"Sneak out while the adults aren't looking"

Our local newspaper has a story on who educators in our part of Texas are viewing the recent vote on K-12 science standards.

Science teachers in the Valley didn't experience much pressure from local districts or the community on how to teach evolution.

Perhaps that is because most people in the Valley are Catholic, and the Catholic Church — as well as mainline Protestant denominations of Christianity — have backed off from the evolution debate, said Bob Soper, a retired science teacher and an ordained minister with the Episcopal Church.

Kathryn Tabb has some things to say about the teaching of evolution.

Darwin preferred the outdoors to the schoolhouse and once confessed, "Observing, thinking & some reading beat, in my opinion, all systematic education." My guess is that Darwin would urge the children of Austin to take advantage of all the mayhem to sneak out while the adults aren't looking--and, equipped with magnifying glasses and notebooks, take to nature and draw their own conclusions.

Good advice, considering that the governor of Texas reappointed creationist dentist Don McLeroy to chair the State Board of Education, and his shenanigans seem set to extend... how long are these appointments?