Yet another Scopes Monkey Trial is on the way in Tennessee – that is, unless the governor vetoes the Discovery-Institute-inspired bill that the Tennessee Legislature just passed:
Tennessee “monkey bill” passes legislature
House Bill 368 passed the Tennessee House of Representatives on a 72-23 vote on March 26, 2012, the Nashville Tennessean (March 26, 2012) reports. The bill would encourage teachers to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of topics that arouse “debate and disputation” such as “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning”; it now proceeds to Governor Bill Haslam, who will have ten days to sign the bill, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it. Haslam previously indicated that he would discuss the bill with the state board of education, telling the Nashville Tennessean (March 19, 2012), “It is a fair question what the General Assembly’s role is … That’s why we have a state board of education.”
Opposing the bill have been the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the Nashville Tennessean, the Nashville Tennessean, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Earth Science Teachers Association, the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, and three distinguished Tennessee scientists and members of the National Academy of Sciences who recently warned, in a column published in the Tennessean (March 25, 2012), that the legislation was “misleading, unnecessary, likely to provoke unnecessary and divisive legal proceedings, and likely to have adverse economic consequences for the state.”
That, and it sets the state up for a Kitzmiller v. Dover-like disaster as soon as some creationist teacher or school board uses the law as excuse to get the not-very-hidden creationist/ID junk in the Discovery Institute’s Explore Evolution into the public schools. Make no mistake, that’s the long-term gameplan. See background on Explore Evolution. Or see all NCSE pages on the book.
I suggest that any legislator [and/or governor] voting to approve this legislation, personally underwrite its defense [and should it lose] the costs of the parties successfully challenging it. If they are sincere they’d do it. Otherwise they are simply at the public trough to support a particular theological point.
AS a canadian YEC its great always to see the public democratically in practice and more so in spirit take on the present censorship and control over what is taught about origins to the American people. Everywhere everyone knows times must change on these matters. I understand 70 % agree with both sides being taught in public schools. More then the percentage that question biological evolution. Surely the 30% will not prevail in a democratic nation.
Its everybody that can and should decide these issues for themselves and then take a vote. Not just a few groups or esteemed scientists should decide.
Truly evolutionism must face up to not just making a better case but that they must make a case and this with a opposition on equal terms. This is how truth and error works itself out if we believe truth conquors error where honest and intelligent citizens get a good hearing from both sides.
Instead of evolutionism trying to knock down their opponents why not see a more exciting educational culture where the great contentions on the great ideas of origins of everything are addressed in public education. It might truly raise interest in kids in science subjects . I remember the actor who played the professor on Gilligans island saying many people came up to him and said he got them interested into a scientific career! Not acting but science! If that why not the passion behind origin issues.
Anyways freedom demands an end to censorship in origin education in public schools.
So how do you propose getting around certain US Supreme Court decisions and the Kitzmiller Federal court decision that say you can’t teach creationism, “creation science” or intelligent design creationism in public schools? Because it is absolutely certain that teachers or school boards who violate those decisions will be taken to court and ordered to stop.
If Governor Haslam is wiiling to discuss this bill with his state board of education, then I am cautiously optimistic that he may do the right thing and veto it.
Robert,
You can’t be a YEC anymore, remember? Religion isn’t science and that’s all you gots to support your yecishness.
You is abouts to sees the governments of the United States in action. The Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue, multiple times. No state legislature is going to change that. Or maybe you are willing to pay the court costs for this losing strategy yourself. Can you say “Dover trap”?
I wonder how Mr Byers would feel about teaching “the strengths and weaknesses” of biblical literalism to 1st graders?
It’s fine if they present the strengths and weaknesses of evolution, that’s what all teachers should do. That isn’t going to protect them from prosecution if they lie about the strengths and weaknesses of evolution and use that as an excuse to present pseudoscientific religious nonsense in science class. That is still illegal, immoral and possibly fattening.
If the Governor whimps out and just refuses to sign the bill, that should help out in court. After all, it will be education legislation without the support of the Governor and most likely against the advise of the Board of Education. Does anyone know what their position is likely to be? If the Governor does sign the bill and it is ruled unconstitutional, can he be held responsible, especially if he was told that it was unconstitutional before signing it? IN other words, will anyone other than the teachers duped into teaching creationism is science class ever be held accountable?
Mr. Byers, In a republic the Constitution trumps majority opinion everytime. Our Constitution precludes use of government resources to promote religion. Thus even if 99% of the country believed in creationism, it still can’t be taught in public school science classrooms.
