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Don't Mess [Up] Texas
It looks like Texas might be the next place for a food fight over intelligent design. Here's the sum up: the science director of the Texas Education Agency (a partner of the state board of education) was apparently forced to resign after forwarding an "FYI" email announcing a talk by Barbara Forrest. (Forrest, of course, was a key witness for the complainants in the Kitzmiller case in Dover, PA.) But beyond that, according to the New York Times:
The standards, adopted in 1998, are due for a 10-year review and possible revision after the 15-member elected State Board of Education meets in February, with particular ramifications for the multibillion-dollar textbook industry. The chairman of the panel, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist and Sunday School teacher at Grace Bible Church in College Station, has lectured favorably in the past about intelligent design.As I understand it, big states like Texas can have a significant effect on textbooks used in other states. If you are a publisher of textbooks, who are you going to tailor your textbook to, Texas or Rhode Island?
For more reaction, see the NCSE.
3 comments:
Were I a textbook publisher, I would stick to books that had survived legal battles---i.e. resist the temptation to create a special, short-time use textbook for Texas. On the other hand, maybe it would be best to make two versions of the same biology book: one that included a chapter on ID (for use before the inevitable trial), and one that only contained actual science (for use after the School Board got sued). That way, I'd sell twice as many textbooks!
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