I’m glad states like Texas and Florida exist, because when national news gets me either too depressed or too starry-eyed, those two states help smack me down to planet Earth. In this case we have Texas slowly clawing its way beyond the 1800s to change its curriculum, which hitherto required teachers to outline weaknesses in scientific theory.

Critics of the “weaknesses” language argue that watering down the teaching standards of origin of man is an attempt to promote creationism in public schools.

Federal courts have ruled against forcing the teaching of creationism and intelligent design.

Critics of the proposal to drop the mandate blame “left-wing ideology” for trying to stifle free speech.

I know the old joke is that the Texas flag looks like the easy reader version of the American flag, but I really do think I need to lay down a few ground rules here.

1. “Free speech” only applies to Congressional legislation barring what you can say. The 1st amendment is not some “catch all” law that means nothing can ever limit what you can say. There are tons of requirements concerning education. A history teacher isn’t allowed to teach nothing but conspiracy theories, a spelling teacher can’t use graphically sexual language, English teachers can’t hand out pornographic novels to elementary school kids, and social studies teachers can’t blame everything on “the Jews”. If the issue you’re discussing isn’t a Congressional mandate saying you will get arrested if you say certain words, the 1st amendment doesn’t apply. It doesn’t protect you from nationwide ridicule, it doesn’t protect you from criticism, and it doens’t protect you from getting fired. Otherwise sexual harassment laws would be an abridgement of free speech (“Your honor, I believe it’s my constitutional right to tell my female employees I want to wrap their thighs around my face.”). Got it??
2. “Science” is not some single entity a la religion, it’s a method. There seems to be this bizarre argument, made almost solely from religious and conservative quarters, that “science” is this big thing that can be proven or disproven. “Science” is not a thing, it’s not a doctrine, it’s not a set line of beliefs. All “science” means is the observation of the world around us and the current set of rules we have determined via that observation. Period. It’s not like the Bible where we claim to have all the answers and those are the answers just because we said so. When the Bible says God made Adam out of dust you’re expected to believe it because it’s in there. When a science book says matter is made up of atoms which are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons, you’re more than welcome to go ahead and check. If you prove it wrong, then that gets incorporated into the theory.

Any college student can tell you a big pain in the ass is selling books back, because it always turns out there’s a new edition. In science, texts offer new editions every year or so because theories change, are disproven, are replaced, or are otherwise modified. What we “knew” ten years ago is very different from what we “know” now. There’s a good reason books on evolutionary theory or cosmology are updated constantly: that’s how “science” works. Evolutionary and gravitational theory are called theories because they have yet to graduate to “law” status and are thus under constant scrutiny.

Last I checked, there’s been no “The Bible: 2nd edition” where they edit out all the stuff that’s been scientifically or historically disproven (such as, say, the supposed national census at Christ’s birth that was in fact just a local census and involved no slaughter of infants). Once they start doing that, then maybe I’ll start to take anything those people say seriously.