Texas creationists demand their fairy tales be taught as science...

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Nothing succeeds in creationism like failure...

Texas Conservatives Demand Science Textbooks Incorporate 'Creation Science Based On Biblical Principles'

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 9/10/2013 12:20 pm

Creationists advising the Texas Education Agency, the state’s board of education, are no longer even trying to hide the fact that they want to insert pseudo-scientific material grounded in religious beliefs into public school science textbooks. Terrence Stutz of the Dallas Morning News reports that evolution detractors appointed to the review boards are urging the textbook publishers to ignore the Supreme Court (along with science) and push Creationism, or be rejected. One of the panelists reviewing the biology textbooks, a nutritionist, said that “creation science based on biblical principles should be incorporated into every biology book that is up for adoption.”

- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/texas-conservatives-demand-science-textbooks-incorporate-creation-science-based-biblical-pri#sthash.u3hHTugt.dpuf

(Can I make a remark about the nutritionist pushing woo?)

[sharp_stick]

1. Creation Science

talk about an oxymoron.

I feel so bad for teachers in Texas that actually want to teach the kids.

Then I feel damned good that I'm not trying to raise my kids in Texas.

[Downwinder]

2. And then you have to consider

if your kids are using texts written for Texas' approval.

[TlalocW]

4. And chances are they are using them

Since Texas is one of the two or three largest buyer of text books, they have a lot of power in getting their agenda into them, and since the manufacturers don't want to have to make Texas and non-Texas versions, they put out the Texas ones.

As much as I like real books, etc. I look forward to the day when digital books are the norm in our schools. It will then be easier for the saner states to say that they don't want the Texas BS so the textbook reps can then sell licenses for X number of the file NonTexasBiology.pdf (or whatever file extension) for that state's students. If Texas wants to keep getting TexasBiologyMyths.pdf and fall behind everyone else, that's their prerogative. Hopefully, they'll be some wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Texas textbook boards that they're not able to affect what their neighboring states teach.

TlalocW

[xfundy]

5. In the meantime, though--

teachers can tell the kids on the first day of class to tear out those pages, as Robin Williams' character did in Dead Poets' Society.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. OK...but....

They will also have to agree to teaching their God based religion is nothing but a fairy tale.

Fair's fair.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Will universities in other states then be free to reject the admission of Texas

students?

[snooper2]

7. I don't know why people are giving them a hard time...

They are just following their holy book to the letter unlike most folks....

You don't just get to choose the happy parts to follow you are supposed to either believe it all or not.

[TeamPooka]

8. I'd like to bar these anti-science people from all hospitals and medical facilities...

since they are science based places..

[hootinholler]

9. " book that is up for adoption."

What if we adopt them all and raise them as freethinkers?

[rickford66]

10. Well then

shouldn't Sunday schools in churches have to teach evolution to keep their tax exemption????

[hunter]

11. High school biology books already tend to be nearly as bad as high school history books.

The first few chapters really ought to be heavy on evolution, instead they tend isolate evolution in a single place where it can be skipped over by teachers and school districts who are uncomfortable with it.

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" -- Theodosius Dobzhansky

That ought to be the the first sentence of every high school biology text and any student or parent who can't live with that should be asked to leave.

(I posted this in another thread earlier.)