Georgia school boss Kathy Cox has backed off her announced plan to remove the word "evolution" from the state academic standards. Paul Myers speculates that the whole thing could very well have just been a cover-up for the fact that the new proposed standards water down the teaching of evolution enormously, regardless of whether the word is used. I agree with him. It's about the only explanation that makes any sense out of the whole sordid bunch of nonsense.
Think about it. She announces at a press conference that she's going to remove the word "evolution" from the school standards because it's a controversial "buzzword" that attracts too much attention in "socially conservative areas", but don't worry because the substance is all still there. As it turned out, however, hardly a word of that is true. Cox herself IS one of those "social conservatives" who wants to weaken the teaching of evolution and her standards DID water down that teaching, as Reed Cartwright's analysis of the new standards makes clear. The proposed Georgia standards purport to be based upon the American Association for the Advancement of Science model standards for science education, but they have removed several components of them. And Kathy Cox has previously said that the new standards would allow the teaching of "intelligent design" alongside evolution, which if true would not be changed simply by dropping the petty argument over whether to use the word "evolution" or not.
And then there is the obvious lie that she was doing this to "avoid controversy". A word of advice, Kathy...you don't "avoid controversy" by calling a press conference to announce that you want to avoid controversy. So there are really two choices. Either Kathy Cox is astonishingly stupid, or this was all a ruse. Make a big controversial statement on a surface issue, then back off of it, and maybe no one will look behind the curtain and see what the actual standards are.
Most of the media in Georgia will probably be fooled, but not the folks who are working to insure that science education in Georgia doesn't get diminished. I got to meet a couple of the board members of Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education at a conference at Berkeley last May, and I've been priveleged to work with Genie Scott and the good people from the National Center for Science Education for years. They aren't going to be fooled by this cheap little diversion and they will continue to push for the highest standards of quality science education, in Georgia and around the country.