Monkey Business
November 16th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Yesterday’s meeting of the State Board of Education, those creationist monkeys, ended not with a bang but a whimper. The most controversial agenda item - hiring an outside consultant to manage the development and writing of new curriculum standards for the state - was tabled after several board members expressed a desire to hold off on a decision until January. Science defenders breathed a collective sigh of relief. They were worried that the consultant could be a back door strategy by anti-evolution board members to short-circuit the input of real science educators.
“The process is critical because if the process is out of whack then the end product may not be as rigorous as we would like,” Kathy Miller, president of Texas Freedom Network, told the 15-member elected board. That’s Miller’s nice way of saying that a rigged process will mean crappy science textbooks. Steven Schafersman, of Midland-based Texas Citizens for Science, said the proposal as written “contains all sorts of red flags,” including ambiguity as to how, and who, would select the consultant and whether he or she would have veto power over the expert’s recommendations.
Texas defenders of science are in heightened vigilance mode because the board will spend 2008 overhauling the state’s curriculum standards. That means we’re likely to have to endure another pique of anti-evolution fervor from the creationists on the board, led by new chairman Don McLeroy, a fundamentalist Christian and Republican who has boldly declared that he does not share “a common ancestor with a tree.” (I’m sure the tree feels the same way.)
The last time the board touched the science standards was in 2003. At that time creationist activists and their board allies tried (unsuccessfully) to strip the science of evolution and the chemical origins of life from biology textbooks. A majority of the board, however, have pledged to keep “intelligent design” out of the classroom this go-around. A more likely approach for the die-hards would be to ramp up their pseudo-scientific attacks on the supposed holes in evolutionary theory. H.L. Mencken once wrote that “democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.” We shall see soon enough if the monkeys are still in charge at the Texas board of education.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Well, if they try to supplant evolution with (un)intelligent design, someone should remind them that the federal courts in one circuit have already declared such teachings unconstitutional. It would not be hard to get the same precedent elsewhere, and another win for the defenders of science over those of us who would rather still live in the Dark Ages.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
They probably won’t try it that way again. My prediction is that they’ll say that want to have MORE taught about evolution, not less. Teach about the “flaws” and “gaps,” for example … or the “limits,” as in Behe’s new book.