Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
GOP presidential contender and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, pounding away at rival Rick Perry’s skepticism of man-made global warming and evolution.
But I can’t remember a time in our history where we actually were willing to shun science and become a — a party that — that was antithetical to science. I’m not sure that’s good for our future and it’s not a winning formula.
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Richard Dawkins, in a discussion of Gov. Rick Perry’s recent anti-science statements while on the presidential campaign trail.
In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory.
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Educator Craig Studer, on what Texas students have to look forward to under controversial social studies standards adopted by the State Board of Education in 2010.
History in Texas classrooms will be decidedly different from when we were students. I never learned “both the positive and negative impacts of … country and western music” in my high school history class. Where would you rate Estée Lauder in terms of historical importance to our country? If you think she is one of the 68 most important historical figures, you agree with the board. Yes, the board included her in the state curriculum, but not George Washington.
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Federal District Judge Sam Sparks, denying yet another motion to let Sen. Dan Patrick and state Rep. Sid Miller intervene in the case challenging the constitutionality of Texas’ abortion sonogram law.
The Court has already turned down two extremely tempting offers to transform this case from a boring old federal lawsuit into an exciting, politically charged media circus. As any competent attorney could have predicted, the Court declines the latest invitation as well.
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Political analyst Larry Sabato, saying Gov. Rick Perry’s anti-science strategy will play well in conservative early caucus and primary states like Iowa and South Carolina.
What Perry has done by mentioning creationism is to send this little signal to fundamentalists that says, “I’m one of you.”
