In the introduction, the authors say, "in 2009 the Texas state education board voted to allow IDT to be taught alongside ET in science classes."

This is not true.

The current K-12 education standards do <b>not</b> allow the teaching of intelligent design. The standards (http://ritter.tea.state.t...) clearly mandate the teaching of evolution: "The student knows evolutionary theory is a scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life."

There is no equivalent statement for intelligent design. Intelligent design is not mentioned in the Texas K-12 science standards at all.

It <b>is</b> true that the wording of some of the standards are weaker than they could be. There are aspects of the wording that is highly influenced by intelligent design. Even these, however, are incredibly weak statements. For example, one standard requires students “analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record”. Someone favouring intelligent design would see these as problems for evolutionary theory, but that the standard only permits <b>scientific</b> explanations should only allow discussions of evolutionary theory, not intelligent design.

Similarly, another standard requiring students “analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell” is clearly influenced by the concept of "irreducible complexity” in intelligent design. Again, however, anyone who was not familiar with the intelligent design literature would probably see this as an innocuous statement, particularly given that it is again prefaced by the requirement that the students learn <b>scientific</b> explanations.