The Revisionaries Page #5

as you go up those...

from old rock layers

to new ones,

all of a sudden, something appears.

Stasis is just the term

that it's equal.

It just stays the same,

and when it disappears,

it's still the same.

And that's just a fact

in the fossil record.

OK, the question is...

Mr. Chairman, I...

Now, we're taking the vote.

We call... the vote... I'm sorry.

I'm gonna abstain from this vote.

I haven't had a chance to...

OK, that's fine. OK.

I think you need to use your brain.

You make a decision:

'yes or no', or you abstain.

We need to do it,

do it thoughtfully,

but the time comes for leadership,

and sometimes

that leadership means

you just have to make a choice.

We'll take a recorded vote on this.

So 13 'yesses' and 2 'nos'.

The motion passes.

I would like to thank

my fellow Board members.

That is wonderful.

It covers the words...

'sudden appearance and stasis'

which is in the data.

It's probably a lot better

than the standard I wrote.

Thank you.

...any further amendments...

It's really disappointing

to see this happen,

because the standards

that the Board of Education

Got from the writing comittees...

were pretty decent

when it came to evolution,

And they've just amended

the dickens out of them,

And now we've got standards

that are very distinctly

compromised

in the creationist direction.

- thanks for all your work.

- you bet.

- thank you so much.

what this means is that

there's gonna be pressure

on the publishers

to put this

into the textbooks.

And that's too bad,

'cause that doesn't help

the science education

of kids in Texas very much.

The way I would understand it,

if I can speak for the other

Board members who changed their votes.

They were trying to balance

these two key demands.

They had

this pro-evolutionist side

that said this language

was unscientific.

They had this other side

that said,

"we want you to support

the strengths and weaknesses".

So they came up with a compromise.

They got rid of the bad language,

And, therefore, they voted

to support the new standards.

Frankly, it was great.

It was a failure of strategy

of the... of Eugenie Scott's,

what it was.

And Kathy Miller.

d... that's along the way

d So faith, hope, and charity d

You've been quoted as saying

The earth is 6,000 years old.

That's my personal belief.

You said:

I disagree with these experts.

Someone has to stand up to them.

Scientific consensus

means nothing.

Do you at least get

that you're a point

of significant controversy

in the state of Texas?

Oh, absolutely.

And I think

you need to have a Board

that's willing

to take some controversy

and to make

some controversial decisions.

I'm embarrassed by that.

I'm embarrassed that I said it.

I wished I hadn't said that.

Can you perceive how that

might create controversy?

Can you see?

I agree.

You said education

is too important

not to be politicized.

It came across the wrong way,

but the only reason

I got involved in education

is because I see all children

as created in God's image.

d How do I know?

d The Bible tells me so

Isn't that a cool song?

Don has always treated me

very fairly.

I find him very congenial

as a person.

And he has always been,

I think,

fair in conducting

all the public testimony

in public hearings.

What I find objectionable

is the conflict between

his ethical responsibility

to foster the letter

and spirit of the law

in TEKS science mandates

and his personal conviction

as a young earth creationist

that evolution has never happened

And that the belief in

evolution is atheistic.

Leaders must lead.

And Dr. Mcleroy

has proven conclusively

that he is less concerned

with leading the Board

than he is

with fighting the battle.

Members, let's leave him

to his battle,

and let's request the Governor

find a true leader

to chair the Texas

Board of Education.

Now here come certain preachers

on radio and TV and in the mail,

telling us,

on a bunch of political issues,

that there's just one

Christian position.

And implying, if we don't agree,

we're not good Christians.

My problem is I know my boy's

as good a Christian as me.

My wife... she's better.

So maybe there's something

wrong when people, even preachers

suggest that other people are

good Christians or bad Christians,

depending on their political views.

That's not the American way.

The public hearings in Texas

provided an opportunity

for what we now call

special interest groups

to come forward

and take their views and apply

them to the textbook process.

And of course

the most famous people

were Mel and Norma Gabler

from Longview.

They set up a foundation

and hired people to go through

every submitted textbook

and look for errors of either

fact or interpretation.

Humanism is prevalent

in our textbooks

from cover to cover,

in all grades and all subjects.

The Gablers were

tremendously influential.

And, as they were probably

at the peak of their influence

with the Board, into Texas comes

'People for the American Way'.

Those little tips on end...

- Right.

That's all that's proven fact.

Science rests on doubt.

Creationism rests on faith.

That is a major difference

between science and religion.

You are not interested in science.

I am absolu...

I want scientific evidence

to be shown, and if you're...

There is no scientific evidence

to disprove the theory of evolution.

...plenty of scientific evidence

which will disprove it. For instance...

You would win the Nobel Prize

if you had scientific evidence

to disprove the theory of evolution.

They've been critiquing

textbooks since 1961.

And because of the bizarre

provision in Texas law

they were basically the only people

that were able to come in

and critique the books.

And thus,

the State Board of Education

and the publishers

were almost captives

of the Gablers and their

fundamentalist allies.

In pointing out

what is going on here in Texas

with this organized effort

to restrict what goes into textbooks

and restrict

which textbooks are selected,

this not just a Texas phenomenon.

It may be more apparent here

but the same type of thing

is going on in Iowa and Ohio

New York and other places.

The Gablers who operate

here in Texas

and are very influential

on the textbook process here,

sell their reviews, their critiques

of books all over the country.

Since the Moral Majority under Falwell

and then Pat Robertson's

Christian Coalition

issues of education and what

is taught in public schools

across the country have been

a central focus

for culture warriors on the right.

If you truly, truly follow

a biblical world view

there's no way you can look at

education as not being important.

And it's kind of the viewpoint

that I've said, you know,

Abraham Lincoln was credited

with saying that

the philosophy of the

schoolroom in one generation

will become the philosophy of

the government in the next.

Liberty University is very young.

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