Texas Freedom Network: Stand Up for Science!
I received the following email from the Texas Freedom Network recently:
The Texas Freedom Network has been warning that biblical creationists on the State Board of Education are determined to promote their personal religious beliefs over sound science in our state’s public schools.
We were right.
In the last week the New York Times and the Hearst newspaper chain, which includes the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News, have published major stories detailing the religious right’s anti-science strategy in Texas . Read those stories by clicking here for the New York Times and here for the Houston Chronicle.
The words of biblical creationists on the state board should erase any remaining doubts about the coming battle:
The battle is between “two systems of science. . . . You’ve got a creationist system and a naturalist system.”
— Board chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan
“Evolution is not fact. Evolution is a theory and, as such, cannot be proven. Students need to be able to jump to their own conclusions.”
— David Bradley, R-Beaumont
“I just don’t think (evolution is) true or it’s ever happened.”
— Board chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan
The New York Times and Hearst stories pull back the curtain on the real agenda of creationists on the state board: requiring that teachers and new science textbooks teach students phony “weaknesses” of the theory of evolution. This year creationist crusaders are taking unprecedented steps to win the battle. Far-right groups have even poured millions of dollars into making and marketing an anti-evolution feature film, Expelled!, promoting their phony arguments.
Mainstream scientists have repeatedly debunked those myths and point out that evolution has been documented by solid research beyond a reasonable doubt. Those scientists know that the phony “weaknesses” argument is just a political gimmick. Its goal is to create doubts about evolution and open the door to teaching religious doctrine in science classes instead.
The religious right’s anti-science strategy would turn the clock backward in Texas , sentencing our schoolchildren to a 19th-century education in their 21st-century classrooms. The state’s universities and industry would also suffer as Texas becomes the nation’s laughingstock and gains the reputation of being a scientifically backward state.
TAKE ACTION!
Biblical creationists hold a near majority on the State Board of Education. To thwart their efforts and hold on to the votes we need to win, the Texas Freedom Network has launched a broad-based campaign to promote sound science education in our public schools. This campaign will require more resources, more activists and more broad-based support than any of our previous efforts.
In fact, the Stand Up for Science campaign already includes a growing coalition of scientists, business leaders, educators and mainstream activists working to remove the phony “weaknesses” language from state’s public school science standards.
You can help. Take action by doing three things right now:
1. Sign the Stand Up for Science petition by clicking here. TFN will keep you informed and give you the tools to advocate for sound science education in our public schools.
2. Donate to the Texas Freedom Network by clicking here. Your donation will help the Stand Up for Science campaign compete with the massive funding behind far-right groups promoting religious doctrine in public school science classes.
3. Forward this e-mail to other supporters of sound science education and encourage them to join this important cause.
With your help, the Texas Freedom Network will lead the fight for sound science in our state’s public schools. The future of our schoolchildren’s education and the economy of this state depend on it.
Sincerely,
Kathy Miller
President,
Texas Freedom Network
P.S. Your support will help TFN sponsor Stand Up for Science events around the state, ensuring that the voices of mainstream activists in key state board districts are heard.
Blog of the Airtightnoodle 
August 25, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I am former HS Science Chair & Biology teacher. I am also an ordained minister and member of AAIM. I am an excellent public speaker. Let me know where i can help.
CSK
Austin, TX
August 25, 2008 at 4:01 pm
As submitted–asking to volunteer.
August 25, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Thanks for commenting. To help out, contact the Texas Freedom Network by following the link near the top of the post.
October 4, 2008 at 8:13 am
My websites can be located on google by searching on Yachtsman220
I went to the theater and saw Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed. I thought it was a fair treatment of the issue of Intelligent Design. I would have appreciated hearing about Intelligent Design as a possible explanation for the Origin of life when I was a kid growing up.
I was reading Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Volume 2 and I saw this item:
Vestiges of Creation.
Some thirty years since a work appeared anonymously, entitled “The Vestiges of Creation,” in which the theory of Lamarck in essential features was reproduced. The writer agreed with his predecessor in admitting an original creation of matter; in referring the origin of life to physical causes; and in deriving all the general species and varieties of plants and animals by a process of natural development from a common source. These writers differ in the way in which they carry out their common views and as to the grounds which they urge in their support.
The author of the “Vestiges of Creation” assumes the truth of the nebular hypothesis, and argues from analogy that as the complicated and ordered systems of the heavenly bodies are the result of physical laws acting on the original matter pervading space, it is reasonable to infer that the different orders of plants and animals have arisen in the same way. He refers to the gradation observed in the vegetable and animal kingdoms; the simpler everywhere preceding the more complex, and the unity of plan being preserved throughout. He lays great stress also on the foetal development of the higher orders of animals. The human foetus, for example, assuming in succession the peculiarities of structure of the reptile, of the fish, of the bird, and of man. This is supposed to prove that man is only a more perfectly developed reptile; and that the orders of animals differ simply as to the stage they occupy in this unfolding series of life. As the same larva of the bee can be developed into a queen, a drone, or a worker, so the same living cell can be developed into a reptile, a fish, a bird, or a man. There are, however, the author admits, interruptions in the scale; species suddenly appearing without due preparation. This he illustrates by a reference to the calculating machine, which for a million of times will produce numbers in regular series, and then for once produce a number of a different order; thus the law of species that like shall beget like may hold good for an indefinite period, and then suddenly a new species be begotten. These theories and their authors have fallen into utter disrepute among scientific men, and have no other than a slight historical interest.