This Wednesday, March 25, the Texas State Board of Education will hold three days of meetings leading to a final vote on a new science curriculum designed by the anti-evolution propagandists at the Discovery Institute, in league with far-right fundamentalists.

The Wall Street Journal’s Stephanie Simon has a report on the controversy, with some choice quotes from the young earth creationist board chairman appointed by Republican Governor Rick Perry: Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution.

Texas school board chairman Don McLeroy also sees the curriculum as a landmark — but a positive one.

Dr. McLeroy believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago. If the new curriculum passes, he says he will insist that high-school biology textbooks point out specific aspects of the fossil record that, in his view, undermine the theory that all life on Earth is descended from primitive scraps of genetic material that first emerged in the primordial muck about 3.9 billion years ago.

He also wants the texts to make the case that individual cells are far too complex to have evolved by chance mutation and natural selection, an argument popular with those who believe an intelligent designer created the universe.

The textbooks will “have to say that there’s a problem with evolution — because there is,” said Dr. McLeroy, a dentist. “We need to be honest with the kids.”

For McLeroy to set himself up as a voice of honesty is a stunning act of hypocrisy; this is the man who read into the record a long list of distorted, out of context, and completely fraudulent anti-evolution quotes.

Simon’s WSJ article correctly identifies the true goal of this horrible initiative:

The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a huge textbook market that many publishers write to the state’s standards, then market those books nationwide.

It’s nice to see, however, that not all Texas Republicans are in favor of brainwashing children with pseudo-science—even though they’re coming under fire from hostile creationist groups and their own party:

All members of the board have come under enormous pressure in recent months, especially three Republicans who support teaching evolution without references to “weaknesses.” The state Republican Party passed a resolution urging the three to back Dr. McLeroy’s preferred curriculum. A conservative activist group put out a news release suggesting all three were in the pocket of “militant Darwinists.”

One of the three, former social-studies teacher Pat Hardy, said she has received thousands of impassioned calls and emails.

Ms. Hardy says she intends to stand firm for evolution, but she has learned not to predict what her colleagues might do. Curriculum standards critical of evolution won preliminary approval in January, but several board members said later that they hadn’t understood the issues.

“Anything can happen,” Ms. Hardy said.