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Texas Board of Education Supports Evolution

Posted by Soulskill on from the reasons-to-say-the-word-texas-in-a-dubious-voice dept.

somanyrobots writes with this excerpt from the Dallas News: "In a major defeat for social conservatives, a sharply divided State Board of Education voted Thursday to abandon a longtime state requirement that high school science teachers cover what some critics consider to be 'weaknesses' in the theory of evolution. Under the science curriculum standards recommended by a panel of science educators and tentatively adopted by the board, biology teachers and biology textbooks would no longer have to cover the 'strengths and weaknesses' of Charles Darwin's theory that man evolved from lower forms of life. Texas is particularly influential to textbook publishers because of the size of its market, so this could have a ripple effect on textbooks used in other states as well."

2 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. other "theories" by david+in+brasil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Evolution is not the only theory taught in school. Gravity is another theory. I suppose that Texas schools should teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of the Theory of Gravity, too.

    1. Re:other "theories" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, gravity is easy to test.

      Theory of evolution is also fairly easy to test, and that was done before. Scientists from around the world used populations of fast-reproduction species (mostly bugs), and placed them in specific conditions. After some time - features useful for living in these new conditions were developed. This looks like definitive proof done in the lab for me.

      On the other hand you just can look into fossilized bones of ancient species, or remains of our own predecessors - go, figure out yourself.

      I understand that a "weakness" of theory of evolution would be a claim that changes in species appear randomly vs. deterministic. But knowing how strong anti-evolution-redneck-lobby is in USA, I would expect something like "it's not the way it's described in the Bible".

      I live in Europe, in *very* conservative an catholic country (90% of populations are catholics), but anyone who would say evolution is bullshit would looked at like he was crazy.