Zombie Creationism - It Just Won’t Stay Dead

Over at Pharyngula, PZ Meyers declares victory for real science education in Texas. Unfortunately, that’s a little premature.

Yesterday’s vote only closed out some amendments and took a preliminary vote on the “strengths and weaknesses” doctrine that the creationist zealots are attempting to preserve. The final vote will happen today, and include a board member who was absent yesterday. We can all hope this goes the way it should - with science education coming out ahead of fundamentalist claptrap.

That aside, I want to focus on the utterly horrible reporting by one Gary Scharrer at the San Antonio Express News. Look at this section, which quotes only creationist nuts and contains absolutely nothing refuting their spurious, misinformed opinions:

Scientists and more than 50 national and state science organizations urged the 15-member board Thursday not to include references “to creationist-fabricated ‘weaknesses’ or other attempts to undermine instruction on evolution.”

Many scientists contend basic evolutionary theory at the high school level has no weaknesses, and to suggest it does would confuse students.

However, Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, fought to restore the “strengths and weaknesses” clause, which board-appointed science experts removed from the proposed standards. The board’s seven social conservative members supported that effort but fell one vote short.

Not all scientists agree about evolution, Mercer argued.

“There are questions about evolution. … There are weaknesses,” he said.

Darwin’s theory of evolution posits that all life is descended from a common ancestor.

The theory is not without its critics. Darwinists try to conceal some of the weaknesses and fallacies of evolution theory, said Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands.

“They are not the sole possessors of truth. Our schoolchildren belong to the parents, and they want their children educated,” she said. “They don’t want them indoctrinated with one side. They know that evolution has weaknesses.”

First of all, it isn’t “Darwin’s theory of evolution” anymore. It is the theory of evolution, the foundations of which Darwin was the first to publish. But even his work didn’t come out of the air - there were years of work by other naturalists and scientists behind it. And a lot of what Darwin published 150 years ago was flat wrong, and we know that now because of further investigation. For instance, his proposed mechanism for inheritence and gamete formation was WRONG WRONG WRONG. Hilarious, google “gemmule”, fun times ahead.

And as for Ken Mercer, well, the facile statement that “not all scientists agree about evolution” is true depending on what you mean — there are disagreements in the scientific community about specific mechanisms for evolution and those sorts of things, but no scientist doubts the fundamentals: life evolved from a common origin over billions of years through random mutation and natural selection. The only people you find trying to push controversy over that are religious fundamentalists and the charlatans at the Discovery Institute. People like Barbara Cargill who obviously cares more about preserving her minor position of authority by manipulating the passions of District 8’s ignorant electorate than she does about really giving Texas students science education.

But, that aside, I’m livid that a reporter managed to quote those two nuts without getting anything from the pro-science side of the board. This shoddy kind of work makes me pretty pleased that the Express News, easily the worst major metro daily I’ve ever read, is going the way of the dodo. Well, maybe that’s unfair, I suppose I’ll just hope that they’ll get new management that will improve the quality of their reporting.