In a victory for science education and the children of Texas, publishers are refusing to include creationism in science textbooks despite fierce pressure from conservative Christians.
The Texas Freedom Network, a nonpartisan watchdog, released a statement Thursday, Oct. 17, declaring “All 14 publishers are refusing to water down or compromise instruction on evolution and climate change in their proposed new high school biology textbooks.”
The following is from a press release issued by the Texas Freedom Network announcing the news:
"Materials submitted to the Texas Education Agency and examined by the Texas Freedom Network and university scientists show that publishers are resisting pressure to undermine instruction on evolution in their proposed new high school biology textbooks for public schools.
“This is a very welcome development for everyone who opposes teaching phony science about evolution in our kid’s public schools,” Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said. “Texas parents can applaud these publishers for standing up to pressure from politicians and activists who want to put their personal beliefs ahead of giving Texas students a 21st-century science education.”
Conservative Christians on the Texas State Board of Education have been attempting to insert religious superstition into science textbooks for years by attempting to smuggle into the Texas science curriculum materials supportive of Biblical Creationism, also known as Intelligent Design.
Science advocates argue Creationism, or Intelligent Design, is not a legitimate scientific alternative to the theory of evolution. Indeed, critics would claim Biblical creationism is a religious superstition that does real harm to America - a symptom of a willful ignorance and an anti-intellectualism that thwarts scientific progress at home and humiliates America abroad.
There is so much win in that last paragraph.
Texas, as has been reported before, has a HUGE impact on what kind of textbooks that are printed for public school students around the country, which is why they receive a great deal of scrutiny concerning what is, and what is not, included within their pages.
There has been a great deal of controversy concerning the very aggressive attempts by certain Creationists to undermine science and insert their own superstitious view of the beginnings of life on this planet.
Learning that they have, thus far, been unsuccessful is good news for science, good news for our kids, and ultimately very good news for the future of our country.
AMEN! LOL.
ReplyDeleteRemember what building Lee H Oswald used for his shooting perch? The Texas State Schoolbook Depository... Odd coinidence?
ReplyDeleteWell, how about those textbook publishers?
ReplyDeleteIt's a start.
How's about some Roy Zimmerman to mark the occasion?
Creation Science 101:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIwiPsgRrOs
thatcrowwoman
30+ year veteran public school teacher and librarian
Our nation's best schools are in Massachusetts. The students coming from that state are scoring at the top of all test takers.
ReplyDeleteWe should insist the publishers put QUALITY over QUANTITY.
The highest scoring state should get to decide textbook curriculum, not the state with the greatest number of students.
The MA School Board should get the vote, not Texas. Why follow the state with the students scoring at the bottom?
California's population is larger. Somebody down there should start a movement for more science in science textbooks.
ReplyDeleteWhat biotech firm would ever want to locate in a state that denies evolution?
ReplyDeleteTexas also did a real number on history as you knew it.
ReplyDelete"Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)
“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?_r=0
Really, Texas? Really?
Hell NO creationism isn't science any more than is flat-earth "theory" or the Biblical notion that demons cause disease.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, Xtians think their superstitious nonsense is more worthy of being taught in schools than other superstitious nonsense.
Fuck them.
I roared when I read this article. Brought me back to my youngest's high school Biology teacher, who took it upon herself to hand out "Alternative Creationist Propaganda" as an addendum to the text book. It was against the curriculum and she "forgot" to include it in her lesson plan. She didn't last too long after that fiasco.
ReplyDeleteAll 14 text book publishers took a stand for Science and Truth.
Big Win!!!