Saturday, July 26, 2008

Texas State Board of Education Starts Hearings On Evolution

According to a recent editorial in The Austin Chronicle, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has begun hearings to decide whether or not Texas public school curricula should include material balancing the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of evolution. SBOE chairman Dr. Don McLeroy D.D.S. (that means he's a dentist) believes that there is not enough evidence to support evolution. The self-proclaimed creationist is quoted in the editorial:

"this year's 'battle is to bring in some of the weaknesses of evolution,"'to ninth- and 10th-grade biology classrooms, retaining language requiring that teachers instruct students in the 'strengths and weaknesses' of scientific theories."

While McLeroy speaks of "scientific theories" in the plural, Dan Quinn, communication director for the Texas Freedom Network, a statewide organization that works to mitigate the influence of fundamentalism on state policy, claims the only theory of which McLeroy and the six other conservative members of the Texas SBOE remain unconvinced is evolution.

McLeroy claims there are three major weaknesses of evolutionary theory about which Texas students should be taught: "gaps" in the fossil record, there not being enough time for evolution to happen and the complexity of life. The author of the editorial Andrea Grimes asked University of Texas integrative biology professor David Hillis, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, about McLeroy's list of "weaknesses." His response was as follows:

"Hillis said McLeroy was simply denying facts. 'There is indeed a vast record of transitional fossils,' wrote Hillis, saying McLeroy's fossil record claims are 'completely at odds with the experts in the entire field of paleontology.'"

As for McLeroy's second assertion regarding length of time required for evolution to have taken place, Hillis wrote that the position 'demonstrates an extraordinary ignorance of biology,' since rates of evolution observed in laboratory tests have been 'more than sufficient' to prove natural rates of genetic change that coincide with the fossil record."

Finally, McLeroy's cell-complexity argument does not even belong in a scientific discussion, wrote Hillis: 'The argument that 'It is too complicated, so God must have done it' is not a scientific argument.'"


These three perceived "weaknesses" should sound familiar to anyone even remotely interested in the evolution/intelligent design creationism debate. I.D. proponents have been bringing up these same issues for decades.

Grimes cites the case of Chris Comer I wrote about here as evidence that anti-science conservatives have more than enough power to affect Texas SBOE policy. Grimes comments on the effect the anti-evolution school board could have on education in Texas:

"It's worth noting that part of the TEA and SBOE's duty statement includes a goal to "prepare today's schoolchildren for a successful future." If the weak-evolution curricula passes, Texas schoolchildren will be able to achieve that success in one of two ways: fly out of state for biology class and be back in time for lunch or set their sights on excelling at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University."

In addition to the detrimental effect weak-evolution curricula will have on students in Texas, there is another aspect of this issue the editorial did not mention. Since Texas is the second largest U.S. state, it is also one of the country's biggest buyer of textbooks. If the Texas SBOE purchases textbooks teaching the "weaknesses" of evolution as McLeroy understands them, the textbook manufacturer will most likely opt out of producing books for the rest of the nation different from those sold to its largest customer.

Quoting the New York Times article cited above, "The ideas that work their way into education [in Texas] will surface in classrooms throughout the country."

I really don't have any snarky, sarcastic comments about this story. Issues dealing with the education of this country's young people are too serious to joke around about. This sort of thing makes me truly ashamed to be a native-born Texan.

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36 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm amazed that you have reached spiritual rock bottom in a mere 20 years. I'm even more astonished that you wish to drag everyone you can down into the mire to wallow with the pigs.

Try as you may, your father will not win this battle. Christ will prevail, even in the classroom.

Anonymous said...

Christ will prevail, even in the classroom.

Anonymous wants America to be a theocracy. Good luck with that mister.

Jeremy, I highly recommend you delete the spam from C. David Parsons, unless you want to let idiots use your blog to advertise books for morons.

McLeroy is a wacko. The governor of Texas who appointed McLeroy is also a wacko. Perhaps it's time to give Texas back to Mexico.

Anonymous said...

The creationists claim evolution has weaknesses. That's extremely dishonest. Evolution has research opportunities, not weaknesses. It's nutty to say evolution has weaknesses for the same reason it's nutty to say our planet's orbit around the sun has weaknesses.

How does America rid itself of creationist wackos? The only solution is better science education. Much better science education. The firing of creationist biology teachers. And the public ridicule and humiliation of scum like McLeroy. Nothing can be done for older creationists. We can only patiently wait for them to drop dead.

Jeremy said...

Wow, my first comments from crazy Christian fundamentalists! I'm honored.

Chris_topher said...

Wow, it's very clear based on these comments (i.e Bobxxx) and the above article, that you guys really don't have a clue about what your talking about lol. Maybe this will help. You first need to define the word evolution because there are three different ways to define it.
Evolution #1-The process in which organisms change over time. Which nobody on the Creationist or Intelligent Design side dispute. They all agree that random mutations cause changes, or variation in a population of organisms.
Evolution #2-Theory of Universal Common Descent. Which says that all the organisms we see today are descended from a single common ancestor somewhere in the distant past. You know, that picture of the branching tree showing how everything "evolved".
Evolution #3- Finally, some people use the term "evolution" to refer to a cause or mechanism of change, the biological process Darwin thought was responsible for the branching pattern. Darwin argued that unguided natural selection had the power to produce fundamentally new forms of life. Together, the ideas of Universal Common Descent and natural selection form the core of Darwinian evolutionary theory. "Neo-Darwinian" evolution combines our knowledge of DNA and genetics to claim that random mutations in DNA provide the variation upon which natural selection acts in a completely unguided fashion. It is this form of evolution that is the most controversial meaning of evolution.
Now the common criticisms of evolution are derived from definitions 2 and 3. Now it's obvious the article above was very biased and the person interviewed was ill-informed on the topic I suppose. Either way, it's the illusion that Neo-Darwinist have created in the classroom that is sparking the state board to hold these hearings. You might be saying what illusion? Well the illusion is that these random mutations combined with natural selection can explain the origins of life AND account for the macro-evolutionary process. This is were scientist on the ID side draw a distinctly different viewpoint(and with good reason, which i would be more than happy to share with you).
So you see, the real problem is the word evolution is being misused in it's context here. The scientist on the ID side agree with the micro-evolutionary process, because they're scientist themselves they've observed these things. The problem remains that when saying ID proponents don't agree with evolution, your throwing in a whole theory with proven flaws. Now if you would like to debate these flaws I'd be more than happy to.

Scott Burger said...

Funny comments.

I didn't know you were born in Texas

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