Texas textbooks
From EvoWiki
The Texas textbooks "wars" were an attempt in 2003 by Creationists1 on the State Board of Education (TSBE) in Texas, USA, to have textbooks which included Intelligent Design aproved for use by K12 (secondary level education) schools in the state. The case was significant not just for Texas, but potentially for the whole United States. Texas has a large population, particularly in public-schools, and publishers may have cut costs by selling Texas-standard textbooks throughout the country, rather than publishing two different versions.
The TSBE is restricted in what powers it has over textbook contents. The board can only ban textbooks for factual inaccuracies or failure to follow the curriculum. The anti-evolutionists therefore employed a strategy of alledging that specific examples of evolution, such as in peppered moths, were false. They also used widely discredited claims using the strategy of Teach the controversy claiming that their only goal was accuracy ('Teach the weaknesses') in evolution teaching. While the issues described in this article were mostly settled in 2003 the latest act in this saga is that the creationists on the SBOE are going through the Texas Attorney General, bypassing the legislature, to get an interpretation of Texas law that will give them more power over textbook content - stay tuned!
Contents |
September 10 meeting
The most significant event in the wars was the public hearing of September 10, 2003, in Austin, which led to the board abandoning the proposals. The board heard from creationist organisations Texans for Better Science Education (often noted as TBSE which is easy to confuse with TSBE, Texas State Board of Education), Institute for Creation Research and the Discovery Institute, and on the opposing side the National Center for Science Education and Texas Citizens for Science.
The case for creation, presented mainly by William Dembski, consisted of five anti-evolution claims:
- Evolutionists teach the falsehood that Renaissance-era Europeans believed in a flat-Earth.
- Haeckel's embryo drawings were proven wrong in 1874 and are still in biology books
- Miller-Urey experiments were inconclusive
- Cambrian explosion did not last 160 million years (as 'evolutionists' supposedly teach)
- Homologous features do not follow the same developmental pathways
Dembski also appeared to claim that the traditional peppered moth story is no longer supportable, though this was not officially presented..
Many witnesses appeared, mostly on the creationist side, bringing up far more claims than those presented by William Dembski, for instance, Dr. Magnuson ineffectively bringing up the 2nd law of thermodynamics prohibits evolution claim where he had to be coached by the pro-creationist board member McLeroy. In fact a substantial portion of the creationist claims covered here in EvoWiki were presented. (As time permits I will attempt to distill 529 pages of testimony [1] into the complete list, --Dmill96 06:46, 13 March 2006 (GMT))
In November 2003 the board voted 11-4 against the anti-evolution books, but several board members continue to seek anti-evolution changes in textbooks after the decision.
Footnotes
- The specific creationists (endorsed by TBSE, Texans for Better Science Education) on the TSBE (Texas State Board of Education) were Terri Leo [2], Robert Scott and Don McLeroy (who are still at it in 2004, despite losing the vote [3]).
References & Sources
- Hagen, L.K. & L. Morano, 2004. "The Texas Textbook Wars", in Skeptic 11:1 p18-20.
External links
- Christopher, K., 2003, "Evolution battle in Texas textbooks", in Skeptical Enquirer [4].
- Myers, P.Z., 2003, "The Devious DI and Texas textbooks: the Crayola Strategy", in Pharyngula [5].
- CNN report, Nov 03.
