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Anti-Science Views of members of Texas State Board of Education Aired
AT the Sept. 10 State Board of Education public hearing on textbook adoption, scientists, educators and students overwhelmingly supported leaving the evolution content in biology textbooks unchanged, since none contained factual errors or omissions about evolution and all contained the necessary material to comply with the Texas science curriculum. Indeed, every Texas scientist who testified not only supported the biology books, but also objected to efforts by creationists to confuse the public and State Board members about supposed "weaknesses" of evolution. In addition, the Texas Education Agency soon after reported that the biology textbooks all totally conformed to the TEKS, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, as required by law.
All the scientific evidence presented in the hearing strongly supported the scientists' evaluation of the textbooks. Speakers representing the Discovery Institute, a Seattle, Wash., organization that promotes intelligent design creationism, relied on misinformation to support their unwarranted claims that the biology books were inaccurate and incomplete. Scientist after scientist from the University of Texas at Austin spoke to the board, dissecting each creationist claim in detail and showing why each was illogical and unsupported by the evidence. Thus, the overwhelming effect of the testimony was to support the accurate scientific evolution content in biology textbooks and to leave them unchanged. Nevertheless, there is concern that some State Board members will try to change the textbooks or place them on the nonconforming list.
My own written testimony was misrepresented when I compared the current crop of anti-evolutionists on the State Board to Stalinists and Nazis. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany both had long and unfortunate histories of political interference and control of specific scientific topics for ideological reasons (genetics in the USSR, anthropology in Germany). Such interference and control of biology is precisely what some State Board members are trying to do in Texas, and scientists and educators have had to organize to stop them. While not similar in scale or murderous consequences, the motivation is identical and will result in "only" the corruption of our state's science education system.
The same tired litany of scientifically discredited support for intelligent design, such as arguments of anti-evolutionist Michael Behe, has been put forward as reliable science. However, readers are never informed of the dozens of reviews and essays by prominent scientists, including my own, that closely examine Behe's claims and show why they are illogical and unscientific. Today, there is zero scientific support for intelligent design and overwhelming support for modern evolution; indeed, evolution has never been stronger as an active scientific research topic. All the "weaknesses" that anti-evolutionists wish to have forced into biology books are illegitimate: They have already been corrected, are educationally unwarranted, or never existed in the first place.
Organized creationists, in their entire existence, have never conducted a single science experiment or made a single scientific observation. They just don't practice real science. Instead, their strategy is to use rhetorical and marketing techniques to persuade politically powerful non-scientists of the truth of their arguments, and convince them to force changes in science textbooks and curricula using the power of the state. This is what the creationist supporters tried to do in Kansas and Ohio, and now they are in Texas attempting to do the same thing. They failed in those two states, and they will ultimately fail here.
Houston readers should be aware that the most extreme anti-science advocates on the State Board of Education are from Houston and its surrounding counties: Teri Leo, David Bradley, Don McLeroy and Linda Bauer. Their efforts to subvert accurate science instruction are well-known and documented in the written and oral testimony available on the Texas Education Agency and Texas Citizens for Science Web sites. The first three members have publicly championed creationist speakers and their goals, and have announced their plan to place all the biology textbooks that refuse to make unscientific changes on the nonconforming adoption list, thus restricting their sale in Texas. For her part, Bauer appointed two creationists to the state biology textbook review panel, where they attempted but failed to have the books listed as nonconforming.
I have opposed such State Board of Education members since 1982, and the problems we have with anti-scientists on the board will never disappear until voters take the time to learn the true natures and beliefs of State Board candidates before electing them to office. The position is low on the ballot, and dedicated creationists run as stealth candidates to stay below the radar. I urge each reader to investigate this controversy yourself and begin to take a personal interest in Texas science education and keep ideologues and zealots off the State Board. The reason is simple: These individuals are neglecting our state's low standardized text scores, low graduation rates and shrinking Texas' Permanent School Fund, while devoting their time and energy to meddling with science textbook content. Instead of devoting their efforts to protecting and improving public school education, they appear to want to damage it. Some of them home-school their children or send them to private religious schools, so it is understandable that they have no stake in the system. Texans should demand that these public officials start to make the education of our schoolchildren their first priority, and we should expect them to begin by leaving science textbooks alone and not censor them.
Schafersman, of Midland, is the president of Texas Citizens for Science. He is a scientist, educator and writer.
— Steven D. Schafersman
Truth won out in debate on Texas textbooks
Houston Chronicle
2003-10-08
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/2145890
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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