Nature: Lone Star vs Creationism
Editorial
Nature
February 28 200
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7182/full/4511030a.html
The battle against anti-scientific literalism continues.
Next stop Texas.
The creation-evolution debate in the United States is
ever-changing: any given week might bring good news for
science advocates in some states, but bad news in
others. At the moment, the good news is coming from
Florida, which on 19 February voted to adopt new science
standards that significantly strengthen the role of
evolution in the state’s biology curriculum (see page
1041.
But the next round of news will undoubtedly come from
Texas, where a state agency faces a decision whose
ramifications could resonate across the United States
for years to come. The Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board is considering an application by the
Institute for Creation Research (ICR) to grant online
master’s degrees in science education. And an advisory
panel to the board has recommended that Texas should
accept the application.
The ICR accepts the Bible as literal truth on all
topics. According to its website, the palaeoclimatology
class covers “climates before and after the Genesis
Flood”. Anatomy lab includes “limited discussion of
embryology and accompanying histology, specifically in
regards to evolutionary theory and its alternative – the
creation of fully functional major groups of animals”.
For most of its existence the ICR was ensconced in the
San Diego area, but in 2007 it relocated to Dallas, in
an apparent move to expand its national reach.
California may have been glad to see it go; the state
had been battling the ICR over accreditation since 1981,
when, under a sympathetic official, the institute first
got the go-ahead to offer degrees. But in Texas the ICR
must win approval from the state board to continue
setting up its graduate programmes before seeking
permanent accreditation.
The decision falls to the nine-member higher-education
board. It had been expected to vote on the issue in
January, but instead asked the ICR for more information
– about the research done by its faculty members, about
how an online course would teach experimental science,
and about why its curriculum is so different from other
degree-granting institutions in science education. A
vote is expected at the board’s 24 April meeting.
High-powered scientists in Texas are already weighing
in, asking board commissioner Raymund Paredes to deny
accreditation. And there are signs that the board is
listening. In a response to Nobel laureate Steven
Weinberg, Paredes wrote that “our primary criterion will
be how the proposed program will contribute to preparing
high school students to do rigorous science in higher
education”. One can only hope such rational approaches
will outweigh the primary ICR reaction, which has been
to send out a call for prayer.
Scientists in Texas and the rest of the country must
continue to make it clear to Paredes why the board
should deny accreditation to this organization. The ICR
has managed to con its way into the California
educational system for decades. Texas must not succumb
as well.
Follow
