Texas School Board Searching For Alternatives To Evolutionary Theory

An anonymous reader writes "[Ars Technica] recently reviewed the documentary The Revisionaries, which chronicles the actions of the Texas state school board as it attempted to rewrite the science and history standards that had been prepared by experts in education and the relevant subjects. For biology, the board's revisions meant that textbook publishers were instructed to help teachers and students 'analyze all sides of scientific information' about evolution. Given that ideas only reach the status of theory if they have overwhelming evidence supporting them, it isn't at all clear what 'all sides' would involve."

Comments

Re:Why would anyone voluntarily live in Texas?

[ageoffri]

You think Texas is bad, try California or Illinois. At least Texas can more or less balance a budget and follow the Constitution.

Re:FSM

[flyneye]

No, it is a very good history book in that it chronicles very well an early civilization from tribalism to civilization 1900 years ago.
The best of the middle eastern archaeologists uses it or they wouldn't very well have jobs.
The geographical innaccuracies are few but understandable under the circumstances of knowing that their world was seldom further than they could "safely" travel by foot. You should get a cursory knowledge of middle eastern archaeology. Think of it as listing tribes by founding elders rather than a man who lives 900 years. Sometimes these become territories or cities. Imagine being in Armenia long before the Greek civilizations have reached you when suddenly the whole world you know floods, the whole world your fathers knew. Just south of a range of mountains called Ararat.Perhaps someone figured something out and actually built an ark and put in two of every local animal, er excuse me every animal two by two. Perhaps thats what you tell your kids when you managed to get the livestock onto a boat when the flood in that region came. Remember the first books of the Bible are an oral history to the Israelites and Judeans that was eventually written down and attributed to Moishe (The nonGreek version of Moses)There are other legends that say the same of a King Gilgamesh that did the same thing around the same time. There is evidence of a whopper flood in that area. Maybe it killed most everyone in the area.Thats pretty damn early on for a history that made it to print with any physical evidence on that scale. We would probably have a better early history from Egypt if the Great Library had not been destroyed by early conquest. Greeks, we have their early stuff, but this was before the Greeks shook hands with anyone in that area.
I could go on, but I'm not providing a longwinded education for you.
If you want to refute the ol' down home preachers who buy it word for word in the Greek/Latin without any background you're talking to the wrong man.
If you want to refute me your'e going to have to do better than pop culture atheism you got in the parking lot outside the Slayer concert.