EDUCATION -- 'STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES' OF EVOLUTION REMOVED FROM TEXAS CURRICULUM:
Yesterday, Texas's state board of education voted 8-1 against an amendment that would have maintained discussion of evolution's "strengths and weaknesses" in Texas classrooms. The phrase had been included in the state biology curriculum until a panel of teachers proposed removing it last September. Predictably, social conservatives "lobbied heavily" against the change. Board member Cynthia Dunbar (R) made the motion for the amendment, which was defeated by a vote of eight-to-seven. The vote was particularly significant because "Texas is one of the nation's biggest buyers of textbooks
* ,and publishers are reluctant to produce different versions of the same material." As a result, other states are often forced to comply with Texas's standards. Dunbar claimed that the debate over "strengths and weaknesses" was not an issue of religion, but rather of free speech. Fellow board member Ken Mercer (R) argued that removing the controversial language from the curriculum constituted persecution against Christians. But supporters of the change say that "strengths and weaknesses" is simply a slogan designed to sneak creationism into classrooms. "These weaknesses that they bring forward are decades old, and they have been refuted many, many times over," said Kevin Fisher, former president of the Science Teachers Association of Texas. "It's an attempt to bring false weaknesses into the classroom in an attempt to get students to reject evolution."
*That explains why Dallas had 'text book repository' where Oswald hung out..
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