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This is how it begins: Proponents of a fringe or non-mainstream scientific viewpoint seek added credibility. They're sick of being taunted for having few (if any) peer reviewed publications in their favor. Fed up, they decide to do something about it.

These “skeptics” find what they consider to be a weak point in the mainstream theory and critique it. Not by conducting original research; they simply review previous work. Then they find a little-known, not particularly influential journal where an editor sympathetic to their viewpoint hangs his hat.

They get their paper through the peer review process and into print. They publicize the hell out of it. Activists get excited by the study, which has considerable political implications.

Before long, mainstream scientists catch on to what’s happening. They shake their heads. Some slam the article and the journal that published it, questioning the review process and the editor’s ideological leanings. In published critiques, they tear the paper to scientific shreds.

Embarrassed, the journal’s publisher backs away from the work. But it’s too late for that. The press has gotten involved, and though the work in question has been discredited in the world of science, partisans who favor its conclusions for ideological reasons will champion it for years to come.

The scientific waters are muddied. The damage is done.

Take the climate science storyline first. The most definitive account of what happened appeared in a Chronicle of Higher Education article by Richard Monastersky; the New York Times and Wall Street Journal also covered the story.

In early 2003, the small journal Climate Research published a paper by climate change “skeptics” Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which challenged the established view that the late twentieth century saw anomalously high temperatures. The paper didn’t present original research; instead, it was a literature review. Soon and Baliunas examined a wide range of “proxy records” for past temperatures, based on studies of ice cores, corals, tree rings, and other sources. They concluded that few of the records showed anything particularly unusual about twentieth century temperatures, especially when compared with the so-called “Medieval Warm Period” a thousand years ago.

Soon and Baliunas had specifically sent their paper to one Chris de Freitas at Climate Research, an editor known for opposing curbs on carbon dioxide emissions. He in turn sent the paper out for review and then accepted it for publication. That’s when the controversy began.

Conservative politicians in the U.S., who oppose forced restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, lionized the study. Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe called it literally paradigm shifting. The Bush administration attempted to edit an Environmental Protection Agency report’s discussion of climate change in order to include reference to the Soon and Baliunas work. None of this should come as a surprise: The paper seemed to undermine a key piece of evidence suggesting that we can actually see and measure the consequences of human-induced climate change.

Soon mainstream climate scientists fought back. Thirteen authored a devastating critique of the work in the American Geophysical Union publication Eos. After seeing the critique, Climate Research editor-in-chief Hans von Storch decided he had to make changes in the journal’s editorial process. But when journal colleagues refused to go along, von Storch announced his resignation.

Several other Climate Research editors subsequently resigned over the Soon and Baliunas paper. Even journal publisher Otto Kinne eventually admitted that the paper suffered from serious flaws, basically agreeing with its critics. But by that point in time, Inhofe had already devoted a Senate hearing to trumpeting the new study. However dubious, it made a massive splash.

For board member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, the issue involves academic freedom and allowing students to ask questions.

"I'm a big fan of academic freedom," Mercer said. "We're not putting religion in books."

Advocacy groups on the left and the right rarely get the attention of major political committees and business associations, but these issue-based organizations are spending millions of dollars to influence public policy at the state Capitol.

Most don't have political committees that finance candidates. Many don't have lobbyists working the Capitol hallways. Instead, these groups try to sway the minds of voters and policymakers through statistical reports, analyses and databases.

Most of the groups' funding sources are secret, except for public foundations that may donate money.

The Texas Freedom Network was founded by Gov. Ann Richards' daughter, Cecile, in 1995 to counter the growing influence of the religious right in Texas.

The Freedom Network raised almost $1 million in 2006. The biggest donors were Dallas oilman Leland Fikes and his wife, Amy. Their family foundation gave the network $200,000 in 2006. Since 1999, Fikes' foundation has donated a total of $1.2 million to the group.

Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said her group has been effective in helping block private school voucher legislation and in keeping creationism out of public school textbooks. Miller said the network's effectiveness comes from having grass-roots membership across the state.

Three creationists were just appointed to a six-member committee to review a draft set of Texas state biology standards, which determine what is taught in Texas's public school science classrooms and the content of the biology textbooks approved for use in the state. And since Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the country, what happens to textbooks there is relevant to the content of textbooks everywhere.

With all that at stake, why would anyone appoint a creationist, let alone three, to such a committee? Oh, right: the chair of the board, Don McLeroy, is a confessed creationist, who offers folksy criticisms of evolution like, "Given all the time in the world, I don't think I could make a spider out of a rock. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing made a spider out of a rock." The far-right faction on the state board of education, including McLeroy, presently holds seven of its fifteen seats.

A central issue is that the new draft omits a reference to "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. Innocuous on its face, the "strengths and weaknesses" language was selectively applied only to evolution in 2003 by members of the board attempting to dilute the treatment of evolution in the biology textbooks then under consideration. After a concerted effort by scientists, teachers, parents, and others to defend evolution, all eleven books were eventually adopted—but it was a long, hard, and unedifying ordeal.

In a 2005 talk at his church, McLeroy was candid about the connection between his religious beliefs and his abuse of the "strengths and weaknesses" language, saying: "It was only the four really conservative, orthodox Christians on the board [who] were willing to stand up to the textbooks and say they don't present the weaknesses of evolution." (If you're a Christian who accepts evolution, like the over 11,000 signatories of this open letter, you're apparently not "orthodox" enough for him.)

Also under attack is the new draft's explanation of the limits of science, which notes, "If ideas are based upon purported forces outside of nature, they cannot be tested using scientific methods." McLeroy is digging in his heels here too, wanting to open the science classroom door to the supernatural—and not just the costumed trick-or-treating variety. As he told
The New York Times, he thinks there are two types of science: "a creationist system and a naturalist system."

"Texas universities boast some of the leading scientists in the world," said Ms. Miller, of the progressive, nonprofit group. "It's appalling that some state board members turned to out-of-state ideologues to decide whether Texas kids get a 21st-century science education."

Jonathan Saenz of the conservative Free Market Foundation said the panel is "balanced" because two of the other three members, UT-Austin biology Professor David Hillis and Texas Tech Professor Gerald Skoog, have joined a group of science educators wanting to eliminate a current requirement that weaknesses of the theory of evolution be taught.

"If the theory of evolution is so strong and without weaknesses, why are the evolutionists so afraid to let students have a discussion about it?" he asked.

"Close-minded efforts to ban students from [hearing both sides] is dangerous and a clear detriment to students."

Ever wonder who decides what your kids are taught in school? It’s not their principals and teachers. Nor is it their school’s superintendent. The Legislature, maybe? Not quite; the Legislature’s responsibility is to write the education code, fund the schools, and keep the state’s commitment to an accountability system. Every once in a while a lawmaker might pass a bill that authorizes Bible classes or requires daily recitation of the pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag, but the Legislature isn’t responsible for curriculum. Okay, then, how about the Texas Education Agency and the commissioner of education? Sounds right, but you’re wrong again. The TEA’s role is simply (or not so simply) to administer the education code.

Ready for the answer? The folks who decide what Texas schoolchildren will learn are the fifteen members of the State Board of Education. Don’t worry if you can’t name a single one. Almost nobody can! Members of this obscure panel are elected in down-ballot races that generate about as much media attention as an appointment to the Funeral Service Commission, but they are the ones who determine the classroom content for every public- or charter-school student in Texas. The board, currently composed of ten Republicans and five Democrats, oversees the process that establishes curriculum standards—known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills—and adopts or rejects textbooks. Members serve four-year terms and receive no financial compensation. (You heard right: They do this for free.) So how well do you know the powerful volunteers who control your children’s education? Take this quiz and see.

Pencils up . . . begin!