No doubt, this decision by the Christianists within the Texas Board of Education is an attempt to manipulate public school education standards to impose a blatantly wrong agenda—and how un-Christian of them.

The Board of Education’s decision is seen as a “backdoor entrance for creationists and fans of intelligent design” to circumvent basic science standards. From io9:

How old is the universe? Scientists agree that the answer is somewhere around 14 billion years (give or take a few million)… unless you happen to be a student in the state of Texas.

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The decision was only one of many made on Friday, and sadly, only one of many that suggested an anti-science agenda (Other decisions included specific language requiring scientific explanations on evolution to be “evaluated” by students and teachers, ominously enough). Chair of the Board Don McLeroy testified to the reason why that may be the case at the meeting:

I disagree with these experts. Someone has got to stand up to experts.

That’s right! Standing up to experts and facts is exactly what the chair of an educational board’s job is supposed to be! Well, at least there’s always the internet to fill in gaps in these kids’ education…

More from the Wall Street Journal:

Critics of evolution said they were thrilled with Friday’s move. “Texas has sent a clear message that evolution should be taught as a scientific theory open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can’t be questioned,” said Dr. John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that argues an intelligent designer created life.

Kathy Miller, president of the pro-evolution Texas Freedom Network, said, “The board crafted a road map that creationists will use to pressure publishers into putting phony arguments attacking established science into textbooks.”

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Several years ago, the board expressed concern that a description of the Ice Age occurring “millions of years ago” conflicted with biblical timelines. The publisher changed it to “in the distant past.” Another publisher sought to satisfy the board by inserting a heading about “strengths and weaknesses of evolution” in a biology text, drawing condemnation from science organizations.

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For instance, [social conservatives on the board] want textbooks to suggest the theory of evolution is undercut by fossils that show some organisms — such as ferns — haven’t changed much over millions of years. They also want texts to discuss the explosion of life forms during the Cambrian Era as inconsistent with the incremental march of evolution.

Scientists respond that the fossil record clearly traces the roots of Cambrian Era creatures back as far as 100 million years.

It isn’t just evolution at issue: The board also approved an earth-science curriculum that challenges the widely accepted Big Bang Theory. Students are expected to learn that there are “differing theories” on the “origin and history of the universe.”

Board members also deleted a reference to the scientific consensus that the universe is nearly 14 billion years old. The board’s chairman has said he believes God created the universe fewer than 10,000 years ago.

And from Christopher Hitchens:

In many ways, this battle can be seen as the last stand of the Protestant evangelicals with whom I was mingling and debating. It’s been a rather dismal time for them lately. In the last election they barely had a candidate after Mike Huckabee dropped out and, some would say, not much of one before that. Many Republicans now see them as more of a liability than an asset. As a proportion of the population they are shrinking, and in ethical terms they find themselves more and more in the wilderness of what some of them morosely called, in conversation with me, a “post-Christian society.” Perhaps more than any one thing, the resounding courtroom defeat that they suffered in December 2005 in the conservative district of Dover, Pa., where the “intelligent design” plaintiffs were all but accused of fraud by a Republican judge, has placed them on the defensive. Thus, even if the Texas board had defiantly voted to declare evolution to be questionable and debatable, its decision could still have spelled the end of a movement rather than the revival of one.

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