“intelligent design”

Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Texas State Board of Education Member Ken Mercer

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Future: Mercer High School Graduating Class, 2021

I think we should be able to agree on this: someone who is elected to a state school board should not be a) criminally ignorant and b) an idiot. Yes, I know that no one elected to any public office should be either of these things, but there is something especially offensive about the educational policy in a state being made by people who by all available evidence are either uneducated themselves or uneducable.

This naturally raises the matter of Texas State Board of Education member Ken Mercer (R-San Antonio). You think I am being too harsh on Mr. Mercer? Consider this statement on the topic of evolution, which Mr. Mercer considers a laughable myth: Continue reading →

Texas: Resisting Creationism, Embracing Enlightenment

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Uh...NO.

Lost in the hysteria over the U.S. government’s self-created default crisis was some good news for integrity, education, and the advance of human knowledge.The Texas Board of Education unanimously (8-0) approved scientifically accurate high school biology textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers that cover the origins and implications of evolution theory and findings, rejecting the creationist-backed supplements from International Databases, LLC. (The creationist-crafted materials submitted by that group was not only “laced with creationist arguments,” said one reviewer, but was also “shoddy”, “teeming with misspellings [and] typographical errors,”and “mistaken claims of fact.”)

The efforts of creationists and Christian fundamentalist forces to ignore and discredit overwhelming scientific evidence of evolution on earth, along with the many biological, anthropological, geological and historical conclusions that spring from the body of research in the field, have created hurdles for educators, impediments to students, and embarrassment to organized religion for more than a century. Continue reading →