Texas Education Agency and Chris Comer, Part 12

The Austin American-Statesman has just published its second editorial on the Chris Comer resignation.

The firing of Comer already has done real damage to Texas’ reputation as it competes with California and New York for research and development projects, grants, biomedical industries and the nation’s best scientists.

Yup. They got it. You can't expect to benefit from knowledge while promoting ignorance.

Blogs by researchers have cast Texas as a backwater state that puts religious ideology on par with science.

You're welcome. Go me.

Something that has been missing in the editorials, though, is that Texas has a plan in place called "Closing the Gaps," which aims to increase university participation and student success across the state. Biology is a very popular major, and many non-science majors take some biology to fulfill biology requirements.

Weaken teaching on evolution, put in any language that waffles or sows doubt, and students are going to be in for a shock. They'll be left playing catch-up as they find that, say, intelligent design is not taught in science classes (except, perhaps, in a historical context under its original name of natural theology, or as an example of how to do science wrong). They'll be in for a rude awakening that all those alleged "weaknesses" probably have solutions that have been known for decades.

Students would be less ready for a university education, and less likely to succeed.