We are the creators and main subjects of "The Revisionaries," a documentary about the controversy surrounding the Texas Board of Education, premiering on PBS tonight at 10 PM EST. Please check out the film, and while you're at it, ask us anything!

What happened to the Hip Hop amendment?

Actually, I do believe hip-hop was removed. We had to cut 30 minutes for the TV edit, so the initial history sequence was unfortunately left on the cutting room floor.

As I recall, Craig's amendment to include both hip-hop and country-western passed. It is largely moot, however, as thegreat majority of these heat-seeking amendments listing names to be included in lessons were prefaced by "such as...." rather than "including...." That means the inclusions are only suggested, not mandated. Much ado about.....!

Actually, I do believe hip-hop was removed. We had to cut 30 minutes for the TV edit, so the initial history sequence was unfortunately left on the cutting room floor.

What did you guys feel was more controversial, the revision of the science or social studies standards?

As Kathy says in the movie, we were all blindsided (including moderate Board members) by the scattershooting in the social studies TEKS--all over the spectrum came the revisions. Certainly in my mind these were the more controversial TEKS revisions. The science revisions were on evolution alone--I mean not even the global warming standards received (much) attention, after all! Very predictable.

Ron, have you reviewed the case of "Kitzmiller v Dover" for legal foundations which would deny people like McLeroy and Dunbar the ability to pull these kind of shenanigans in the future?

Yes; I've discussed this with Judge Jones over lunch, in fact, and it's obvious that Boards and school districts and classrooms can get away with violating the law--that creationism/intelligent design is religion rather than science--as long as the practice is not challenged in court. Today dozens of Bible courses in Texas public schools are violating the 1st Amendment, because it's expensive to challenge them legally.

As you can see, I'm not new to the battle over keeping faith-based beliefs out of the public schools. In fact, I live in PA. Here, I thought I might have been helping you out with the Kitzmiller thing, but you've already met Judge Jones! Wow!

Today dozens of Bible courses in Texas public schools are violating the 1st Amendment . . .

They're teaching Bible courses in public schools? That's not legal! Then again, you already know that. There is a thing called the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster that was used in Kansas to rid their schools of religious teaching. I'm a member. So are thousands of PhD's, biologists, scientists from every discipline, college professors, etc. have you happened upon that little gem?

There was actually an article on Reddit about this today: www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/17far8/texas_public_schools_still_teaching_creationism/

Funnily enough, it cites reports by the TFN (Kathy Miller's organization) and SMU (where Ron Wetherington teaches).

Hi Vijay and Scott,

I've been looking forward to seeing this film since I gave a little to your Kickstarter.

I'm fascinated by the access you had to everyone and the openness with which they discuss matters with you. I get the sense that they really believe they are not committing any wrongdoing. Did getting this access to people require a lot of convincing or were they very willing?

Thanks for working on this film.

I just wanted to say, thanks for the Kickstarter support! We were at a pretty critical stage in our production at that point and couldn't have gotten the film done without your help. It took us some time, but we wanted to make sure we got out the best possible film we could. We'll be sending out the Kickstarter rewards (DVDs, etc.) as soon as they are available. Thanks again!

I've never been so proud of supporting anything before, even if only at such a distance. I wish I had contributed more. I have shared and promoted your film at every instance. You guys have done something very important for our country and most amazingly you did it with such care and respect for everyone involved. I'm just so happy I could be part of it in some small way.

Since I didn't do more to support you guys before, I'm planning on buying a few copies of the DVD and donating them to local libraries.

Again, a great big thanks.

Thanks again, we really appreciate the support!!!

If you folks would not mind terribly, could we ask you to be here for us AFTER the film has aired so that our questions will be based on what we have seen and learned from the film?

I believe that there will be more and better questions for you once we have seen the documentary.

Thank You!

Hey WiseCynic. I plan to answer questions until about an hour or two after the premiere (at least 12 PM EST). We wanted to get the thread going so people had a chance to view the film. I also thought it would be fun to get comments and questions as people saw the film. However, I completely understand that people will want to wait until the end, and I definitely plan to stick around and answer as many questions as possible.

I've been back a while now, Vijay. I've posted a few questions, but I'm not getting answers. Has everybody abandoned this?

Hopefully, they've answered your questions. We had quite a barrage of questions right after the film ended.

I first heard about this film from a Stuff You Should Know podcast, where it was mentioned that the film was available on Netflix Streaming. Went to look it up, and found it was no longer available.

Was the film at one time available for streaming, and later pulled? If so, who decided to pull it?

Hey, I think that podcast was mistaken. We are not yet on Netflix. Hopefully we will have the full film up there soon.

Unfortunately, I missed it. Is there any way of watching it online?

I think you'll be able to see it here relatively shortly: http://video.pbs.org/program/independent-lens/

Here's the streaming link: http://video.pbs.org/video/2325563509

I watched this documentary last night, and it was honestly the most terrifying thing I have ever seen. I have been recruiting my coworkers to watch this.

Thank you for creating this program.

Thanks!

Watched the show last night it was great :)

Thanks!

I have had my entire education in Texas at public schools (Including undergrad and graduate school). How is it possible I never learned creationism?

It sounds like you were lucky enough to have good teachers. I think teachers are much more important than the content of textbooks or whatever is in the curriculum. A good teacher can focus on what is important.

Additionally, the issue right now is not specifically the teaching of creationism in science class. Requiring the teaching of evolution in science classes was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1987. The issue in the film relates to the teaching of the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution, which is a tactic to undermine the teaching of evolution (by introducing debunked "criticisms" of evolution) and introduce alternative religious explanations, like Intelligent Design, into science courses. You can find more information about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strengths_and_weaknesses_of_evolution.

Is there any evidence that animals are increasing their intelligence over evolutionary time? Why is it that humans are the only animals to have evolved self awareness level of intelligence in the history of the earth? Why have chimps, for example, not yet figured out that carrying a good stick and using it in a fight would enable them to dominate other chimps? Could the answer be that that is the way that God made all of us to be?

This is a surprisingly common misconception among those that believe in evolution and position man as its ultimate product. In fact evolution only makes organisms better fit for their current environment, and since the environment changes, evolution has no direction whatsoever. Size, complexity, and intelligence are simply byproducts of evolution. An organism can evolve into a smaller, less complex, and less intelligent one, but still be better fit to its current environment. A human being can be killed by a simple bacteria, this shows that a man’s immune system can be weaker than the bacteria’s ability to fight off that immune system, the man’s size, complexity, and intelligence does not help him in this fight.

(I found this great explanation here: http://constitutionclub.org/2011/05/07/6-common-misconceptions-about-evolution/)