Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I've written for years about the Texas State Board of Education and the damage they do to education not just in that state but all over the country by virtue of the fact that they are such a huge customer for publishers that when they demand nonsense in their textbooks, it finds its way into everyone's textbooks. Mariah Blake at the Washington Monthly shows why this has never been more true than right now:
As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers. As one senior industry executive told me, "Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas list."Until recently, Texas's influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation's largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.
And the people they have put in charge of deciding what should be in the textbooks are this stupid:
Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas. When he greeted me at the door one evening last October, he was clutching a thin paperback with the skeleton of a seahorse on its cover, a primer on natural selection penned by famed evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr. We sat down at his dining table, which was piled high with three-ring binders, and his wife, Nancy, brought us ice water in cut-crystal glasses with matching coasters. Then McLeroy cracked the book open. The margins were littered with stars, exclamation points, and hundreds of yellow Post-its that were brimming with notes scrawled in a microscopic hand. With childlike glee, McLeroy flipped through the pages and explained what he saw as the gaping holes in Darwin's theory. "I don't care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say," he declared at one point. "Evolution is hooey." This bled into a rant about American history. "The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation," McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. "But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principals. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan--he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes."Views like these are relatively common in East Texas, a region that prides itself on being the buckle of the Bible Belt. But McLeroy is no ordinary citizen. The jovial creationist sits on the Texas State Board of Education, where he is one of the leaders of an activist bloc that holds enormous sway over the body's decisions. As the state goes through the once-in-a-decade process of rewriting the standards for its textbooks, the faction is using its clout to infuse them with ultraconservative ideals. Among other things, they aim to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy, bring global-warming denial into science class, and downplay the contributions of the civil rights movement.
They put creationists on the advisory board on science standards. They put David Barton and Peter Marshall on the advisory board on social studies standards. It could scarcely get any worse if they put David Irving on the advisory board to determine what should be taught about WWII.
Even if you don't live in Texas, if you value good education I strongly urge you to join and donate to the Texas Freedom Network. This is the primary organization fighting the religious right's agenda to turn schools into their own twisted indoctrination camps, where they teach kids that people used to ride dinosaurs Jesus lizards and that Martin Luther King was an evil communist.
Politics
Comments
Arrgh, it's "principles," not "principals!" We may not be founded on Christian principles but we sure as hell aren't founded on Christian principals either!
Posted by: Jerry Vinokurov | January 6, 2010 9:30 AM
It's "Principles" in the original article (now).
Posted by: Chilidog | January 6, 2010 11:49 AM
This is indeed a telling (and frightening) article, and also among the reasons that I'm running for State Board of Education in District 5.
Posted by: Rebecca Bell-Metereau | January 6, 2010 12:55 PM
@ No. 1
Some days it seems like our school system is founded on Christian Principals.
Posted by: MPL | January 6, 2010 1:27 PM
Dr. Metereau,
Thanks for showing up. I watched your video on your campaign site and noticed where you drew the line on your criticisms regarding some of the members on the SBOE who have a predilection towards creationism and historical revisionism. My response is to wonder if there is any political traction for opponents of these members to inform Texas' voters on the incredible volume of dishonesty these board members both communicate themselves and the content of the materials they promote?
I realize "they lie!" can simultaneously be both emotionally satisfying and imprudent politics; therefore I'm wondering if that's the case in these Texas debates or if these campaigns for board seats presents an opportunity to educate Texas' voters on the dishonesty of creationists like Mr. McLeroy and historical revisionists like Misters Barton and Marshall.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 6, 2010 1:43 PM
Ken Mercer is the current SBOE member of Region 5 and is the Vice Chair of the Board. Ed's friend and colleague Dr. Wes Elsberry does an analysis of this guy's creds on science in this blog post. Here's one of several absurd statements by Mr. Mercer in Dr. Elsberry's post:
We're talking a Ray Comfort level intellect here. Mr. Mercer also brings up the old YEC arguments against science, such as Haeckel's embroyos, Piltdown Man, and Wilberforce's opposition to slavery (huh???) as reasons to denigrate modern day science.
