Surprise of the Week: New York Times Gets the Real Story on Texas Evolution Standards

Kudos to the New York Times for filing a story on the actions of the Texas State Board of Education that actually describes what happened last week. Unlike much of the rest of the newsmedia, the Times doesn’t tell only half of what happened or play up the hysterics. The story’s even-handed title is telling: “Split Outcome in Texas Battle on Teaching of Evolution.” Of course, being the Times, pro-Darwin bias does creep in at points, most egregiously in the ludicrous “definition” offered of intelligent design (“the notion of a divine hand guiding creation”). It used to be common courtesy for reporters to allow supporters of an idea to explain what they mean by it rather than rely on an Read More ›

Texas Story Evolves: First It Was “Critics of Evolution Defeated!”; Now It’s “The Sky Is Falling!”

It was as predictable as soggy weather in Seattle in November. First, reporters insisted that the Texas State Board of Education dealt a body blow to supporters of the critical analysis of evolution by dropping language in their existing science standards that call on students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories. Of course, these same reporters neglected to inform the public that the Board also passed several amendments to the evolution standards requiring students to “analyze and evaluate” the main concepts of evolution such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. Once evolutionists began to complain about some of the changes to the evolution standards, the reporters apparently changed their mind. Now the Texas story is quickly Read More ›

Pro-Darwin Crowd Starts Smear Campaign on Texas Board of Education’s Evolution Changes

According to a reporter who contacted me earlier today, the Darwin-only crowd in Texas is now smearing the State Board of Education for adopting amendments to the proposed science standards on evolution that promote “creationism,” and young earth creationism to boot. So what else is new? In reality, there is nothing in the amendments adopted that promote creationism, yet alone young earth creationism. But the Darwin-only crowd automatically attacks anything they don’t like as creationism. It’s a reflex action. They can’t help themselves. Yet in this case they just look plain silly. For example, how does it promote creationism to insist that students “analyze and evaluate” all the major parts of evolutionary theory? “Analyze and evaluate” is language they earlier Read More ›

Recap: Texas Board of Education’s Actions on Evolution

Earlier today, the Texas State Board of Education unanimously approved the first reading of new science standards for the state. It was one step back, two giant steps forward. Although the Board refused to reinstate language calling on students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, the Board added new language requiring students to “analyze and evaluate” all the major parts of evolutionary theory, including common descent, natural selection, and mutation. The additions to the proposed science standards were adopted yesterday in committee, but as we reported last night, most of the newsmedia completely missed the boat on what happened, probably because many reporters didn’t stay to the end of the meeting. Here is a preliminary summary of Read More ›

Austin Statesman Scoops Texas Board Evolution Story

Kudos to Austin American Statesman reporter Molly Bloom. She apparently stayed for the entire Texas State Board of Education meeting, unlike some of her colleagues in the press. She’s the first reporter I’ve seen who actually reports the fact that the Texas Board voted to revise proposed standards on evolution to require students to analyze and evaluate the key concepts of the theory such as common ancestry and natural selection. Her story, “Third state education board vote mandates teaching students challenges to evolution” gets the basic point right, even though she is still off on the details. She only describes the new evolution standard added at the behest of state board Chair Don McElroy, failing to mention earlier approval of Read More ›