Religious Nutcases Takeover Texas Public Education

Vikas Bajaj, From the Left: A popular tourist print ad reads, “Texas. It’s a whole other country.” A more accurate read would say, “Texas. It’s a whole other century.”

When it comes to public education and the teaching of evolution over creationism, the Lone Star State has jettisoned reason (and the 21st century) and appointed religious nutcase Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist from Central Texas, to the influential position of chairman of the state education board.

Dr. McLeroy rejects evolution: “I just don’t think it’s true or it’s ever happened.”

But McLeroy’s beliefs go downhill from there. Firmly a member of the flatworld crowd, he goes on:

“Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.”

This anti-science lunatic is entitled to his opinion. Just the same as people who believe George W. Bush actually won the 2000 election fairly and the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked are free to set aside reality and embrace revisionist history. The problem with a religious nutcase like Dr. Don McLeroy is, even as courts have prohibited the equal teaching of creationism and intelligent design, creationists on the Texas board grew to a near majority. Seven of 15 members subscribe to the notion of intelligent design and they have the backing of the governor of the state, Rick Perry.

Dr. Dan Foster, the former chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and a veteran of the evolution wars who recently worked to oppose an application by the so-called Institute for Creation Research, which supports the teaching of creationism and award graduate degrees in the state (it was rejected on April 23) says:

“I’m an orthodox Christian and and I don’t want to say that Christianity is crazy. But science, not scripture, belongs in a classroom. To allow views that undermine evolution, puts belief on the same level as scientific evidence.”

As Foster points out, views like the ones held by Dr. Don McLeroy not only make biology teachers nervous, they also sound the alarm to educators who have a stake in the state’s reputation for scientific exploration.

“Serious students will not come to study in our universities if Texas is labeled scientifically backward.”

LSB: Oye! I'm searching for something profound to write, or something clever and witty, but I'm stumped. No wonder the rest of the world is running away from us.