Creationism on the rise in Texas?
Yes, you guessed right.
…proposed science education materials — all web based — are available for review on the board’s website. The National Center for Science Education and the Texas Freedom Network, organizations that criticized the new plan, reviewed the materials and found their fears confirmed.
Intelligent design teachings
The review shows that materials from an obscure New Mexico-based company called International Databases LLC promote anti-evolution arguments made by proponents of intelligent design and creationism. These are the same arguments that many scientists have shown lack scientific merit.Among the highlights from the review made available by NCSE and TFN include:
* A slide on the origin of life states that “since such materialistic, self organization scenarios now have a history of scientific insufficiency for explaining the Origin of Life on Earth, the Null hypothesis (default) stands. This allows for the testing of the legitimate scientific hypothesis … Life on Earth is the result of intelligent causes.”
* A teacher resources slide that says that “at the end of the instructional unit on the Origin of Life, students should go home with the understanding that a new paradigm of explaining life’s origins is emerging from the failed attempts of naturalistic scenarios. The new way of thinking is predicated upon the hypothesis that intelligent input is necessary for life’s origins.”
* A module on the scientific method that lays out two “unproven hypothesis” that scientists have used to build their theories on the origin of life. One is called “scientific materialism, naturalism, and so forth.” The other is that “an intelligence is necessary to explain both the origin, and diversification of life on Earth.”