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 22 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 22 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=666#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":732,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=732","url_meta":{"origin":873,"position":3},"title":"TX: All together now","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Texas scientists are standing in unison against antiscientific nonsense! Scientists from major Texas universities are joining to oppose efforts to bring supernatural and religious teaching into public school science courses. They say any attempts to teach students \"weaknesses\" in evolution should be blocked. The newly formed 21st Century Science Coalition\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=732#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":866,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=866","url_meta":{"origin":873,"position":4},"title":"Texas: Teach them science","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Center for Inquiry and the Clergy Letter Project joined forces to produce a nice website advocating for strong science education in Texas: Teach Them Science. Take-Home Lessons \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Science is our children's future. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Evolution is solid science. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The alleged weaknesses teach students to think unscientifically. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 You\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":599,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=599","url_meta":{"origin":873,"position":5},"title":"Texas trouble","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In the continuing saga of \"and you thought we had it bad,\" I present to you this NY Times article about evolution woes in Texas. It looks like more board of education members there are vocal about the issue than our folks were here in Florida. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcStrengths and weaknesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 44 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 44 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=599#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}