The textbook committee decided to leave it all out... for now.

No mandatory "alternative theories to evolution" for Louisiana students. Not yet, anyway.

A state advisory panel Friday voted 8-4 to endorse a variety of high school science textbooks that have come under fire for how they describe evolution. The vote was followed more than three hours of discussion.

Two of the “no” votes were cast by Senate Education Committee Chairman Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, and House Education Committee Vice-Chairman Frank Hoffmann, R-West Monroe. The decision likely paves the way for the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to approve the textbooks when it meets Dec. 7-9.

The textbooks that triggered criticism were approved earlier this year by a review committee that spent months studying them. But final action on the biology I and biology II, and environmental science textbooks was delayed by BESE last month amid criticism that they put too much credence in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.