Texas and science - Oil and water

March 11, 4:30 PMScience ExaminerTrina Hoaks

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Before I begin my condemnation of certain Texas lawmakers and their apparent ignorance in the area of science, I must say a couple of things.

In general, I have no problem with Texas. In fact, I love it there. I lived in Houston for over 16 years. Both of my children were born there. To this day, I call Houston home, even though I was not born there and do not live there now. Of all the places I have lived, Houston is my favorite by far.

I feel that my children got a good education while they attended schools there. However, my children began their education at a private, non-religious school. They attended that private school until a new public elementary school opened in our area.

The new school was wonderful. It was relatively small and was filled with wonderful teachers and faculty. There was a lot of parent involvement which added to the overall value of the education that children got at the school. In general, the children who went there were challenged and encouraged to think.

Now, many years later (my children are both adults), I look in from the outside at the nonsense that seems to be going on within the state in regard to science education.

I had to ask myself what is really going on in Texas when I read that Bill Nye, aka The Science Guy, was booed by parents when he said that the moon is not a source of light. He explained that the moon reflects the sun's light. According to a report (that has now been removed) on the Waco Tribune Web site, some Waco residents were "visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence."

Nye reportedly took it one step further and pointed out that this contradicts what is said in the Bible. According to Genesis 1:16, "And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars." He said that the moon is not a light but a reflector.

According to the report, "[a]t this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled 'We believe in God!' and left with three children, thus ensuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they'd always suspected."

What can we expect when Texas has a creationist as the chair of its State Board of Education? Don McLeroy seems to be more interested in driving his religion into the education system than he is in ensuring that Texas provides its children with the best educational opportunities available.

Fortunately there are other board members who do not share McLeroy's ideologies and they recently made some positive changes to science education in Texas.

But that hasn't stopped McLeroy from wasting time with his continued effort to push his religious agenda using his political "power" to do so. According to the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), in January, "McLeroy successfully proposed a revision to section 7 of the draft of the high school biology standards to require that students 'analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record.'"

This prompted NCSE to say "in its call to Texas scientists, the requirement is not only unworkable and confusing, but also evidently intended to promote the idea that living things were specially created in their current forms."

It seems evident that McLeroy has no clue what he is talking about when it comes to science and that perhaps his state would be better served if he would direct his efforts toward something worthwhile like Texas' illiteracy rate, which at 19% is 5% higher that the national average. He should leave the science issues to people who actually understand that science and religion are two separate things.

When he was appointed to the chair position, many groups spoke out against him. The Texas Freedom Network said that he had "a shocking hostility to both sound science education and religious tolerance."

Of course, the problem didn't start with McLeroy. But it is disturbing to think that someone like him could be appointed to the position of chair of the State Board of Education when he obviously doesn't care about education.