Is Texas Stepping Backwards? (II)

In my very first Bog post I asked a question, "Is Texas Stepping Backwards?" The focus of that post was the firing of the Texas State Science Curriculum Director about a month before a science curriculum review. Now here we are 10 months later and another piece of the puzzle surfaces. The Texas State Education Agency has appointed a 6 member panel to review the curriculum recommendations. They have stacked it with three out of state 'experts' who all have an ax to grind against evolutionary theory.

So while the SBOE seems to be paying lip service to science, their actions indicate that they are opening the door for things they shouldn't be, like Intelligent Design.

What I find so frustrating is that their whole defense is something like "We're not advocating Intelligent Design", that is a misleading statement. What they are advocating is weakening the science education of our young, a key strategy laid out by the Discovery Institute in order to open the door for alternatives.

I think Texas or Louisiana will be the next Dover-style lawsuit, something no school district needs. But when you use such back alley methods to push an unsupportable religious agenda, lawsuits tend to be the only immediate recourse. Of course the longer term answer is to do what Ohio and Kansas did and let the electorate remove the Creationists from the SBOE. That will certainly make the next election in Texas interesting. I guess the slogan might be: "Texas, the new Kansas"