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Sen. Campbell pushes Creationism during SBOE confirmation hearing

February 13, 2013
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The Texas State Board of Education still trying to distance itself from its recent tumultuous past. In 2010, as the board revised curriculum standards for the state’s science and history textbooks, a super-conservative wing led by Don McLeroy made the SBOE the butt of jokes across the country, injecting charged conservative language into the state’s history standards and attempting to derail the teaching of evolution in the classroom. Watch documentary filmmaker Scott Thurman’s The Revisionaries for a superb telling of the culture war that played out at the SBOE.

This week SBOE chair Barbara Cargill, in her nomination hearing before a Senate committee, promised lawmakers to keep the board from becoming the “circus” it has been in the past. Sen. Kirk Watson, an Austin Democrat, closely questioned Cargill about her somewhat contentious history. In 2011, Cargill told a conservative crowd they could only count on the “true conservative Christians” on the SBOE, like her. Just earlier this month she told another Senate committee that textbook publishers need to “soften” their language on evolution.

Still, Watson came away satisfied Cargill could stick to good science and lead the SBOE away from its crazy yesteryears. *Then freshman Sen. Donna Campbell, a San Antonio Tea Party Republican, chimed in.

“I’m drinking from the fire hydrant here. Do we – are we saying, with this conversation here … that there is opposition because we do not have the scientific facts to teach creation? That God did create world and man? Are we trying to eliminate that, or are we just trying to say we want to include evolution? Where are we there?”

Awkward pause. Perhaps Campbell was unaware that Texas students don’t, as it stands, learn creationism in class, or that the federal courts ruled long ago that public schools couldn’t teach creationism, Intelligent Design, or “Intellectual Design,” as Campbell called it minutes later. Cargill gingerly tried to walk Campbell back to reality, repeating her support for teaching the evidence of evolution in the classroom. “In biology class and in science class, I want to stick just to the science, like I did when I was teaching,” Cargill said. “The other (creationism) needs to be taught at church or in the home.”

But Campbell kept on going. Below are the rest of her comments/questions to Cargill, verbatim:

“But we don’t want to eliminate those things that you still do have to go on faith that are out there. I mean, you know science is – there are some things that, you know, I would venture to, we’re not gonna know until we go on to eternity. Obviously I’m a Christian. I do believe in God as the creator of life. I’m just trying to see, and I don’t know if it’s your purview or if I need to check with the TEA (Texas Education Agency) where that falls in line to make sure we’re not just teaching that evolution is our only – because we can measure. I mean to me, obviously if I was creating anything and had a good model like DNA, I’d use it. And just tweak it a bit, and have a monkey here and a fish here or whatever. And so, I’m not sure you’re even the right place for me to go and double check that.”

Then Sen. Watson spoke up, slowly explaining to Campbell, “They’re the ones that are in a position to establish what’s in the textbook. She, as chair, is in an enormously powerful position to push publishers of textbooks and instructional materials. And there has been significant debate on this board, including, I would point out, prior chairs who took very strong positions about putting their concept of faith and point of view in place of science in some instances.” – Michael Barajas

*Update 2/15: Patrick Michels  at the Texas Observer was the first to catch Campbell’s brain-wrinkling comments the day of the Senate hearing. Check out his coverage here.

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  • Don Elder

    Incredible! Can’t answer the “Question of Life”, so instead lets use something else. Now we are going to teach this to our children, but we don’t want them growing up stupid and ignorant! Right!! That is our “Board of Education”!! I am Soooooo Proud of them!!! Great Leaders of stupidity and ignorance!!

  • Tex

    I feel your pain brother. It’s sad what they are doing to the minds of the young.

  • TEX

    Will mankind ever crawl out from under the ignorance shrouded in religious faith?
    A
    mindset that bridges reason, logic, and critical thinking to one of
    irrational, illogical , emotional appeasing deluded fantasy. Allowing a
    mind to believe ANYTHING to appease those emotions, shackled in fear and
    ignorance. Will people stop at nothing to allow themselves to feel warm
    and fuzzy?

    Science is striving to determine what is true, what
    are the facts, always looking for answers, but just because ALL the
    answers aren’t there yet is NO reason to assume by any rational stretch
    of the imagination that a “god” had something to do with it, because
    then you have the problem of where did your god come from? How is it
    that an all powerful, all
    knowing entity has just “always existed”,
    how convenient an answer, an answer from an ignorant mind that prefers
    not to ask questions, like those of the desert dwelling, goat herders
    living in tents thousands of years ago. I should hope we are smarter
    than them by now but apparently that’s not the case with the majority.

    Anyone not shackled to their emotional indoctrination, that prefers to
    use reason, logic and critical thinking can simply see that gods are
    nothing more than the creations of ancient man. How do you explain all
    the THOUSANDS of gods that have been worshiped, that people have given
    their lives for and been sacrificed to, by all the different cultures,
    over the centuries, how many do you accept, where have they all gone?
    what good are they now? One only need open there eyes to reality to
    see what a con job of the mind religions are.

