I was hoping that this article would be largely irrelevant now but I've
been advised that Governor Perry had the gall to re-nominate Dr.
McLeroy to be Chairman of the State Board Of Education. If I've been
misinformed on this point, well, enjoy the article but relax.
The Texas State Board of Education is using its powers to ensure that
textbooks give a nod to creationist theories.
"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he
made school boards."
Mark
Twain wrote that in 1897, and Americans still quote it, with feeling.
It comes to mind for many observers of a current battle over science
education in Texas.
Texas's school board, the State Board of
Education (BOE), has been fighting about standards for science
textbooks the state buys. Since March, clamorous attention
has focused on a proposal to require that texts discuss the "strengths
and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory. Everyone knew this was a ploy
to get creationist ideas into the classroom. The scientific community
was relieved when the BOE finally voted not to include that language –
and dismayed when it then voted for amendments that mandate the same
thing. The BOE's exuberant chair says he's not afraid to "stand up to
the experts."
"One day they slammed the door on creationism,
and the next day they ran around opening the windows to let it back
in," says Dan Quinn, communications director at the Texas Freedom
Network, an organisation that works for "a mainstream agenda of
religious freedom and individual liberties."
The strategy may
ultimately fail. When the eyes of Texas finally fell upon the BOE's
antics, when scientists thronged to testify against the standards, when
BOE chairman Don McLeroy declared his anti-expert stance, when a White
House official called it "a step backward" – opposition began to stir among state
lawmakers.
Unhappiness
was more than statewide. Texas is hugely influential in textbook
publishing, not just because it buys books for 4.5 million kids. It's
one of 20-odd "adoption states", which compile lists of approved books.
Publishers want their books on these lists, so they heed state
standards. Texas spends $500m a year on approved textbooks.
Publishers
create textbooks to meet state standards. They self-censor in advance
and rewrite when pressure groups complain about the depiction of
religious or ethnic groups, gender roles, or historical events. To
appease social conservatives, health science books stopped mentioning
contraception.
Some fear publishers will tailor textbooks to the new Texas
standards. David Hillis,
a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas (and a
MacArthur Prize recipient who raises longhorns at his Double Helix
ranch) has battled the new BOE standards. No reputable scientist would
be associated with textbooks written to these standards, he says.
Indeed, "I think no reputable publisher is going to soil their name
with such textbooks."
The BOE's actions might seem odd for a
educational entity, but the explanation lies in its origins. The right
has been taking an interest in school boards. "There were vicious
campaigns in the last elections," Quinn says. Flyers showed "half-naked
men kissing, pictures of needles..." Moderates were accused of wanting
to teach about "needle exchange, and condoms, and same-sex marriage,
and assisted suicide."
In Texas, the governor appoints a BOE
member as chair. Republican governor Rick Perry selected Dr Don
McLeroy, a dentist and young-earth creationist. Perry is running for
re-election. "Social conservatives are very important to the governor,"
Quinn says. McLeroy, appointed between sessions, has yet to be
confirmed by the state senate.
McLeroy gloats over the idea of
textbooks using the Texas standards to discuss the fossil record or the
complexity of the cell. "I'm curious to see how they'll cover these
subjects. I think the science behind those things is pretty weak." He
runs through some creationist favourites – the Cambrian explosion, the flagellum. "They haven't come up with an explanation of
the eye. They haven't. They haven't!"
"So
you want to see them fail to come up with scientific explanations for
these things?" I ask. "Absolutely! That's what I think will happen. The
kids can sit there and judge for themselves." Children are intuitively
skeptical about evolution,
he says.
Where
does this leave science education in Texas? McLeroy's confirmation is
looking chancey, and bills have been introduced to attack the situation
from different angles. Two Houston Democrats propose transferring
authority over textbooks from the BOE to the Texas Education Agency.
"Those people are much more qualified," says David Hillis. "I'm hopeful
that it will become much less political and much more focused on
educating."
Hillis says Texas's high school curriculum is already
behind. "We have some excellent high schools in Texas and some
excellent teachers. And we have high schools where they're teaching
18th or 19th century science." If the new standards prevail, more
entering students will be unprepared. "If students don't have any
evolutionary biology, that means even more remedial education we have
to do."
Often, you don't have to believe in science to benefit
from it. You don't have to believe in photons to flip a switch and get
light. You don't have to think geologists understand fossil fuel
origins to fill a tank of gas. You don't have to believe in natural
selection to take a new antibiotic for bronchitis.
But to do
medical research, it helps to understand natural selection. To get good
scientists, it helps if they don't have to play catch-up for half their
college years. And to get informed voters, it helps not to teach them
that science is a matter of personal intuition. Or fundamentalist faith.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/30/texas-school-creationism-textbooks
Let me close with a link to an editorial from the New York Times
that has bearing on this issue, one that has been referenced by Dr.
McLeroy himself.
In
Defense of Nonsense
An Exploration of the relationship of Church and State
