New Year, Same Old Battles

The Texas State Board of Education did a preliminary vote today rejecting the retention of the "strength and weaknesses" language regarding the teaching of evolution that creationists like so much. But the whole matter is quite confusing to me. First, I'm not sure what this preliminary vote really does. According to the Statesman.com story about it out of Austin, there is another vote to be taken on it tomorrow and a "final" vote in March. Today's vote (Thursday) was by the full board committee and tomorrow's vote (Friday's) will be by the board itself, as will the one in March. So changes could still be made. Though the headlines in most articles (like this one from the Houston Chronicle) made it sound like a victory for science, the Statesman.com article notes that after the vote to not use the "strength and weaknesses" language

... the board later approved, 9-6, a motion by board Chairman Don McLeroy, R-College Station, to require students to evaluate the "sufficiency or insufficiency" of scientific theories about common ancestry of different species. The prevalent scientific theory explaining the diversity of species is evolution; creationism is the belief that the universe was created by a higher power.

This language - sufficiency or insufficiency of scientific theories specifically about common ancestry of different species, sounds as bad, or even worse, than the strengths and weaknesses nonsense. So at this point it seems absolutely unclear to me who is winning what and what the final standards will look like. I will be sure to take a look at what happens at tomorrow's vote and if more sense can be made out of it.