Education board leader set to challenge evolution
Education board leader set to challenge evolution
McLeroy is point man in fight over Texas' science curriculum.
By Laura Heinauer - AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF - 3/8/2009 - Original
COLLEGE STATION — Some go to church to find answers. Bryan dentist Don McLeroy, chairman of the State Board of Education and point man in the fight over Texas' science curriculum, goes to teach.
"Oh, this is cool," he says, launching into a Sunday school lesson that ranges from the importance of sharing the gospel to the existence of God.
"Everything that had a beginning we can say had a cause," he tells his class of fourth-graders at Grace Bible Church. "And now science definitely says that the universe had a beginning. Therefore, the universe had to have a cause. And that cause is God."
But this is church, not science class. And McLeroy, an avowed creationist who is convinced that evolution taught uncritically undermines faith, knows that it will take a different kind of argument to win the debate about what should be taught in science classes in Texas public schools.
The current curriculum requires students to study the "stengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories in general. In January, a majority of the state board voted to move away from that language. McLeroy is among board members who want the standards to require a more critical approach to the teaching of evolution. It's a theory that McLeroy, 62, believes lacks the empirical data required to be taught without discussion of its particular insufficiencies.
Evolutionary biologists study fossils to trace the origins of species. In addition to asking teachers to engage Texas students in a discussion of how gaps in the fossil record might undermine the notion of common ancestry, McLeroy says he will ask board members to adopt a curriculum standard that would ask students to explain how the complexity of cells does or does not support the idea of natural selection, an explanation of how organisms evolve.
Whatever the board decides will have a large impact across the country given Texas' ability, because of its size, to influence what is printed in textbooks. The board is expected to make a final decision on the science curriculum March 27.
McLeroy's critics, who include many Texas scientists, accuse him of trying to undermine a multitude of scientific evidence that supports evolution and replace it with a discussion of the supernatural in public schools.
University of Texas professor David Hillis helped form a group called the 21st Century Science Coalition to combat the effort to include the weaknesses of evolution in the public school curriculum.
"If Chairman McLeroy is successful in adding his amendments, it will be a huge embarrassment to Texas, a setback for science education and a terrible precedent for the state boards overriding academic experts in order to further their personal religious or political agendas. The victims will be the schoolchildren of Texas, who represent the future of our state."
More than 600 Texas science faculty members have signed a petition supporting the group'seffort.
McLeroy — an avid reader of philosophers and theologians, including Christian theologian Norman Geisler and Dutch reformist Abraham Kuyper — said that in his Sunday school lessons, he seeks to give his students the tools they need to form their own arguments. In Texas public school classrooms, McLeroy says, he doesn't want religion taught. He just wants to let science be science. "If you want to tell (students) there are not weaknesses to evolution and it's as sure as the Earth going around the sun, it's not," he said. "You've got to be honest. You ask why I'm so passionate about this? I don't want America to lose its scientific soul. I feel I am the defender of science."
The role, as ironic as it may seem to some, is one that McLeroy takes seriously.
Growing up, McLeroy and his family — which included his mother, engineer father and twin brother — attended a Methodist church in Dallas every Sunday, but he wasn't overly involved.
McLeroy said that it wasn't until he met his future wife, Nan, that he decided to rethink his faith. She said she would date him only if he were a Christian.
At the time, McLeroy was a 29-year-old dental student in Houston. His response was to first write up a list of reasons that he could not accept Christ. Some things he read in the Bible didn't make sense with what he was learning in dental school, he said. And he wondered why God would allow innocent people to die.
One by one, he said, his questions were answered by pastors and in Bible studies. The conversion took four months. Over the next year, he began taking seminars on creationism and biblical principles. He is now a young earth creationist, meaning that he believes God created Earth between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The tenet in Christianity that says people were created in the image of God became one of the principles that McLeroy held most dear, he said.
"When I became a Christian, it was whole-hearted," he said. "I was totally convinced the biblical principles were right, and I was totally convinced that it could be accurate scientifically."
McLeroy married Nan in 1976. They have two grown sons who attended public schools in Bryan. He said the arrival of his first son got him thinking politically.
Don't all children, being that they are created in the image of God, deserve a first-rate education, McLeroy asked. The question propelled him to run first for the local school board and later for the State Board of Education. (McLeroy said he first ran for the state board with the help of San Antonio businessman James Leininger, who supports vouchers that allow students to use public money to go to private schools, but has not depended on major donors since then.)
That same idea — that children are created in the image of God — has caused him to seek out weaknesses in evolution. Theologically, McLeroy sees a lack of consistency in the ideas of people like Kenneth Miller, a Catholic author and biology professor at Brown University who says evolution is not inherently atheistic.
