Education Law

Texas Stepping into Evolution Debate

Texas is getting ready to put its boot-print on the evolution debate in America. 

The issue has been going on for a while and I have been following it here, but now national media has noticed -- putting Texas in sort of a no-backing down position here. 

Dr. McLeroy [chair of the Texas Board of Education] believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago. If the new curriculum passes, he says he will insist that high-school biology textbooks point out specific aspects of the fossil record that, in his view, undermine the theory that all life on Earth is descended from primitive scraps of genetic material that first emerged in the primordial muck about 3.9 billion years ago.

He also wants the texts to make the case that individual cells are far too complex to have evolved by chance mutation and natural selection, an argument popular with those who believe an intelligent designer created the universe.

The textbooks will "have to say that there's a problem with evolution -- because there is," said Dr. McLeroy, a dentist. "We need to be honest with the kids."

So, later this week we'll know whether one of the largest textbook buyers in the country is going to demand that science teachers question evolution in front of their students and in their textbooks (meaning that evolution questioning statements will appear throughout the United States in the textbooks). Apparently this is going to be a close vote this week, with one member of the Texas Board of Education serving as the swing vote.

Got to love it when a dentist (who I have serious questions about anyway) controls education and our understanding of biology for millions of school children.  

But, as Clay Burell notes, some Texas legislators introduced legislation to reign in the State Board and he has even started a petition to put pressure on legislators. 

Full post as published by Edjurist on March 23, 2009 (boomark / email).