In an unsurprising move, the Seattle based Discovery Institute is attempting to take credit for minor changes the publishers have made to biology textbooks submitted for approval in Texas. However, the DI fails to mention that the textbooks still remain strong on evolution, and include none of the misleading and inaccurate information sent to the board in written comments by DI staff and fellows and local creationists.
Many of the changes are mere clarifications that still maintain the accurate representation of evolution as a central theme in biology. For instance, artists' drawings of embryos have been replaced by photographs: something we at NCSE have often recommended! However, embryology is still appropriately presented as evidence of common ancestry.
A couple of changes do represent "qualifying" language, statements changed so that the new wording is not as strong as previously. For example, a sentence that originally read "since Darwin's time, many of these intermediates have been found" was changed to read, "Since Darwin's time, some of these intermediates have been found, while others have not" (Holt Biology, p. 283). Certainly the original statement was stronger, but the new one is not untrue; many intermediates remain to be found. However, the fossil record is still presented as providing strong evidence of evolution, just as it should be.
The DI is still complaining, of course. For example, it still refuses to accept the fact that origin-of-life experiments after Miller/Urey confirmed the fact that organic compounds can be formed under conditions more accurately reflecting the early earth atmosphere: "Most accounts of the Miller-Urey origin of life experiment still mislead students into thinking that revised Miller-Urey experiments have produced results helpful to understanding the origin of the first life. In fact, these experiments are now widely considered a dead-end by origin of life researchers."
In his testimony before the Texas Board of Education, Dr. Andrew Ellington, who has published 165 peer-reviewed papers on origin-of-life research and related subjects in his 20 years of research, said, "The Miller-Urey experiment showed exactly what it is was supposed to, and exactly what the textbooks say it does: that biologically relevant compounds can be generated by relatively simple prebiotic chemistries."
As NCSE's Dr. Alan Gishlick has noted, The Miller-Urey experiment should still be taught because the basic results are still valid. The experiments show that organic molecules can form under abiotic conditions. Later experiments have used more accurate atmospheric compositions and achieved similar results. Even though origin of life research has moved beyond Miller and Urey, their experiments should be taught.
Similarly, the DI contends, "Several textbooks still present the classical peppered moth story as if it is good science, when its not." But this is just plain wrong. Dr. Michael Majerus, a University of Cambridge geneticist and an expert on industrial melanism, described the peppered moth research as irrefutable proof of biological evolution through the process of natural selection. What there is no 'scientific' proof of is that predation by birds has caused it -- but there is a tremendous amount of circumstantial evidence to suggest that it is the cause."
Texas scientists and teachers have forcefully defended the textbooks' presentation of evolution, and have resisted efforts to weaken the coverage of evolution by singling out for the presentation of weaknesses, such as the DI's. But anti-evolutionists have failed to convince the publishers to dumb down the coverage of evolution. The DI misrepresents the normal final editing typical of any textbook adoption procedure as a substantial victory. The real victory will be that students in Texas (and elsewhere in the country) will be learning from textbooks that present evolution substantially as scientists understand it.
Resources:
Texas Education Agency's Textbook Adoption Resource Page:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/textbooks/adoptprocess/index.html
Discovery Insttitute press releases:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1618&program=News-CSC&callingPage=discoMainPage
NCSE's critique of Icons of Evolution by DI Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells:
http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/
Texas Citizens for Science:
http://www.txscience.org/