Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Learn Science…
Category: Uncategorized
Texas state science director Chris Comer was forced to resign in November, because she forwarded an announcement to teachers about an upcoming lecture on evolution. The Texas Education Agency told Comer she could offer her resignation or be fired.
Nevermind that Texas education curriculum standards require that evolution be taught in schools.
Comer’s resignation illustrates the chilling climate around science education in public schools.
Opponents of evolution have yet to mount a successful legal strategy; the teaching of intelligent design is illegal, and many school systems make the teaching of evolution mandatory. Yet teachers face pressure from families and administrators to avoid discussing this foundational theory of biology.
Karen Ayres Smith at Dallas Morning News reports:
“For all the years I was there, I would always say the teaching of evolution is part of our science curriculum. It’s not just a good idea; it’s the law,” Ms. Comer said last week during an interview in her Leander home. “We have teachers afraid to teach it, parents who don’t want it taught and parents who do want it taught. It comes from all different angles.”
Both Dallas Morning News and the New York Times are predicting a show down in Texas this winter and spring, when Texas’s high school biology standards will be reviewed by the State Board of Education.
The expected conflict bears more than a passing resemblance to the evolution trial that took place in Dover, Pennsylvania in 2005. Again the choice of biology textbooks for high school will be part of the debate. Again religiously-motivated elected officials will oppose the teaching of evolution.
Smith presents the religious comments of Don McLeroy, chair of the State Board of Education:
The Science Teachers Association of Texas has issued suggested curriculum standards that keep evolution but eliminate the specific requirement to teach the strengths and weaknesses of theories.
Dr. McLeroy said he wouldn’t vote to approve the change. He said he supports the current wording and also could support an addition that requires teaching the strengths and weaknesses specific to evolution.
“I’m a Christian, and I think about how this impacts everything,” Dr. McLeroy said. “Religion is not just something you put on the side. It’s everything. I see us all created in the image of God. I don’t believe nature is all there is.”
The only bright spot is that it was exactly this kind of talk — admission by opponents of evolution that their motivations were religious — that contributed to the Dover trial being decided in favor of the teaching of evolution, and against the teaching of “intelligent design.”
The opposition to evolution is clearly religious, and replacing the teaching of evolution with the teaching of “intelligent design,” would be a violation of the separation of church and state.
P.S. By coincidence, the Kansas City Star published an interview on Saturday with Judge John Jones III, who decided the Dover case.
December 14th, 2007 11:43
I edit science textbooks, and this is such a huge issue that doesn’t get a lot of press, but is part of my professional depression. Texas is not actually the most backward state. It’s somewhere in the middle. For example, in Tennessee, we don’t even use the word evolution in life science textbooks because it’s not in the state education standards (and it’s not there because of religious reasons). And, as we all know, evolution is the “big idea” in biology/life science. Everything relates to evolution and natural selection. Everything. So we teach the little ideas and don’t connect them to the fundamental concept. Luverly.
December 14th, 2007 13:14
This is ridiculous.
Public school in the US is in danger. I know that there are some notables who would like to do away with the Dept of Education altogether (e.g. Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul) so that communities get to decide what is taught in their schools; when I read things like this, the dissolution of the Dept of Education seems more and more a possibilty.
December 15th, 2007 12:35
Hi Ms. Theologian,
Wow, it’s hard to imagine a life science textbook wihtout the word “evolution,” at all. As you said, it’s the “big idea,” without which the “little ideas” can’t be tied together.
H Sofia,
Yes, I think the opposition to teaching evolution may be related to a larger lack of appreciation for public schooling, and a sense in the right wing that there should be no shared, secular standards for public school curriculum.
It also may be related to the home schooling movement. For some home schooling parents, the decision to home school comes out of hostility to the public school system and a desire to teach “intelligent design” and other dubious ideas.