"We live in a universe bursting with creative possibilities for life," Miller said, explaining his theory. "A fair question is why is that so. And one perfectly reasonable answer is that the universe itself is the product of the work of a creator who wished it to be so."
Sid Hall, pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Austin, which recently celebrated the 200th anniversary of naturalist Charles Darwin's birth with an "evolution Sunday" event, said he finds this kind of mixing of science and religion disturbing. Hall said that it is disingenuous to attack the fossil record and ignore carbon dating and dangerous to adhere to only the most literal interpretations of the Bible.
"I would never want to discount those works, but to take (the passage that humans were made in the image of God) to mean something about how the universe is created is a stretch to me," Hall said. "That's code to me for 'I'm going to take my particular myth of creationism and make it part of the science curriculum.' That's scary to me."
While recovering from prostate cancer last year, McLeroy said, he studied what Miller and others have written on the topic. His research led him to what he believes are scientific weaknesses that he wants to see included in the state's curriculum standards.
"If you want children to become good scientists, to become excited about that, you've got to be honest with them. And to be honest with them, you've got to show them the data," he said.
McLeroy, who was elected with about 59 percent of the vote in 2006, said he has numerous letters from constituents encouraging his efforts.
These days, he carries with him the books he has read on the topic, many of which are well-marked in the margins, and a large binder that is adorned on the front with a picture of Albert Einstein.
The binder contains hundreds of articles attacking McLeroy that are organized by tabbed topics such as "name-calling," "logical fallacies," "non-sequiturs" and "red herrings."
It also holds numerous passages from books — such as Miller's and others on evolutionary theory — and articles that he plans to use as ammunition in the fight this month over what should be in the state's science standards.
One page in particular, titled "The Empirical Demonstration of Science," represents his arguments with two illustrations. One is of a cell, and one is of Miller's depiction of the fossil record.
McLeroy wrote in pencil: "What do we see?" "Sudden appearance" of species. "Amazing Complexity."
Asked about what the diagram of the fossil record was meant to express, Miller said, "That diagram shows evolution. If he thinks it says evolution does not occur, he is dead wrong. It's really quite the opposite."
Cindy McMichen has worked toe-to-toe with McLeroy for the past 20 years. McMichen, his chair-side assistant at his dental practice, said McLeroy likes to bounce ideas off his patients, so she has heard many of the arguments on education over the years. His organization of the information that he has prepared for the fight over evolution mirrors the way he runs the office, she said.
"We have everything ready to go and do everything systematically and quickly," McMichen said. "I've never been around anyone that researches things the way he does. And he loves to hear other people's opinions.
Daniel Romo, a Texas A&M University chemistry professor whose children have attended McLeroy's Sunday school class, said McLeroy is not only a great listener, but also a great educator. "He really gets students to start asking questions," Romo said. "And to me, that's one of our greatest challenges: getting people to ask questions and not just taking things at face value."
State board member David Bradley said McLeroy "loves everybody, even his political enemies."
"There are certainly people who disagree with him, but he's well-respected," said Bradley, R-Beaumont.
In January, the board voted 8-7 to reject a requirement that students be taught the weaknesses of evolution. However, McLeroy was able to get some amendments passed.
"He waited until all 14 members spoke and then handed the gavel off ... and said, 'Look, I've got an opinion.' He was really careful to try and shepherd the process without bias, and I think that's a real strength," said Bradley, who voted with McLeroy.
McLeroy's amendments included adding a requirement that students analyze and evaluate the insufficiencies of the theory of common ancestry to explain gaps in the fossil record.
He has succeeded in rewriting the state's definition of science as it pertains to teaching to require "testable explanations" of nature. McLeroy said the change should allow the questioning of all scientific explanations and opens the door to the possibility that the universe was created by God. But he wants more.
McLeroy says he intends to pitch another idea that he says should be taught in public schools: the insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of cells.
Hillis said the language that McLeroy has proposed to add to the standards does not make sense.
"The language of science needs to be precise; McLeroy's amendments are not even intelligible. I wonder if perhaps he wants the standards to be confusing so that he can open the door to attacking mainstream biology textbooks and arguing for the addition of creationist and other religious literature into the science classroom," Hillis said.
Miller said, "The attitude (that evolution has weaknesses) does Texas a disservice on two levels. The first thing is it implies a false sense of uncertainty on evolution ... and the reality is exactly the opposite. Evolution is very solid and increasingly accepted.
"The second point is even more dangerous," Miller said. "It implies a false sense of certainty about everything else in biology. ... I think it presents a really distorted view of the biological sciences to tell students that 'we're pretty sure of everything else in biology, but evolutionary theory, kids, is a little shaky.' "
McLeroy said he is ready to debate those points.
"What I see is they're rejecting the data for ideological reasons; they're the ideologues in this debate, not us," he said.
lheinauer@statesman.com; 445-3694