Half of Texas’s Board of Education voted today to support the teaching of “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution in high school classrooms. But because the vote was a tie, an earlier decision to leave out the evolution-doubting component stands.

Social conservatives had argued that the state curriculum should contain qualifications about the acceptance of evolution. Seven Republicans voted in favour of the proposal, and three Republicans and four Democrats against it. The dramatic vote included a video vote from a board member who had heart surgery last month (Dallas Morning News).

Final votes are expected Friday on a number of amendments to the state textbook standards, including one that would require students to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell” (Associated Press). Texas Citizens for Science, an activist group, has a good round-up on its website.

Because Texas is such a large textbook market, decisions by its board of education tend to resonate nationwide (New York Times story from last summer).