I think we should consider supporting Dr. Metereau's campaign.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 6, 2010 2:24 PM
I own that copy of [i] What Evolution Is [/i], I've been looking through it frightened of what creationist canards have been scrawled into it my this smug nitwit. It's truly horrifying that he was able to read such an easy to understand book and still obviously miss the fucking point.
Posted by: deep | January 6, 2010 2:26 PM
You mean the liberals in California blew their budget on illegals and program after program and now they can't aford enough evolution books?
So sorry, so sad!
Bahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Goldstein of Kansas | January 7, 2010 8:51 AM
Goldstein of Kansas - You do realize you are celebrating the fact that the California public school children's education will be sub-optimal given budget shortfalls won't allow them exposure to more up-to-date knowledge? This will compromise their ability to compete with students who are provided with a more optimal education.
I find your position is a virulent and repugnant form of child abuse given the necessity in today's world for children to get as technical an education as they can personally handle and which optimally prepares them for a successful transition to university at the 100 or even 200 levels of the physical sciences if they have the aptitude. I advocate this in order to provide those with aptitude to secure the widest possible range of career choices in a world that increasingly requires people with technical knowledge - counter to my initial impression of your capabilities. Your advocacy they be denied such an education says a lot about both your character and your priorities.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 7, 2010 10:04 AM
Okay, apparently the person writing this article is a liberal.
What this 'jovial' man says is true. We ARE a nation founded on Christian principles, like it or not. The reason no one believes this is because the books are largely written by leftists who don't believe this, so it trickles down to out children.
Fortunately, I chose to home school my children with a Christian education, knowing what was in their books was the absolute truth. We covered a lot of subjects in our history books, etc. Even Darwin and the civil rights. I for one am glad that FINALLY our kids are going to know the truth that the left doesn't want them to know. Global warming is a lie, Darwin was an idiot. Why shouldn't there be two sides to debate. NO the left only wants one side to be taught, their side. To the left anything else is a lie. Hopefully to their dismay, our kids will find out the left is where the lie really is.
If we all were supposed to evolve from a single cell and it's considered life, why is a unborn baby NOT considered life when this life begins with a multitude of cells which is a chld? OH, and while I'm at it, where exactly DID this cell come from that Darwin proclaims life 'evolved? Answer that. CAN YOU?!!!!!
Posted by: Tracie | January 7, 2010 3:48 PM
We ARE a nation founded on Christian principles, like it or not.
Which ones? Can you even prove you understand what "Christian principles" are, exactly? Show us the link between specific teachings of Jesus and specific principles described in our country's founding documents.
I chose to home school my children with a Christian education, knowing what was in their books was the absolute truth.
And you know this how?
Global warming is a lie...
We have photographic evidence of glaciers at both Poles receding over a period of decades; and that's just the beginning of mountains of evidence that prove global warming is really happening. Even your fellow denialists admit global warming is really happening.
You're isolating your kids from reality and filling their heads with lies -- lies that will leave them visibly less able to make their way in this world as responsible adults. This is an insidious form of child-abuse. What will you say to them when they realize your home-schooling has left them unable to get decent jobs in a skill-intensive economy? "Blame the atheists?"
Posted by: Raging Bee | January 7, 2010 4:23 PM
Especially this one...
Posted by: DaveL | January 7, 2010 4:28 PM
Tracie - Your refusing to directly refute the specifics of the claims used by us in this forum to rebut the false claims of the propagandists did not go unnoticed. Evidence currently argues you falsely claim you are convinced you know the absolute truth; falsely because it appears you also realize your claims can not withstand even the mildest scrutiny. We're extremely comfortable taking on the false claims of Mr. McLeroy and his ilk head-on in this forum, where he provides easily falsified rhetoric and we provide independently validated empirical evidence.
Tracie stated:
Off the top of your head, please explain to me how Darwin's observations regarding the biodiversity on oceanic islands differed from continental islands and how these distinctly different non-random population distributions helps validate evolution and discredit/falsify the notion of a creator. Now that we can map the genomes of different species and have also discovered a vast population of fossils of extinct species and populations, how does the empirical evidence support or refute Mr. Darwin's published observations? Has his observations since then regarding islandic biogeography been validated or falsified? If you can't answer these questions you have no business teaching your children science or calling Mr. Darwin an idiot.
