No, they haven’t – but not for lack of trying

I don’t know whether to blame the interviewer, Mitch Potter, or the interviewee, history professor Jill Lepore. In the middle of a fairly interesting article on the American constitution, the Texas science standards suddenly appear (emphasis added).

Lepore links worship of the Constitution to other flashpoints in broader, ongoing tensions between the U.S. division of church and state. She points to Texas, where conservative-dominated school boards have successfully implanted the teaching of creationism in the study of science.

Look, I’ve been as critical of the Texas State Board of Education as anyone about their treatment of evolution in the science standards. But they have not “implanted the teaching of creationism” into the standards.

When you say that there is creationism in the Texas school system, all those conservative State Board of Education members are going to ask you to point out where the word “creationism” is in the standards.

And they’ll have you cold and you’ll look dumb. Because it isn’t there.

They weakened the wording about evolution, yes. That the reason they did so was because many of the State Board of Education members are creationists seems indisputable.

But being vague about one thing is not the same as implanting something else.

Right, back to grading...