Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on February 24, 2010 at 6:53pm

it seems that Texas is full of crazy people

With tiny penises.

Permalink Reply by Justin Bonaparte on February 24, 2010 at 9:08pm

Massive facepalm.

Permalink Reply by Hugh Kramer on February 25, 2010 at 2:07pm

Maybe we should let Texas secede from the Union as Governor Rick Perry has suggested.
;)

Permalink Reply by Aiden on February 25, 2010 at 2:08pm

Only a third..? Isn't that an improvement on previous years? I thought it used to be half.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on February 25, 2010 at 7:59pm

...but I'm not talking about one person. I'm talking about 33%. I'm sure you'd agree that "33% of people in Texas believe" would be accurate.

But it is a fine point of grammar, and does it really matter? Nah. =P

Permalink Reply by Catdoc on February 25, 2010 at 9:23pm

Ah, I shouldn't be surprised. But I can't help wailing in anguish over the ignorance of my fellow Americans. Oh, wait, we're talking about Texans right? No offence to Texans on Atheist Nexus, though. I am sure that the same poll in my home county of Haywood, NC would find similar if not worse results. God, what rubbish.

Permalink Reply by Ariel on February 26, 2010 at 11:14am

What makes this actually scary is the control that Texas has over public school textbooks nationwide.
NY Times: Public education has always been a battleground between cultural forces; one reason that Texas’ school-board members find themselves at the very center of the battlefield is, not surprisingly, money. The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State.

And since most textbook publishers make only one edition for the entire country, we all learned what Texas wanted us to learn (except California, which often gets its own special textbooks).