Finally, some sense comes to Texas...

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The Texas Board of Education voted unanimously
to approve mainstream middle school curriculum materials on Friday in
a move seen as a victory for proponents of teaching evolution in
public schools.

Conservatives had complained the materials up for approval did not
adequately address "alternatives to evolution" such as creationism or
intelligent design as a theory of how life began.

The board also voted to reject any inclusion of materials submitted by
a New Mexico company, International Databases, which claimed Darwin's
Theory of Evolution was not proven and that life on earth was the
result of 'intelligent causes.'

"These two votes represent a definitive victory for science and the
students of Texas, and a complete defeat of the far-right's two-year
campaign to dumb down instruction on evolution in Texas schools," said
Ryan Valentine, deputy director of the Texas Freedom Network, a
liberal group that counters attempts by evangelical conservatives to
affect public policy.

In 2009 in a move that grabbed headlines across the country, a more
conservative Texas State Board of Education approved standards
encouraging debate over the veracity of evolution science.

The board had not voted on science educational materials since the
2009 decision. Supplemental materials were being considered on Friday
rather than entirely new textbooks due to budget cuts approved this
year by the Texas legislature.

The Texas board, which includes evangelical Christians, had been seen
as the best opportunity for supporters of Biblical-based theories of
creation to get their point of view represented in public school
curriculum.

David Bradley, a leader of the board's conservatives, was not pleased
with the decision to allow Education Commissioner Robert Scott, whose
proposals included the teaching only mainstream science, to decide how
to resolve several "errors" in educational materials identified by
evolution opponents.

"So we're going to kick the can down the road, and we're just going to
delegate that responsibility and give it to the commissioner," he
said.

The vote followed several hours of emotional testimony on Thursday in
which science teachers from around the state pleaded with the board
not to require them to teach what they saw as non-scientific theories
in their classrooms.

Intelligent design and creationism are theories that life on earth was
created essentially the way it is described in the Bible's Book of
Genesis - not by evolution, but by a 'creative intelligence' generally
considered to be the Christian God.