    Which seems more plausible to you?

    A: An all powerful, all knowing magic man has always
    existed, never needing a creator and spoke “everything” into creation.
    Everything you see was created by magic.

    Or

    B: Some event happen that the cause of is still being explored (possibly the big bang) approximately 13.7 billion years ago.
    Approximately 4.5 billion years ago the planet earth was
    formed and it has taken the last 3.5 – 3.9 Billion years, for us to have
    evolved to where we are today. Keep in mind that time span is almost
    incomprehensible given our lives are so short.

    Only the gullible, fearful and ignorant have a need for gods.

    Even
    a six year old reading the book of Genesis one day questioned how
    stupid god must have been to put the tree of knowledge and an evil
    talking snake in the very same garden with his children that knew
    nothing of right or wrong, the young man has turned out to be rather
    intelligent, for it was long after that he questioned why god didn’t
    simply “forgive”
    his creation since they knew no better, rather than
    cursing all of mankind to be born into sin for all time..well that’s god
    for you right, who are you to question his monstrous evil acts?

    Let’s
    forget the fact that god is suppose to be all powerful and all knowing,
    and would have know the outcome but yet he continued with a plan that
    would unfold in unimaginable suffering. And if that wasn’t bad enough,
    he destroys just about every living thing on the earth in a flood, and
    yes that was a fail also. This guy must just love to see his creations
    suffer. We won’t get into torturing his son on the cross…

    If
    you start teaching creationism, why not teach witchcraft and astrology
    and really educated the kids? For if gods exist, ANYTHING is possible in
    the realm of the supernatural.

    Its truly frightening that such deluded minds actual govern this great nation.

  • Don Sutton

    When will mankind ever crawl out from under the rock of ignorance shrouded in atheist hatred for religion or even the scientific pursuit of truth when it does not point them toward them in the direction they want to go. At this point scientific community (such as it is) cannot agree on one unified ‘theory’ for the existence of the universe as we know it. It is pure foolishness to teach ‘theory’ as fact, especially when ten years from now another truth will be taught in place of the one being pushed today. We are far, far away from understanding alot of this. How arrogant of us to think that we can know all their is to know about how the universe came about with our rudimentary scientific instrumentality that is merely an extention of our fives senses (which may or may not give us an accurate reading of reality), and nothing else. This would be almost laughable if it were not so sad. Talk about ignorance and arrogance. I received a liberal arts education. We were taught to look at all the existing idea’s, theories, and concepts available concerning a subject. Not just the latest, greatest, or even the most celebrated ‘theory’ of the time. Cosmologist in particular have many different theories about the existence of the Universe and reality. We were taught to use our minds and come to our own conclusions. Oh and by the by…intelligent design is not about religion. More pure ignorance from the leftist atheist posting here. Many scientist, and there are hundreds if not thousands, who have embraced ID and many are not Bible believers or Christians. Some are Nobel Prize winners! (gasp). Which rock did they crawl out from under? What is it that Richard Dawkins recently wrote…”the appearance of design may be all around you, but the scientist must ignore this, because there is no designer”. In other worsd, let your bias one way or another, not the evidence, how to interpret the evidence. Let the tail wag the dog, so to say. Now, that IS ignorance. Let’s teach our students the different views that are out there on a given a subject, and let them decide for themselves. It is called ‘critical thinking’, instead of having someone else think for them.

  • http://www.dregstudios.com Brandt Hardin

    Here in TN, they have taken steps though new legislation to allow creationism back into the classroom. This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.

  • GeorgeLC

    KIt must be clear what the mission of Science is. It examines physical realities, investigates them, measures them, develops carefully tested instruments and methods for dealing with them and determining data about them. Thus, in Science, carefully investigated, examined, and tested facts can lead to Solid Theories that are not merely vague ideas thrown out of a wildly speculating mind. The Bible itself has to be examined in its litterary characteristics in historical and culturally relative aspects. The two –I repeat two different stories of creation narrated in Genesis or Be-reshith, as the Jews call it, have different characteristics, and their purpose in Not scientific but to explain that all that exists comes forth from the will of the one and only God that the Jews believed in as against the many myths of pagan neighbors. The story of the garden of Eden has litterary figures such as a Tree of Life, a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and a talking snake. The story has spiritual teaching points and not scientific points, just as Jesus used stories called parables to make people reflect on certain truths. Many Christians get stuck on the litterary details instead of the spiritual teachings of the stories. Jesus also said, “The word kills, but the spirit gives life”, because the idea was not to lose oneself on the details but to reflect on the spiritual truths underneath. It’s time for more Christians to wake up and learn to look for the substance of the teachings.