by Brian Leiter
The Austin American-Statesman, Thursday, July 24, 2003
Reprinted with the author's permission
As the State Board of Education "reviews" biology textbooks, public education in Texas is, once again, at risk of becoming the laughingstock of the nation. For one of the great triumphs of modern science, Darwin's theory of evolution, is now under attack from the renamed creationist movement, the proponents of "the intelligent design."
Keep in mind that evolutionary biology is as well-confirmed and well-established a scientific theory as any theory in physics or chemistry or geology. As the National Center for Science Education recently noted, "there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence."
And according to the National Academy of Sciences -- the nation's most elite group of distinguished scientists, including dozens of Nobel Laureates -- Darwin's theory of evolution is "the most important concept in understanding biology." If you don't teach evolution properly, you guarantee that our children won't have a sound education in biology. And without a sound education in biology, Texas children won't be getting in to the best medical schools, they won't be making the future medical breakthroughs and they won't be starting the biotech companies of tomorrow.
There are, to be sure, actual scientific disputes, as the National Center for Science Education notes, "about the patterns and processes of evolution," but there is no doubt about the reality of evolution itself. The religious critics, however, want to parlay scientific debates about the patterns and processes of evolution -- debates that go on in all healthy sciences -- in to doubts about the validity of evolutionary biology itself.
To give you an idea what may be in store for Texas if they succeed, let us remember what happened in Kansas four years ago.
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted, by a bare majority, to remove most references to evolution from the state's mandatory science curriculum. The response was swift and damning. Newspapers around the United States and the world ran, almost without exception, unfavorable articles about the decision. Kansas was held up for national and international ridicule. Gov. Bill Graves, a Republican, called the decision an "embarrassment," adding that it would interfere with the state's "ability to portray ourselves as a serious, forward-thinking, progressive place to do business."
Shortly thereafter, an Oregon-based software company reversed its decision to relocate to Kansas because company executives were now concerned that their children's education would suffer in the Kansas school system. A biology professor at Kansas State University reported that faculty job candidates were now expressing misgivings about teaching at the university, given what they saw as the undermining of the high school curriculum in the state.
Within a year, three of the Board members who voted to remove evolution from the curriculum were defeated in the Republican primaries. One of the victorious Republican challengers, Sue Gamble, argued during the campaign that excluding evolution from the science curriculum could "put students at a disadvantage at the national level" and that "students from out of state won't want to come here because they feel the standards won't be up to snuff." She was surely right, and Kansas is fortunate she won. And shortly after the elections, evolution was reinstated in the Kansas science curriculum.
Texas does not need the kind of embarrassment Kansas suffered. Texas also can't afford it. The economic dominance of Texas is now driven by two crucial factors: a favorable business climate and an influx of brainpower. Those with brainpower want it for their kids. And nothing will scare off the brainpower quicker than even the appearance that the schools aren't up to par--which will be the reality if the Texas SBOE does a repeat of Kansas.
The Legislature should heed last fall's warning from Republican SBOE member Dan Montgomery that the board has been "skirting the (1995) law," which was meant to get the SBOE out of the political censorship business. Science textbooks should be vetted by science teachers and scientists, not political hacks or pseudo-scientists. It's time for the Legislature to take all authority over textbooks away from the SBOE, before Texas suffers the consequences.
Brian Leiter holds the Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law and is a professor of philosophy and director of the Law & Philosophy Program at The University of Texas at Austin.