A Pyrrhic Victory?
March 26th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Pro-evolution advocates no doubt enjoyed the morning half of today’s long-anticipated State Board of Education meeting. They prevailed in the headline fight: A proposal to slip into the science standards a reference to “weaknesses” of evolution was beaten back.
But things changed this afternoon.
The seven social conservatives on the 15-member board mostly got their way this afternoon. They passed a series of minor amendments that, with a slight word change here and there, diluted the state’s science standards and the teaching of evolutionary theory. Critics say these proposals open loopholes in the standards for the teaching of unscientific theories espoused by religious conservatives. (The same approach was tried, quite successfully, at the board’s meeting in January.}
“We’re opening the conversation and broadening it to alternative theories,” said Barbara Cargill, a socially conservative board member from The Woodlands. “We know there are a lot of questions about the fossil record.”
Terri Leo, an ardent social conservative, passed an amendment requiring biology students to “analyze and evaluate the evidence regarding the formation of simple organic molecules.”
Board Chair Don McLeroy passed an amendment that will require science curriculum and textbooks to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell.”
Cargill snuck through an amendment that struck a reference to the Universe being 14 billion years old. “It clarifies this for our teachers to let students know that there are differing theories for the age of the Universe,” Cargill said, adding that she was simply trying to add a sense of “humility” to the science standards.
Pro-evolution members offered several amendments themselves, many from Lubbock’s Bob Craig, to undo the social conservatives’ victories from January. Nearly all of those amendments failed.
The change in fortunes occurred largely because of Rick Agosto of San Antonio, who voted against the social conservatives in the morning and mostly with them in the afternoon. Agosto is viewed as the key swing vote on the board. He voted against the “strengths and weaknesses” language in January and again this morning, despite fierce lobbying from religious groups in his district.
Agosto wasn’t alone. Several other pro-evolution board members voted with the social conservatives’ this afternoon.
The board will take its final vote on the science standards, which will set content of classes and textbooks for years to come, tomorrow. The board can add in or take out language up until final passage.
So one last fight is likely tomorrow.
March 26th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Socially conservative?
Outside of Texas we call them R_E_T_A_R_D_S.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:38 am
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