Texas School Board Strikes Against Evolution Still Again

Cartoon from EvolutionMinute

Source: "SCIENCE EDUCATION: New Texas Standards Question Evolution, Fossil Record," Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Science 3 April 2009: Vol. 324. no. 5923, p. 25

I quote:

New science standards for Texas schools strike a major blow to the teaching of evolution, say scientists and educators who last week tried unsuccessfully to block the adoption of last-minute amendments aimed at providing an opening for the teaching of creationism. The standards incorporate talking points from the intelligent design literature, including doubt that the fossil record provides convincing evidence of evolution. Supporters of the new standards, who prevailed on 27 March by a vote of 13 to 2, say the next step will be to press publishers to modify biology textbooks.

Comment: The Texas standards influence textbook publishers in the United States because of the size of the Texas market, and thus influence the contents of school text books in all 50 states.

I would have hoped that on the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origen of Species the vast majority of Americans would accept evolution, but the ignorance of many Americans seems to defy such progress! Arghh!

It the United States is to stay competitive in a global economy increasingly dominated by knowledge-intensive goods and services, facing competition from increasingly educated peoples in Europe, Asia and even Latin America, then we can not afford to write off half of the country's educational systems, nor to take chances with the biological education of the rest of the nation's students. JAD