The Texas State Board of Education ruled last night to let teachers raise "doubts" about evolution if they so please. Unfortunately, this may have ramifications across the entire U.S., as publishers often don't want to fight school boards when asked to modify certain passages in textbooks.
Science standards in Texas resonate across the U.S., since it approves one set of books for the entire state. That makes Texas the nation's single largest market for high-school textbooks.
In the past, publishers often have written texts to its curriculum and marketed them nationally rather than spend time and money reworking them for different states and districts.
And let's be clear, this was indeed a major victory for creationists.
Critics of evolution said they were thrilled with Friday's move. "Texas has sent a clear message that evolution should be taught as a scientific theory open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned," said Dr. John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that argues an intelligent designer created life.
Kathy Miller, president of the pro-evolution Texas Freedom Network, said, "The board crafted a road map that creationists will use to pressure publishers into putting phony arguments attacking established science into textbooks."
Ah yes, the Discovery Institute, the place that wants to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".
So do you want to know how much pressure Texas can now exert on textbook publishers? Look what they've already done in the past.
Several years ago, the board expressed concern that a description of the Ice Age occurring "millions of years ago" conflicted with biblical timelines. The publisher changed it to "in the distant past." Another publisher sought to satisfy the board by inserting a heading about "strengths and weaknesses of evolution" in a biology text, drawing condemnation from science organizations.
And just from last night:
Board members also deleted a reference to the scientific consensus that the universe is nearly 14 billion years old. The board's chairman [Don McLeroy] has said he believes God created the universe fewer than 10,000 years ago.
Yo, Texas Kossacks! When's the next election so you guys can toss these bastards out of office?
Update: Via blue armadillo in the comments, check out this video of McLeroy to see just how out of touch with reality this guy is.
Oh, he disagrees with the "experts". I'd like to quote Keith Olbermann from his very first official Special Comment from August 30, 2006, about Donald Rumsfeld.
The man who sees absolutes where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning is either a prophet or a quack.
Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.
For disagreeing with all the experts on evolutionary biology when McLeroy is not a trained evolutionary biologist, that makes him either a prophet or a quack. And Don McLeroy is not a prophet.
And elmo points out in the comments that the Dallas Morning News has a different take, saying social conservatives lost. Though they still note the "compromise" language is enough to get creationists into the classroom to brainwash students. And McLeroy specifically made the threat that that's exactly what they intend to do.