The Sayings of Chairman Don

When Vice Chair Lawrence Allen (D-Houston) moved to strike McElroy's amendments to Biology from January, McElroy handed off the gavel to Secretary Terri Leo (R-The Faction, Spring), so they'd be on equal footing as mere Board Members. I got down as much of McElroy's impassioned speech as I could, for it was quite a ride...

"This standard [“analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record”] represents questions that our students can handle. The data in the fossil record is clear and unambiguous. It is the strongest evidence that evolution has occurred. Rocks that are older contain simpler fossils, but newer rocks contain more complex fossils. Those evolution defenders assume that this means they evolved. But there are two other patterns in the fossil record do not support evolution—sudden appearance of groups (Cambrian explosion, it’s verifiable and it’s data). The idea of gradual change is not supported by the fossil record—it’s an insufficiency. We have to be honest with the students. Second, when groups appear, they stay the same. This is what paleontologists say, not me. Stephen Jay Gould—said “stasis is data.” Say it ten times before breakfast every day for a week. Darwin says this is the greatest objection to his theory. These experts are wonderful, but somebody must stand up to these brilliant, wonderful people. The opposition is very nice, but I think they're wrong. It takes students looking at a chart, not complicated mathematics. My two amendments argue scientifically about the core of evolution. Even 150 years after the origin of species, the fossil record still has problems. Yes it supports evolution, but it also doesn’t support evolution."

"Who am I, a dentist, to question the authority of all the giant consensus of the scientific community? Back in 2003, I prepared a 16-page document with my objections. I read the books. The way you win an argument is an appeal to authority; that is the strongest evidence. Some of my board members are doing the vote against this on the authority of their experts. But science does NOT operate only by consensus." Reads from Stephen Jay Gould’s “Wonderful Life” on Burgess Shale fossils. “The bandwagon can sometimes be wrong.” Niles Eldridge, and other evolutionary biologists. Quotes Gould again: “Experts are always trying to shoe-horn evidence into pre-existing ideas.”

"Evolution is NOT central to biology—you can study plants without it. The ideology of evolution will have an impact on how you live your life. I'd rather that genetics were the core of biology (founded by a Christian monk analyzing data) rather than evolution (which was developed by a guy undergoing philosophical speculation)."