As President Obama vowed to "restore science to its rightful place" in his widely watched inaugural address from our nation's capital, school officials in Texas acted to do the same, amending the state's science curriculum standards to get rid of language that supporters of creationism and intelligent design had trumpeted for the past two decades.

The decision by the Texas State Board of Education came after heated debate among its 15-person membership, where 7 of the members are avowed social conservatives. The debate itself was over specific language in the state's science standards which requires students to critique all scientific theories and explore the "strengths and weaknesses" of each. The "strengths and weaknesses" language was first inserted into the standards twenty years ago in an effort to appease social conservatives, and has since been used as justification by proponents of creationism who seek to promote teaching religious objections to evolution in the classroom.

In endorsing the removal of the language from the state standards, the State Board of Education risks a backlash from parties who object to the unqualified teaching of evolution in our schools. But supporters of the decision point to a significant benefit of the decision that makes the backlash worthwhile: the reality that textbook publishers, who frown upon the practice of publishing alternate versions of the same book for different markets with different standards, are more likely to continue publishing science-based explanations of evolution without reference to religious objections.

The debate over the teaching evolution in our schools is much, much older than most of our contemporary reform debates over teacher quality, accountability, charter schools and so on. The famous 1925 Scopes Trial, which pitted famous American attorney Clarence Darrow against the equally famous politician and creationist William Jennings Bryan, is one of the earliest famous incidents, portrayed through the famous movie "Inherit the Wind" (I've pasted the famous scene from the movie below - start watching at about 3:35 for maximum effect).

In the 84 years since the Scopes trial, however, proposals to teach Creationism in our schools as a counter-weight to evolution have come and gone routinely like the tides, but this week it seems as though the combination of President Obama's inaugural nod to science and the Texas School Board decision will mark a low tide for creationists in the battle over science instruction in public school classrooms.