Texas science battle fought to a draw

Well, it's over. I managed to listen to yesterday's entire meeting of the Texas State Board of Education without throwing anything at my computer, which was definitely a personal victory. I commented over on the TFN blog that there is no way I would have been able to keep quiet if I had gone down there, so it was a good thing I decided to stay in my office and listen to the live stream.

The next big fight will be when we adopt new textbooks in 2011. There is also a chance that the Texas Legislature will move to rein in the BOE. Although if we move from an elected board back to an appointed one, there are potential problems there too (depending on who gets to do the appointing, of course).

Since a lot of other people have already chimed in with news, round-ups and some early analysis, I'm just going to link to some of them.

* Science Takes Hit in Texas - Press release from the Texas Freedom Network

* TFN also points out that It Wasn't All About Evolution

* Phil's round-up from Bad Astronomy - Texas wrapup: Yup. Doomed.

* The Texas BOE roundup from PZ Myers points to a commentary at Science Insider: Creationists Notch Win in Texas Showdown

* Here's some good commentary, all the way from Denmark: Discovery Institute opens mouth, lies

* Josh Rosenau from Thoughts From Kansas writes a good summary and analysis. I had similar thoughts about compromise in politics being a good thing... but compromise in science education is not.

* And finally, an article from Salon - Texas on evolution: Needs further study

One more thing - big thanks go out to all of the scientists who came from outside the state to testify before the board, as well as the people from in the state who came to support proper science education. Lawrence Krauss spoke before coming to give this past week's physics colloquium (which I attended and will probably write up next week). And of course Eugenie Scott and the aforementioned Josh Rosenau came from the National Center for Science Education to try to give our Texas students the best shot at good science in their classrooms. We really appreciate your efforts.

Part of my job is doing astronomy education and outreach with school kids, and I can guarantee that I will be doing my best to get the right information out to them!