Creationists on the Texas State Board of Education (including Discovery Institute fellow Stephen Meyer) were defeated (by only one vote) in their effort to retain an atavistic anti-evolution curriculum requirement: Board sides with evolution in curriculum debate.

AUSTIN — The State Board of Education tentatively decided to amend school science curriculum standards Thursday, dropping a 20-year-old requirement that critics say is used to undermine the theory of evolution.

The change in curriculum drops the mandate that science teachers address both “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theory. It would be in place for the next decade. A panel of science teachers had recommended that the language be dropped.

Kathy Miller, president of the watchdog group Texas Freedom Network, has argued that the word weaknesses “has become a code word in the culture wars to attack evolution and promote creationism.”

The creationists are frustrated and angry, and complaining that their “free speech” is being violated — because they won’t be able to promote pseudo-science to schoolchildren any more.

Critics of dropping the weaknesses mandate blame “left-wing ideology,” for trying to stifle free speech.

“It’s outrageous that our highest elected education officials voted to silence teachers and students in science class,” said Jonathan Saenz, a lobbyist for the Free Market Foundation.

“Despite being overwhelmed by e-mails and phone calls to keep strengths and weaknesses, the divided State Board of Education ignored constituents and sided with a small group of activists. This decision shows that science has evolved into a political popularity contest. The truth has been expelled from the science classroom.”

But it isn’t over yet, because at the same meeting the creationists did succeed in adopting amendments calling into question the “Big Bang” in physics and common descent in biology.