Then that's a proof eveloution is an incorrect theory Board of Education evolves into sideshow By LISA FALKENBERG Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle March 23, 2009, 7:44PM Ever seen a cat-dog? Of course not! That just proves it’s impossible for one species to evolve into another. The human brain seems not to have changed since homo sapiens first appeared 150,000 years ago. That means evolution is false. We don’t have every bone, so the fossil record undercuts the theory of evolution. A few scientists have fudged proof of evolution, so that calls into question all the other evidence. These are the brilliant observations and insinuations of a particularly dangerous right-wing fringe group: the seven-member social conservative bloc of the State Board of Education. (The cat-dog example, if you must know, is the brainchild of Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, who seems to be incapable of understanding that it takes millions, if not billions of years for so-called macro-evolution to occur.) If the Legislature is the circus, the Board of Education is the sideshow. And this week, they’re back in town. The event in Austin would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. The 15 board members hold in their hands the future of science curriculum in Texas public schools for the next decade. This week, after what promises to be another intense round of debate, they’ll cast final votes on how to teach evolution. Their decision has national implications as well since curriculum changes could make it into textbooks tailored for the massive Texas market and sold across the country. In January, creationists on the board tentatively failed by one vote to keep a requirement that teachers present the strengths and so-called “weaknesses” of Darwin’s 150-year-old theory of evolution. This week, they’ll try to restore the language, which is the latest subtle weapon of creationists and subscribers to the religion-based theory of Intelligent Design. The effort to retain the “weaknesses” language, which ignored the advice of a board-selected panel of experts, failed last time thanks to four swing voters. They included one Democrat, Rick Agosto of San Antonio, who often votes with social conservatives, and three brave Republicans, Bob Craig of Lubbock, Patricia Hardy of Fort Worth and Geraldine Miller of Dallas. Apparently, this group actually did their homework, listened to the experts, and sided with science over ideology. But they’ve paid a price. Agosto risks falling out of favor with board officers. And the Republicans have had everything from their party loyalty to their faith in God questioned as a result of their vote. Doubting fossil record And just in case there was ever any doubt that this debate was essentially about politics, even the Texas Republican Party has weighed in on the issue. GOP leaders passed a resolution urging the board to overturn its decision to get rid of the “weaknesses” language. The conservative bloc also will try and keep two amendments hastily presented and approved in January that cast doubt on the fossil record and a basic tenant of Darwin’s theory: common descent. Board Chairman and ardent Darwin-denier Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, pushed through one of the amendments after reading aloud a long list of quotes attempting to cast doubt on evolution from reputable science publications and authoritative books by revered scientists. McLeroy never directly claimed that he culled the quotes himself. But as he held up the books he was quoting from, and talked about checking out volumes on evolution at his local library, I certainly got the impression he’d done his own research. Copied research? But blogger and Kansas biology teacher, Jeremy Mohn, revealed McLeroy’s bad clip job in his extensive blog posting, “Collapse of a Texas Quote Mine.” Mohn also provided the context and authors’ explanations lacking in McLeroy’s quote list. Mohn discovered McLeroy had lifted much of the research from another creationist blog. McLeroy’s quotes were in virtually the same order, and he repeated a page number error. McLeroy acknowledged to me that he had copied some of the research from the creationist site because he liked “the format,” although he said he had indeed read one of the books. He added: “A lot of the quotes I did get on my own.” Yet another fine testament to the level of scholarship that goes on at the State Board of Education.
One party embraces being dumb and the other party embraces being lazy. Its amazing that we have come this far.
As the article points out, publishers don't want to spend money rewriting their Texas books for other markets, so your ISDs are stuck with them. No evolution for you.
It doesn't look like they are trying to remove evolution from the text books to me? You guys don't think it's fair for schools to teach the reasons why a 150 year old theory has never been proven? I personally think it's wrong to teach a theory as fact just because scientists can't come up with a better idea.
I would love for someone at that hearing to blow up this picture and show it to Mercer, just to see his immediate reaction.
Very few theories can be proven but there is enough evidence of evolution that is pretty much fact. Unfortunately people like to embrace ignorance over evidence.
The fact it's called the Theory of Evolution implies it is not "fact". Theory means it' not 100% proven, in large part because it's not 100% provable, but there's significantly more evidence to support it than intelligent design or anything else we have. Gravity, by the way, is on the same footing, it is theory, not fact. Should we teach alternatives there as well?
absolutely.. after studying this for several years, there's no doubt in my mind that the process of natural selection and genetic evolution is true..there's substantial scientific evidence that proves these processes.. HOWEVER, I think the "theory" part comes in when what we call "evolutionists" theorize that this is how we came to existence, essentially "evolving" over millions of years from a freaking bacteria, which happened to have been created by "a lucky coincidence" with lightning striking at the same time as water jumped into dirt etc.. this is very much debatable, and there is NO scientific evidence that proves this "large-scale evolution" where over a long a$$ time, a fish kept mutating until it became a land animal, then this animal decided that flying would be an excellent idea so after a bazillion years it obtained wings and the ability to fly.. personally, I'm of the belief that a super-human force (ie: god) created the "original" animal of each group of closely related species, then evolution and mutations etc took place and hence "speciation" occurred and we have all those varying but closely-related species of birds, etc.. but I actually think applying the patterns from "micro evolution" to the large scale (to explain how life came to existence) is like using Newtonian mechanics in quantum physics: it just doesn't work..
Man I love LISA FALKENBERG. I would so pay any amount of cash for..... Hope she does not get laid off.
I assume you think I would like to embrace ignorance over evidence? Since you are so enlightened why don't you tell us all how life began using the theory of evolution as it is taught in our public school science books? Try to do it with the facts and evidence that make you so enlightened please. FYI gravity is a law. If you drop something it will fall, we call that force gravity. There are lots of theories that explain this but gravity is a law.
First off for you and Okierock who attack Evolution based on how does it explain life came to being or matter or the Universe.... Evolution isn't a theory about the creation of life of matter. It is about why we have different species. Darwin's book is called The Origin of Species not The Origin of Life. In regard to whether you believe it was luck or God that isn't a question that is answered by Evolution. You can accept that Evolution is the most plausible explanation for how species differentiated while still fully believing that God is why there are different species. Its a profound misunderstanding of science, and IMO religion, to say that they are in opposition unless you embrace the most shallow understanding of both.
Do you know that Newton's Laws have been superceded by Einstein's theories? You have to be careful regarding the use of scientific terminology.
