Last month, I and many other testified before the Texas State Board of Education in an attempt to preserve good science standards that were set in 2011. Several others testified in an attempt to undermine science by weakening lessons on cosmology, climate change, and evolution.
Ideally the Board of Education should all be educated and unbiased and should have weighed our testimony to respect the scientists and reject the whack-a-loons. But this is Texas. So instead they requested a list of changes, mostly ‘thinly-veiled criticisms’ of each of these branches of science.
In the past, Texas has had profound influence over publishers, because we were a huge buyer, and there would be serious costs involved if a publisher refused to accommodate the demands of the right wing ideologues in this state. However times have changed. In my speech at Apostacon that weekend, I said that technology has changed, such that publishers don’t have to cower to Texas’ unreasonable demands anymore.
I have just received notice from the Texas Freedom Network, and am pleased to report that each of the 14 textbook publishers involved have all ignored the outrageous changes demanded by our pseudoscience loonies. Thus our science standards will remain strong on legitimate science.
This is excellent news. You are doing a tremendous service for future generations. There are a lot of creationists out there who will be looked back on as ‘Dotty old gramps who believed in the bible stories’. It is that way now in the UK and the die hards in the US will eventually die out and leave a better educated generation to hopefully move humanity forward.
Is there a handy list of these publishers contact info so a gracious “Thank you” could be sent?
That has been done. Everyone who testified on behalf of science and who are on the TFN mailing list had an opportunity to sign the thank you letter.
Awesome, Thanks to Brian Guy I’ve sent one too. Congrats on this. Very well done.
Looks like the TFN have a link for sending a thank you.
Congratulations!
Great to hear some good news. You do good work 🙂
Might there be a handy list of these requested changes?
This is good news, but what does it mean for Texas schoolkids? Will they have science textbooks that actually have science in them or will they get printouts of old Discovery Institute blog posts?
Awesome. Congrats to the nth degree. Thank you and everyone involved for the hard work invested.
I have been watching with a critcal eye on this situation, fearing the worst. It is a relief knowing reason trumps superstition in a live field test. My next beer will be raised in your honor.
You shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel every two years, but sadly the ignorant think they know better. Facts don’t stop being true after a certain point, but the uneducated can’t grasp that and the dishonest wouldn’t have an argument if they admitted it.
The trouble is, you still have to worry about creationist teachers watering the book down in class. Sadly, young earth creationism among science teachers is about the same as for the general population (about 1/3rd). Still, this is welcome news. Thanks for all your good work, Aron.
One third of science teachers are young earth creationists? Oh, no, I can’t believe that’s true. Where did they go to university? One third of science teachers in Texas are creationists, maybe? I guess that includes elementary and middle school coaches who teach a few science classes.
I am going to check to see if I can find out what that statistic is in Mississippi. Thanks for the idea.
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