A Biologist in Wonderland: The Texas Biology Textbook Adoption Hearings

Abstract

During 1984 presidential campaign, a colleague at a prestigious eastern university told me that Ronald Reagan had virtually no chance of reelection because the whole country sees through his shallow, media-controlled approach to government. My response, after a brief moment of speechlessness, was, You've to get out more; you've been talking primarily to your academic colleagues and to other people who think way you do. My job takes me regularly to cities and towns across America, and in 13 years of such travel Ihave learned not to assume that perspective shared by biology educators is necessarily prevailing viewpoint for rest of country. That lesson was brought home to me once again when I attended biology textbook adoption hearings in Austin, Texas, in July 1990. The Texas biology adoption process is important-and bizarre. It is important because Texas, as one of most populous of 22 adoption states, has an inordinate impact on textbook market; publishers pay attention to what happens there and often structure their books to ensure adoption. Because it is not financially feasible to develop alternate textbooks for less lucrative markets, rest of states in effect have their curriculum influenced by decisions in Texas (Moyer 1985). The process also is bizarre, however, because Texas has more than its share of creationists, some of whom, such as Mel and Norma Gabler, have been calling cadence on a march toward ignorance for three decades. Creationist opposition to evolution content in biology textbooks is well organized, and creationists' zeal and antediluvian pronouncements at adoption hearings bring out media in force. Only Texas residents and publishers' representatives are permitted to testify at hearings; I testified in my capacity as director of Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. Two of our books, Blue Version (D.C. Heath) and Green Version (Kendall/Hunt), were among nine books competing for eight possible places on adoption list. All nine books were subject to creationist attacks because books fail to present alternative explanations for life on Earth. The creationists, of course, think that creation science-a wonderful oxymoron-is an acceptable scientific alternative. Their testimony is a monument to scientific illiteracy and reminds us once again that our perspective as science educators is not as universal as we might wish. I provide below a few excerpts from testimony of some 20 creationists; about 35 Texas residents testified in total. The verbal testimony came too fast to ensure verbatim accuracy of statements, but I assure you that speakers' essential points are preserved.