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TSBE Science Standards Final Vote Today

Photo of Sam Ogden Sam Ogden Follow on X Send an email March 27, 2009
18 0 Less than a minute

I don’t want to overwhelm you with posts about the Texas State Board of Education voting on science standards, but the final vote happens today. Debate is in progress.

Read about it and follow the debate on the Texas Freedom Network site here.

Also, live audio of the meeting is available here.

 

Edited periodically to update the Texas Freedom Network link.

Photo of Sam Ogden Sam Ogden Follow on X Send an email March 27, 2009
18 0 Less than a minute
Photo of Sam Ogden

Sam Ogden

Sam Ogden is a writer, beach bum, and songwriter living in Houston, Texas, but he may be found scratching himself at many points across the globe. Follow him on Twitter @SamOgden

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18 Comments

  1. The live blogging is entertaining.

    I wonder what it would take to get someone to propose an amendment to allow “supportive and nonsupportive” evidence for the value of pi. There are ancient texts that peg the value at, variously:
    3
    25/8
    256/81
    the square root of 10

    One could argue that these values should be taught alongside the “currently accepted” value of pi, since that value is incomplete, being known to only about a trillion decimal places.

  2. @Steve:

    I’ve been listening to the live audio all morning on my headphones, and realized I was shouting things at the unseen board members. I think my co-workers have called the guys in the white coats to come take me away.

  3. From the TFN live blog:

    12:32 – Members are now going to hear amendments attempting to strip out anti-science amendments adopted by the board yesterday and in January. Lawrence Allen offers an amendment striking chairman Don McLeroy’s measure challenging common descent in the biology standards.

  8. I wish I could. I hope it gets archived somewhere, so I can listen to it when I get home.

  11. From the live blog:

    1:06 – Allen’s amendment passes 8-7, striking McLeroy’s challenge to common descent in the standards. Very important victory.

  14. Potential bad news. From the TFN live blog:

    1:30 – Dunbar offers an amendment, calling for students to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data on sudden appearance and stasis and the sequential groups in the fossil record.” Bob Craig wants to amend, striking “the sufficiency of.” Berlanga is bothered that the board is making recommendations on specific standards without allowing time for members to discuss the amendments with science experts. Very good question, of course.

    1:43 – Terri Leo, acting as chair, says all this was debated yesterday, and the board doesn’t need anymore input from the science community. Of course, the board never asked science experts to advise the board about McLeroy’s measure in January or this week.

    1:46 – Dunbar’s amendment, as amended by Craig, passes 13-2.

    McLeroy is happy, which says it all. Creationists will now pressure publishers to challenge common ancestry in textbooks and base their challenges on McLeroy’s arguments.

  15. McLeroy is happy, which says it all. Creationists will now pressure publishers to challenge common ancestry in textbooks and base their challenges on McLeroy’s arguments.”

    Big steamin’ bowl of FAIL right there. Sheesh.

  17. 2:43 – Shit! Vote to strike the line “differing theories” from “Observations reveal differing theories about the structure, scale, composition, origin, and history of the universe.” failed.

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