When Creationists Collide with Stephen Colbert

Fundamentalists in Texas are still trying to stop biology textbooks from teaching scientific facts. Only now they’re not Bible-thumping; they’re denying that scientific facts are possible.


In April 2012 Don McLeroy, a dentist from Bryan, Texas, appeared as a guest onThe Colbert Report to talk about textbooks, evolution, and the nature of reality. McLeroy is famous for pushing creationism as the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, and the highlight of the interview comes when Colbert quizzes McLeroy about paleontology. “Human beings and dinosaurs walked side by side?” Colbert asks. McLeroy looks uncomfortable. “That’s my personal view,” he replies, and then Colbert pounces: “That’s your personal scientificview.” McLeroy agrees. “Science,” Colbert concludes, “can be a personal choice.” At the end of the interview, the host expands on that point. “I’ve always been a fan of reality by majority vote,” he says before shaking McLeroy’s hand.

In the past few months, the Texas State Board of Education has been in the process of approving high school textbooks for the use in the state’s classrooms. Because the Board has, in the past, voted to insert creationist language into curricula, and because Texas has an unusual amount of influence on textbook publishers on account of its size, these kinds of proceedings offer a very public platform for creationists. Taking advantage of the opportunity, they’ve challenged basic principles of natural selection, combed through scientific minutiae during lengthy debates, and, most recently, held up approval of Pearson’s Biology, a popular textbook co-authored by a science journalist and a Brown University biology professor.

The Board’s internal review of Biology, made public by the Texas Freedom Network, makes for especially surreal reading as review panel members evaluate detail after detail, accusing the textbook of a “propaganda effort” at one point, and, elsewhere, of deliberate attempt to avoid letting students know about the challenges”—i.e., alternatives to Darwinism—“that are making the advance”—i.e. undermining—“of evolutionary theory so exciting today.”

Mostly, this is spectacle; the other biology textbooks have been approved with their evolutionary content intact. But that Colbert Report interview has been an all-too-useful guide. As a non-creationist member of the board told the AP before one late-night session, “To ask me—a business degree major from Texas Tech University—to distinguish whether the earth cooled 4 billion years ago or 4.2 billion years ago for the purposes of approving a textbook at 10:15 on a Thursday night is laughable.” Reality by majority vote? Somewhere, Stephen Colbert was smiling.

The Board’s creationist wing shrunk during the last election cycle, and by the end of November it was clear that they would not be able to demand substantial changes. Staffers at the Discovery Institute, an intelligent design think-tank in Seattle that supplied one of the Board’s expert reviewers, complained that Texas was failing to teach its kids critical thinking, and alleged that the state was suppressing scientific debate, failing to teach students “to think independently,” and making a “capitulation to dogma.” The McLeroy-esque implications were clear. Scientific facts, like political opinions, should be open to discussion, debate, and personal choice.
Colbert Video HERE

continue to source article at thedailybeast.com

What does a sleeping rock dream of?

Hot lava on lava action. LOL

The video is great to watch it gives you a good idea of what type of mentality is trying to take over the school system however this article is the main course. It is a detailed description of those steering the creationism push in society today. They're trying to make the scientific process into a political event. Those who are being hurt most by this are the students who may have to use substandard textbooks.

That's a messed up system we have a dentist voting on what can be allowed in a science book. I love what Colbert did there telling him he doesn't think cavities are real the science is still out on that. I hope you take the time to watch the video clip. It really gives you an idea what we're dealing with.

Waaa...

Can't watch it over here in Aussie-land.

Mayhaps I might find it on youtube...

reply to post by Grimpachi


I do not get, how such people can reach the boards supervising education system...

For critizising something, one should at first understand it, know what he is critisizing, it seems that guy does not make difference between theory and scientific theory as well as has no clue of what scientific method is...

The good thing is, regardless of what gets taught in Highschools, Highschool education is no longer worth anything in and of and by itself as far as entering into any career path that will amount to anything.

Anything substandard that gets picked up from a politicised educational requirement in public schools will get corrected at the University level.

pretty old vid.

by ats standards.

not much meat on the bones of the op.

they seem to have had a good time.

Good find! I highly recommend watching the interview, as not only does it demonstrate the flawed logic of this man's position, but also the quick wit of Stephen Colbert. The State of Texas seems to have an ungodly amount of control over what gets included in textbooks across the USA.


xox

I am convinced that both sides are wrong about a lot of it.
So it's even Steven to me.

However, what I find most fascinating is that as a result of social dynamics and ignorance, it appears that "Science vs Religion" has become nothing more than children fighting in the school yard.

Personal attacks, insults, extremist tactics, prejudice, etc are the prime characteristics of these types of conflicts between two sides whom are too zealous to consider for a moment the truth may lay somewhere in between the two extremes.