{"id":874,"date":"2009-01-23T00:23:23","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T05:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=874"},"modified":"2009-02-28T14:11:28","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T19:11:28","slug":"texas-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=874","title":{"rendered":"Texas updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Time for deep breaths. One: The failure of creationists to reinsert \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strengths and weaknesses\u00e2\u20ac\u009d into the standards is a huge victory for sound science education. We need to fight to keep it out in tomorrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s formal vote and again in the final March votes on the standards.<\/p>\n

Second: Board members \u00e2\u20ac\u201d none of whom are research scientists, much less biologists \u00e2\u20ac\u201d appeared confused when they were asked to consider amendments with changes to specific passages of the standards. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s foolish to let dentists and insurance salesmen play-pretend that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re scientists. The result is that the standards draft includes language that is more tentative. Not good, but not necessarily disastrous overall.<\/p>\n

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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in fact, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a core concept in the study of evolution, common descent. Even worse, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … 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-e6","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":791,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=791","url_meta":{"origin":874,"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":972,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=972","url_meta":{"origin":874,"position":1},"title":"Ripples from Texas Continued","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"March 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"BREAKING NEWS: A proposed amendment adding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strengths and weaknesses\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of scientific theories back to the science standards has failed on a 7-7 vote. This is a huge victory for sound science, but not the final word. The final vote will be taken on Friday. And board members may now offer\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=972#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":970,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=970","url_meta":{"origin":874,"position":2},"title":"Ripples from Texas","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Poynter provides a newspaper roundup of how what's happening in Texas concerning evolution education can affect the country. The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum that challenges the theory of evolution. Testimony on the proposal begins Wednesday. Because Texas has such a huge\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=970#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":384,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=384","url_meta":{"origin":874,"position":3},"title":"It’s about our future, people!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This vendetta the anti-evolution crowd has against the new draft of the state science standards is not just a fight in the here and now. Their assault on science they quite frankly don't understand could affect our future. Mike Thomas, an Orlando Sentinel columnist, tells it like it is: Science\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":873,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=873","url_meta":{"origin":874,"position":4},"title":"What’s happening in Texas","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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 force textbook publishers to include what skeptics see as weaknesses\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":511,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=511","url_meta":{"origin":874,"position":5},"title":"How “scientific theory” got into the standards","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The St. Petersburg Times posted a story this evening outlining what was found in e-mails the newspaper obtained via public records requests from the Florida Department of Education. The purpose of the public records request? To find out where the last minute new state science standards option that featured the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874"}],"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=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}