Creationists tried to get their filthy fingers again into Texas public-school education, with one biology textbook held up by the Texas State Board of Education because a creationist had some objections to material that affirmed evolution. After working with the Board of Education, the publisher, Holt-McDougal, has come up with a final version, which was approved. The thing is, the “edits” made the book even more pro-evolution than before! You can read about it here, and download a pdf file of the changes made in response to creationist objections.
That makes nine textbooks, all undergirded with solid evolutionary ideas, that can be used in Texas over the next decade. Kudos to the Texas Freedom Network and the National Center for Science Education for lobbying in favor of solid science.
Hoo bloddy rah!!
and yet we have a career “biologist” writing and publishing this: http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2011/08/16/insights-hindsight-resolving-seeming-conflicts-science-and-scripture
I read that.
It’s amazing the rationalizations people will invent for themselves to “reconcile” their beliefs with reality.
Brand is no exception.
what a waste of time, for HIM, to have written that.
This just means that there will be more home-schoolers and more students enrolling in “Christian Universities.” You can’t stop people from being ignorant. Well, at least reason won out…for now.
See what happens when Gov. Perry goes out of state! Just wait ’til he gets off that bus in Iowa and comes home. Dare guana be sum
splanin’ to do.
Too bad the state of Texas doesn’t have any money to buy new textbooks.
This is great, though as I was just reading over at Pharyngula, it won’t make much difference if the kids don’t have to read them.
On an unrelated note, but I just had to mention this: I just spent several minutes going nuts trying to figure out why I was hearing birds chirping. I had several tabs open, so I closed them one by one, but still the birds chirped. Finally, I scrolled way down your front page and figured out it was that osprey video.
Lovely video, but do try to avoid auto-play in the future if you could.
I agree but when I heard strange noises I just put it down to being a bit insane and ignored it.
Me too. But I have cockatiels and they were answering the video.
Yeah, I was having cocktails myself and chalked it up to that.
I had the same problem watching The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill at home. Whenever the audio played the sound of the red-tailed hawk that was attacking the parrot flock, our cockatiel would give a worried cry.
For a little bird, they can be LOUD–I recently heard our bird’s cries while I was four houses down our suburban street. (I was walking home from the bus.)
Pardon my broken end-of-HTML code that put the bulk of my message in italics. Could the moderator fix it?
How can we take the criticism of a bird-hater serious?
I read the objections and the answers of the publisher: typical creationist tactic of nitpicking. I love the answer of the whale evolution objections.
By the way, the objection said it want 400 intermediate fossils of whale evolution!
That’s a textbook example of “moving the goalposts”.
True, that was the most bizarre objection.
399 ‘intermediate’ fossils wouldn’t prove a thing, but with 400 they would change their mind? Is that what they were suggesting?
You’d think that ONE should be enough for them.
400 fossils would just mean 800 “gaps”.
Uhhh…you’re double-counting gaps. That’s 399 gaps.
With the transitional fossils nearest to whales they would say: isn’t transitional, is a whale; and the farthest (Pakicetus) they said in the objection: is not a whale is a land dwelling animal… and creationist apologist will not agree which fossil is whale or Pakicetus, like human evolution!
Creationist falacies, easily interchangeable.
Ironically, miracles CAN occur!
I read the list of changes, and I didn’t get the sense that the edits made the book “even more pro-evolution.” They changed some wording to *slightly* appease the creationist objections, but I was impressed about how they stood firm on almost all of it. Many of the changes were done only in the teachers’ notes, not the kids’ textbooks.
That’s very important though. Biology teachers in Texas don’t necessarily know much, if any, biology. The teachers are often learning the subject themselves.
I’m sure there are some, especially in the more rural areas, but for the most part I think biology teachers in Texas are generally competent. Tonight I’m going to meet my son’s AP Biology teacher (and all his other teachers) for the next school year. Maybe I’ll test him/her somehow.
You may have to ask if they are sticking to the approved state standards and if not, where do they deviate. Since you do not know where they are on the spectrum of science v. belief, you may want to lead them without giving yourself away. I think sticking to the lesson plan (asking to see it, maybe?) is a good way to find out. If they don’t have a lesson plan, then I would worry. You could also ask what books and materials they use, but be specific (ie. what text version, year published and publisher).
My 2 cents.
Chris
It’s so frustrating to me that something like this is a victory. What age of unreason to do we in when people have to fight to teach our kids things they should be learning in school? This is why we lag so far behind other countries in education–crazy people trying to turn schools into centers for religious brainwashing.
“This is why we lag so far behind other countries in education–crazy people trying to turn schools into centers for religious brainwashing.”
that’s just one small part of it.
I wish it was a simple as religious resistance to good education.
our entire educational system has lost focus since the idea that it should be run like a for-profit business became the model that most legislators chose to impose on it.
seriously, that is the single, biggest reason educational systems are in decline from the primary all the way through our universities.
to expect someone to start a career as an educator in such a system is madness.
there is no way to fix it at this point; we (I should say you, since now I’m dealing with watching the same thing happening here in NZ, but am no longer in the US) have to scrap it and start all over again, remembering that the entire idea of education is not to provide a business for an educational system, but to educate.
all focus should be on that single priority, and not trying to run our schools as businesses.
There is more than enough money to educate ourselves properly, if there was just the will to do so.