Science Textbooks, Now With Less Of That Science Stuff

The Lone Star State needs not your "science" in science textbooks for school, nay, for it is mighty Texas!  Look upon its works and despair!  Especially, if, you know, you like science.  Check it out as the fundies on Texas's state school board of education wants the following "disclaimers" on all that pesky science crap:

– called for the inclusion of “‘creation science’ based on Biblical principles”

– asserted that “no transitional fossils have been discovered”

– insisted that there is no evidence for a human influence on the carbon cycle

– claimed that there is no evidence about the effect of climate change on species diversity

– promoted a book touting “intelligent design” creationism as a reliable source of scientific information

– denied that recombination and genetic drift are evolutionary mechanisms

– mischaracterized experiments on the peppered moth as “discredited” and as “fabrication[s]“

Depressing.  But not as depressing as this:

In terms of textbook standards, as Texas goes, so goes the nation. The state “is one of the nation’s biggest buyers of textbooks” and publishers are often “reluctant to produce different versions of the same material,” and therefore create books in line with Texas’ standards.

You know, Texas education standards like this:

For years, members of the Texas Board of Education have tried, with various degrees of success, to overhaul the state’s textbook standards, “pushing for inclusion of more…Confederate glorification,” re-naming the Atlantic slave trade the “Atlantic Triangle Trade,” and prioritizing “a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.” A recent review of the books has also found a consistent pattern of negative portrayals of Muslims and Islam.

The victors get to write the history books, as they say.  Literally.