You win some, you lose some. That’s the message that the scientific community got from the Texas State Board of Education last week, as it voted on new state standards for science education. When it comes to the big picture, there was good news, as the problematic “strengths and weaknesses” language was deleted, and an effort to challenge common descent was turned back. But things were not so rosy in the fine print, where amendments to the standards raised questions about the age of the universe and adopted language favored by the intelligent design movement.

As we mentioned last week, things were bound to be complicated. The existing standards had indicated that teachers instruct students on the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, even if the strengths significantly outweigh the weaknesses, or when the weaknesses required an understanding of the topic that is far too sophisticated for public school students. As such, replacement standards proposed by a committee of scientists and educators dropped this language. Those replacements, however, had to get past a state board chaired by someone who, based on his belief that the universe is less than 10,000 years old, thinks most of modern science suffers from serious weaknesses.

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