We've written before about the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, Don McLeroy, the christianist wingnut dentist.
McLeroy is endorsing a new book called Sowing Atheism: The National Academy of Sciences' Sinister Scheme to Teach Our Children They've Descended from Reptiles by Robert Bowie Johnson Jr., who just happened to "self-publish" the book.
In this book students in science classes in Texas will learn, according to the Texas Freedom Network, that "Scientists are 'atheists.' Parents who want to teach their children about evolution are 'monsters.' Pastors who support sound science are 'morons.'"
This would be hilarious if it wasn't so damn serious. How does a wingnut like McLeroy get to hold the position of chairman of any state board of education?
And again, all of this is an attempt to impose and install fundamentalist christianity into our public schools.
From the book: "Creationists do not want to bring religion into the classroom... Creationists simply want the God hypothesis brought back into the science classroom, and recognized for what it is--a scientifically valid hypothesis."
Heh, heh!
The "God hypothesis" is not "religion," according to this fruitcake!
TFN summarizes: "As bizzarre and abrasive as some of these ideas may be [in the book], clearly any yahoo with a half-baked idea can write and self-publish a book. That is not the important point here. The real issue is the inability of the chair of the Texas State Board of Education to distinguish between legitimate, mainstream science - a represented by the National Academy of Sciences - and a lone crackpot with an openly religious agenda."
I disagree to some degree. I think the chair of the Texas State Board of Education can distinguish quite clearly the difference between "legitimate mainstream science" and "a lone crackpot with an openly religious agenda."
I think the real point and the real problem is that the chair of the Texas State Board of Education cares not about science and students in Texas schools, but is doing everything in his power to ensure that his particular brand of fundamentalist christianity has a gateway to spread its pernicious doctrines in Texas schools.
Read the entire article here.
h/t to Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly via Alternet.
Showing posts with label Texas State BOE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Texas State BOE. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Texas BOE and science standards
For a long time, public school students in Texas have been forced to hear about evolution's so-called "weaknesses" in their science classes. This is because the Texas State Board of Education has been dominated by christianist wingnuts.
Real scientists and people who live in the real world everywhere are happy as a lark because the Texas BOE just voted to scrap that nonsense. But, it was a merely a preliminary vote and the vote was almost evenly divided, and the final vote will come in March and the christianist wingnuts are marshalling their forces.
Furthermore, the Dallas Morning News reports that while the "weakness" requirement was dropped, an amendment was added "that calls for students to discuss the 'sufficiency or insufficiency' of Charles Darwin's tenet that humans and other living things have common ancestors." In the hands of a real scientist, that would be no problem; in the hands of a christianist wingnut teacher, it could be detrimental to her students.
The outfit behind the "weakness" stuff is the Discovery Institute, an organization devoted to replacing science in public school classrooms with "creationism" or its phony sister, Intelligent Design, both of which are not scientific at all, but religion in disguise.
The Discovery Institute is going to work hard to see that the "weakness" requirement is reinstated.
Meanwhile, the Texas Freedom Network is working to rescind the amendment when the board conducts its final vote in March.
Kathy Miller, TFN president said that the amendment "could provide a small foothold for teaching creationist ideas and dumbing down biology instruction in Texas."
Yup. And the kicker is that whatever the board decides will likely be in effect for 10 years plus!
But the christianists have a different take, naturally. And they lie. Here's what they say about the Texas BOE's decision to scuttle the "weakness" provision:
"Proponents of critical thinking in science classrooms were handed a blow by the Texas State Board of Education." Heh, heh.
Right. It is exactly the opposite! Now, students in Texas public schools will not be subjected to creationist nonsense which is faith-based, and rooted in the notion that the first chapters of Genesis are history not myth.
The truth is that proponents of critical thinking were handed a wonderful and long-overdue victory by the State Board of Education.
No more bible-based mythology parading as science!
Real scientists and people who live in the real world everywhere are happy as a lark because the Texas BOE just voted to scrap that nonsense. But, it was a merely a preliminary vote and the vote was almost evenly divided, and the final vote will come in March and the christianist wingnuts are marshalling their forces.
Furthermore, the Dallas Morning News reports that while the "weakness" requirement was dropped, an amendment was added "that calls for students to discuss the 'sufficiency or insufficiency' of Charles Darwin's tenet that humans and other living things have common ancestors." In the hands of a real scientist, that would be no problem; in the hands of a christianist wingnut teacher, it could be detrimental to her students.
The outfit behind the "weakness" stuff is the Discovery Institute, an organization devoted to replacing science in public school classrooms with "creationism" or its phony sister, Intelligent Design, both of which are not scientific at all, but religion in disguise.
The Discovery Institute is going to work hard to see that the "weakness" requirement is reinstated.
Meanwhile, the Texas Freedom Network is working to rescind the amendment when the board conducts its final vote in March.
Kathy Miller, TFN president said that the amendment "could provide a small foothold for teaching creationist ideas and dumbing down biology instruction in Texas."
Yup. And the kicker is that whatever the board decides will likely be in effect for 10 years plus!
But the christianists have a different take, naturally. And they lie. Here's what they say about the Texas BOE's decision to scuttle the "weakness" provision:
"Proponents of critical thinking in science classrooms were handed a blow by the Texas State Board of Education." Heh, heh.
Right. It is exactly the opposite! Now, students in Texas public schools will not be subjected to creationist nonsense which is faith-based, and rooted in the notion that the first chapters of Genesis are history not myth.
The truth is that proponents of critical thinking were handed a wonderful and long-overdue victory by the State Board of Education.
No more bible-based mythology parading as science!
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