"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