Please explain to us why humans and other higher primates can not currently synthesize their own vitamin C but instead must obtain it through nourishment in spite of most other mammals being able to do so except for guinea pigs. Please explain how we lost that ability* and why our loss differs from how the loss occurred in guinea pigs. Please explain how this empirical observation helps validate Darwin's (and now all of science's) theory of common ancestry more than a century after Darwin's initial thesis while also discrediting if not falsifying the notion of an intelligent creator.
Again, if you can't do this off the top of your head (both of my examples are elementary biological principles), then your home-schooling is not only not education but in fact child abuse. Child abuse given you are focused on indoctrinating your children rather than educating them and limiting their opportunities to consider the widest possible array of universities and careers.
And by the way, science is not a political ideology. It is not by definition 'liberal'. It is instead focused on objective truth using the most stringent methodology possible, which is the scientific process.
Do you know what 'projectionism' is Tracie? Again if you don't you have no business teaching your kids given it's an elementary concept taught when developing elementary critical thinking skills. Projectionism is when you make a claim against your opponent that falsely represents their attributes but instead correctly defines your own weaknesses. I counted up all your false assertions, rhetorical and logical fallacies and came to seventeen. This does not count all the grammatical errors you made; another argument to get your kids an education from professionals.
Here's a little test of your capability to teach your kids Tracie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF2N2lbb3dk. A six minute video explaining why higher primates and guinea pigs can't synthesize Vitamin C. If you can't watch, consider, and then adequately honestly and authentically reject or accept these findings, you have no business teaching your kids.
My bet? You won't even make it to the point of understanding it given your last comment suggests your delusion runs extremely strong. The best I predict you'll do is seek out some false rationalization that science has previously falsified but supports your preconceived desires rather than what we've empirically validated is the objective truth. You'd rather protect your delusions than insure your kids future well-being by getting them optimally educated.
By the way Tracie, every one of your claims is as weak as your claim that Charles Darwin, one of the most brilliant scientists of all time, is 'an idiot'. My evidence he is not only not an idiot but instead brilliant is how Darwin's theories that he developed over one hundred and fifty years ago were developed without his having known about or observed DNA or observed the massive fossil evidence we enjoy has stood up. His theories have not only been independently validated and universally accepted by science, but have also saved billions of people from a premature death. Meanwhile every single YEC/OEC/IDC claim either remains unverified with zero empirical evidence or falsified by independently validated empirical evidence, where the evidence usually existed prior to their false assertion (validating creationists' dishonesty and ignorance).
*It's known to be a frame-shift mutation that affected the GULO gene. I'm giving you the answer in order that you'll be able to better understand why we know it's not merely a 'I dunno therefore God did it' excuse since we also have all the other genetic attributes required to synthesize Vitamin C which currently go unexploited given this singular mutation.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 7, 2010 5:24 PM
"Even Darwin and the civil rights."
"Even" civil rights? I can understand why it would be considered surprising for a Christian parent home-schooling their children to be teaching their kids about Darwin, but why would the same thing apply to civil rights?
Posted by: daniel rotter | January 7, 2010 11:42 PM
Daniel Rotter: I assume, since she put Civil Rights with Darwin, that she teaches her kids about Darwin's staunchly pro-slavery stance (and, as is common with Atheists, his making an "is" from his "ought", applying his worldview to the so-called "science" of Darwinianity) and how the upright Southern Baptist Convention consistently fought his followers, Darwinists, with their biblically-centered Abolutionist rhetoric, eventually going so far as to help enact the Jim Crow laws, which equally separated brown people (letting them know just how special they are in God's eyes). These laws were eventually struck down by Communists, SOCIALISTS, liberals and ungrateful, uppity negroes.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | January 8, 2010 12:13 AM
Science Decathlon
For those of you who truly wish to support science education, I refer you to the excellent organization linked to above.
Posted by: 10,000li | January 8, 2010 3:59 AM
Then I ought to provide a link that actuall works, I suppose:
http://sciencedecathlon.com/Welcome.html
Posted by: 10,000li | January 8, 2010 4:01 AM