TX State BOE Pushing To Force Science Textbooks To Include "Both Sides", "It's Just A Theory"

[hatrack]

The Texas State Board of Education altered its internal guidance to schools last month to emphasize the “positive” aspects of fossil fuels in science textbooks. The changes are raising concerns among scientists, education experts and other board members that the panel is establishing policies that could lead to the statewide purchase of textbooks that undermine basic tenets of climate change for years to come.

The Republican-dominated board adopted a series of changes to its operating rules last month that could influence school decisions on book purchases. The board member who proposed the changes, Patricia Hardy, has rejected mainstream climate science and argued that current teachings about global warming are too “negative.” “If they’re going to tout how wonderful the alternative climate change stuff is, then they need to also say all the things that are not good about it and not just hit on the fossil fuel industry,” Hardy said in an interview Wednesday. “Our schools are paid for by the fossil fuel industry for the most part, so there’s a little bit of disingenuousness.”

EDIT

Hardy told E&E News that she worked on the changes with the Texas Energy Council, a coalition of oil and gas companies, as well as newly elected board member Aaron Kinsey, CEO of American Patrols, an aviation oil-field services company. The goal of the group was to eliminate “textbooks written by people not from Texas who have a negative view of fossil fuels and a positive view of electric cars. The climate people, the ones who’ve made climate change their religion, if you don’t believe what they do, they don’t want you to be heard", she said. “There are any number of excellent writings that would back up my position on the climate, and we need to look at both sides of the issue.”

Another member of the Texas State Board of Education, Will Hickman, who works as an in-house attorney for Shell, previously blocked the implementation of proposed science standards that would teach students about the benefits of cutting carbon dioxide. The board’s priorities are in line with the state Republican Party platform, which calls for climate change and evolution to be taught as “theories.” “We support objective teaching of scientific theories, such as life origins and climate change,” the platform reads. “These shall be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced.”

EDIT

https://www.eenews.net/articles/texas-officials-target-climate-science-in-textbooks/

[ret5hd]

1. "...any number of excellent writings that would back up my position..."

And yet, doesn’t cite even one.

Maybe that number is “0”.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. The human benefits of FF's are staggering in their scope

I got no problem teaching kids the facts on that subject. Facts are facts.

Climate Change, caused by burning them, at this point is no longer a theory, so those FACTS need to be taught as well.

In my mind, if one is afraid of a balanced discussion on something that is largely a question of physics, one has to wonder whether they're really feeling that secure in their position, whichever side they come down on.

Teach them both sides, as well as the concept of a Faustian Bargain, while they're at it.

MHO

[Chainfire]

3. We should also give equal time to the moon being made of green cheese.

[cbabe]

5. It is!

A Grand Day Out - Landing on the Moon - Wallace and Gromit

https://m.

[cbabe]

4. I used to give students five extra credit points for finding errors in textbooks. Commas, misspellin

misspellings, and all. Social studies books were the ‘winners’.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. The word theory does NOT mean just a guess.

Unfortunately, people tend to use it that way. Instead of saying "I have a theory about that" they should say "I have a hypothesis about that", or even "My guess is".

To say evolution is only a theory complete misunderstands how well it's been proven. Heck, scientists still talk about the theory of gravity, but gravity is real, and we are not all going to start floating away any time soon.

[LastDemocratInSC]

9. I agree that the Texas group has a colloquial understanding of the word "theory".

https://www.discovery.com/science/Difference-Between-Fact-Hypothesis-Theory-Law-Science

This article explains that the progression is:

Fact - An observation that's been confirmed so many times that scientists can, for all intents and purposes, accept it as "true" but with the possibility that it may not be absolutely accurate.

Hypothesis - A tentative explanation about an observation that can be tested. It's just a starting point for further investigation.

Law - A detailed description of how some aspect of the natural world behaves, usually involving math.

Theory - An explanation of some aspect of the natural world that's well-substantiated by facts, tested hypotheses, and laws.

A theory is at the top of the heap - it's the organizing principle the explains one or more related facts. And, theories can and do change as evidence changes.

Every physicist wants to find an alternative to Alan Guth's inflationary theory which says that a very brief period of rapid expansion of space and time occurred in the first seconds after the big bang. The theory was developed to solve several problems with the original big bang theory and has been considered orthodox in physics for decades. But it may not be completely correct. At some point in the next few decades a more accurate explanation may be discovered to replace it and the person, or group of persons who discover it will win Nobel prizes, become famous, and the big bang theory will be more complete and better than ever before. It's a win-win for everybody.

So, there's nothing wrong with changing a theory when the facts, hypotheses, and laws require it.

What bothers these Texas people is that their notions of science don't allow explanations to be changed - they live in a fixed universe where their bronze-age mythologies are immutable; changing one of their "theories" to conform to current evidence won't make their ideas better - it will make their ideas irrelevant and that is what they fear. They want to push alternative explanations that they claim are as valid and sound as those understood by 21st century scientists. At the base of it all, they are upset that nobody takes them seriously anymore on matters of knowledge.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Thank you for that lovely and succinct set of definitioins.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

11. Not entirely sure 'Theory' sits atop of 'Law' in the scientific pantheon necessarily

I don't think for example most scientists would put the Theory of Relativity somehow above the First Law of Thermodynamics in terms of certainty.

Still as you suggest, for something to be called a Theory in science confers a much higher degree of certainty than it does in the vernacular of the layperson.

[Ocelot II]

7. Gravity? Heliocentricity?

Will someone have to drop something from the Leaning Tower of Pisa again? Are they going to sentence a high school teacher to house arrest for stating that the earth does, indeed, revolve around the sun? "Eppur si muove!" he'll shout as they drag him away...

[northoftheborder]

8. This is so discouraging and disgusting.

Many steps many years BACKWARDS