The Texas School Board has managed to receive lots of attention here because of its regular attempts to undermine science education, either through approving standards that promote phony controversies in science or by attempting to get publishers to modify the contents of reasonable science textbooks. Once again, science content is the source of Texas controversy—but this time it's in the social studies books. And for once, the school board isn't at fault.

The social studies books were submitted to the Texas School Board in April, and they will be the subject of public hearings tomorrow. In advance of those hearings, the National Center for Science Education arranged for an analysis of their content, finding that the content covering climate science is severely lacking.

In three cases, the textbooks seem to confuse climate change and ozone depletion. One implies that it's the loss of the ozone layer that's leading to the planet's warming by letting more sunlight in. Two others confuse carbon dioxide emissions with those of ozone destroying chemicals. One states that “Fossil fuel emissions have also caused a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica,” while another argues "Scientists believe the Earth is absorbing more of the sun's harmful rays" as part of its coverage of science issues.

The problematic phrasing of the second—which suggests that scientists simply believe stuff, rather than being convinced by the evidence—makes appearances in several texts. Other passages create a false balance. One states that "Scientists disagree about what is causing climate change," when very few of them, in fact, disagree about attributing the majority of warming to human influences.

If those are confused and misleading, at least one of the textbooks presents a bizarre opinion that we've never seen voiced by an actual scientist: “Some scientists say it is natural for the Earth's temperature to be higher for a few years. They predict we'll have some cooler years and things will even out.”

But the clear winner of the lot is a book from McGraw-Hill Education called World Cultures & Geography. Here, in an actual implementation of a "teach the controversy and let the students decide" approach to education, the book offers a "What do you think?" section with two contradictory opinions on whether humanity is driving global warming. The one in favor comes from the scientists of Working Group I (The Physical Science Basis) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The opposing opinion? That comes from two leaders of the Heartland Institute, a think tank that has received money from fossil fuel interests. This is the group that put up billboards that evoke guilt-by-association, noting that the Unabomber had mentioned climate change was a concern. (Somewhat ironically, the Heartland duo argue that it's all a natural cycle, much like the other textbook suggests.)

It's clearly not the job of a social studies textbook to go into either how the scientific process produces reliable information or how the vast majority of the evidence has indicated that emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are warming our climate. But that doesn't excuse the authors of these texts from getting basic facts right, such as recognizing that the vast majority of scientists have concluded that humanity is warming the planet. (Or that climate change and ozone depletion are distinct issues.)

At any rate, public school text books most certainly should not be taking the approach popularized on news talk shows, where think tank members are accorded equal footing with the experts who actually study a field.