We signed off our live-blogging before letting folks know what happens next with the Texas public school science standards. Now that the public hearings are over, the State Board of Education on Thursday will consider any changes to the proposed standards. Then board members may take a preliminary vote followed by a formal vote the next day (Friday) on whether to approve the standards on First Reading. The board must then adopt the standards in a final vote in March. Keep an eye here on TFN Insider for updates!
We can listen live to the Thursday and Friday board meetings — the TEA website says of SBOE meetings,
“NOTE – meetings available through live streaming are the General Meetings, Committee of the Full Board, and Committee on Instruction. Live audio is not available for Committee on School Finance/Permanent School Fund or the Committee on School Initiatives.”
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/
There will probably be discussions before votes are taken. I thought that there was going to be a board discussion on Wednesday, but the expert testimony period ended quite late, 8:00 PM, after a long day.
BTW, no one has said anything about the word “limitations” that is still in Sec. 3D of the biology knowledge & skills section.
Many thanks to TFN for the live blog – it made for an excellent trifecta with the live blogs of Steve Schafersman and Josh Rosenau.
One thing that I found telling was Pat Hardy’s question directed at Stephen Meyer regarding the age of the Earth – to which he responded with the geological estimate of 4.6 billion years. I think it shows that for the Texas SBOE creationists, a young earth is not a top priority – indeed, old earth creationists and most of the ID camp subscribes to the geological age of the earth – but casting doubt upon evolution (which they no doubt equate with atheism) is. I think Mrs. Hardy should have asked Meyer if he accepts common descent – now that would have been revealing! Even though a fair number of people associated with the DI accept common descent, I contend that it is the aspect of evolution that is most unsettling to rank and file creationists.