About Texas Citizens for Science
Texas Citizens for Science (TCS) is a statewide, grassroots
organization dedicated to preserving the accuracy and reliability of
science instruction in Texas public schools, colleges, and universities.
Our members include both working scientists and citizens interested in
defending the quality, professionalism, and integrity of science
education in Texas institutions, including government agencies as well
as the state's public education system. TCS opposes the organized forces
of unreason and religious fundamentalism in our state that wish to
degrade the quality of science education in our schools and ignore the
use of accurate science in state agencies.
Membership in TCS is free. Joining TCS means subscribing to the TCS
announcement email list, TexNews, a Yahoo Group. Members are sometimes
requested to write letters or testify in public hearings. Occasionally,
members are asked to donate money to help defray the expenses of TCS
officers who travel to Austin to visit with state officials to advocate
or lobby for good rules and decisions. Donations are requested once
every three or four years when science standards or textbooks are up for
adoption.
TCS activities include the following goals:
- Ensure that the scientific integrity of science textbooks used in
Texas schools and the Texas science standards and curriculum are not
compromised by keeping them free of political, ideological, and
religious influence.
- Preserve the statutes and rules that prevent the State Board of
Education from censoring science textbooks--as it has in past decades,
by forcing publishers to make changes in their science textbooks that
modify or remove scientifically-accurate information in order to make
the content palatable with State Board members' ideological biases and
prejudices--by allowing only changes that ensure that science
textbooks are "free from factual errors."
- Work to prevent some SBOE members from using even this small power
to compel publishers to modify science textbooks in the guise of
"editing" scientifically-valid content to make them "free of factual
errors" that are not in reality factual scientific errors, but are in
the minds of ideologically-motivated State Board members who have
taken power to self-define what are or are not "factual errors."
- Participate in SBOE textbook hearings to ensure that creationists
don't succeed in removing scientifically-accurate information or
including scientifically-false topics in science textbooks by claiming
that the changes would better enable students to "analyze, review, and
critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories,
as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and
information" as required by state science standards.
- Attempt to change the notorious Rule 3A, that requires that
science textbooks and instruction "analyze, review, and critique
scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to
their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and
information." The "weaknesses" language is unscientific and was added
by Creationists on the State Board of Education in the 1980s.
- Keep pseudoscientific concepts such as Young Earth Creationism and
Intelligent Design Creationism out of the Texas Essential Knowledge
and Skills (TEKS--the Texas school science standards), and out of
science textbooks used in our state's public schools.
- Prevent misguided state public education officials, under the
influence of national Creationist organizations such as the Discovery
Institute and Institute for Creation Research, from adding
unscientific content to science standards, science textbooks, and
rules governing degree standards that damage, degrade, and corrupt
accurate and reliable science education in Texas.
- Ensure that Texas government agencies, committees, and
institutions always use accurate science and scientific reasoning in
their deliberations to reach conclusions that affect the lives and
welfare of Texas citizens.
Texas Citizens for Science Announcement Email List
Texas Citizens for Science maintains an email list on Yahoo Groups named
TexNews to keep members informed about science education issues in
Texas. This is not a discussion list, but a one-way announcement and
information list. There are two ways you can subscribe to TexNews: You
can send an email message to
texnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You will then receive a message
to confirm your subscription. This second step is necessary to prevent
others from signing you up to lists without your knowledge. Or, you can
visit the webpage at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/texnews/ and click the button "Join
This Group!" Either way will work, but if you choose the latter, you
will have to obtain a Yahoo account and Yahoo ID.
Last updated: 2010 January 6
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