Robert, what exactly is it that you want to be taught about origins?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of your favored ‘theory’ of origins?
See, there is no censorship here, you are free to present the complete theory that you want taught! Just provide your references to the research, literature and relevant links.
I’d be happy to just hear Byers’s notion of what he perceives as the weaknesses in his YEC “theory”.
How about it, Bobby? What are the weaknesses of YECism?
Since the governonr is interested in discussing this with the State Board of Education which does support the teaching of biological evolution, then there is some hope for optimism that the governor will veto it.
Robert, why oh why must you tout that you are Canadian? I am Canadian and never in all my time in school did I ever hear creationism mentioned, let alone taught, in any of my classrooms.
Even Martin (Wally) Brown (the self-supporting pastor for the fundamentalist church in Blenheim) taught biology straight up in my secondary school without mentioning creationism or creation science. When asked by a fellow student Wally said (and I’m paraphrasing here because it was a long time ago) that there is the science answer, and there is the religious answer. We were in a science class, so religious ideas were barred at the door for lack of evidence.
You, along with Dennis Markuze (aka David Mabus) are bringing shame upon us. Why don’t you go hang out on Rapture Ready with your fellow travelers?
It may end up that evolution denial or outright teaching of creationism becomes the norm in southern “red” states, a constitution that is mainly resented in those areas notwithstanding.
It has become an obsession of the “Tea Party” wing of the right.
If these bills are passed, and teachers teach creationism, the only way that a court challenge will arise is if someone is willing to stand up for themselves. We have seen the level of hostility endured by those who challenged creationism in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Imagine the level in less moderate locales.
There’s at least an even chance that SCOTUS won’t get another right wing ideologue. However, Justice Scalia is still sitting, and he wrote the dissent in Edwards v. Aguillard. That case involved the outright teaching of YEC. The SCOTUS of the time voted 7-2 against teaching creationism, but Scalia, who is a prominent member of the current court, dissented. Thomas is virtually certain to vote in favor of creationism. Anyone who trusts Roberts or Alito on this is haplessly naive. If a case were to go all the way to the supreme court in the future, there’s a good even chance that a decision against blatantly unconstitutional sectarian preaching on the taxpayer’s dime might come down, but that’s about the best that can be said. And even that would require the persistence and physical survival of the complaining parties.
Judge Jones, in Pennsylvania, wrote a well-thought out decision that more or less prevented the Dover case from winding its way through the court system. However, in other states, this can’t be counted on http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/03[…]lican_c.html.
It’s unfortunate that secession would be so incredibly impractical in the US today. It would be the ideal solution. There are some parts of the country where an authoritarian government that enforces a post-modern version of Christianity is supported by a strong majority of the population.
And some hope for optimism that, even if he doesn’t, someone will eventually pay for this fiasco. It might not be the guys who proposed the illegal and unconstitutional legislation. It might not be the creationists behind the legislation. It might not be the people actually responsible for lying to the children about the real scientific evidence. But someone, somewhere might eventually have to pay for breaking the law, defying the constitution and using tax payer money to preach their religion in science class.
Of course, it might not be only christian teachers who do this, it might be any religion that gets taught, even one the christians hate. That would be ironic, but not unpredictable. In trying to cram their own religion down peoples throats, they may have inadvertently allowed other religions to use tax payer money to preach in science class as well. Maybe that will finally convince them of the depravity of their position.
Jones has observed that his ruling, while legally binding only for Dover, has been cited and used unofficially as legal precedent elsewhere around the country. Since Jones is himself someone who adheres to a strict reading of the Constitution, his legal reasoning in his Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling is one which Scalia and Thomas would have to pay attention to, even if they were to dissent from a majority opinion should a Kitzmiller vs. Dover-like case reaches the Supreme Court sometime in the near future.
Because if there are pig-ignorant opponents of science, there must be weaknesses in that science.
Everyone knows that.
Now if they could just learn what a “logical fallacy” is, they might have a shot at understanding these issues.
Glen Davidson
It will soon be four long years since Governor Jindal signed the Louisiana Science Education Act into law. Seems many would have been chopping at the bit to use LSEA to introduce “balanced treatment” lessons into classrooms.
Yet, LSEA has basically collected dust these last four years. Indeed, anti-evolutionists have openly expressed dismay and frustration that LSEA has been an empty shell to date. Two Louisiana parishes wanted to use LSEA to blatantly teach “creationism”, but both of these efforts were quietly muffled.
It’s as if Louisiana anti-evolutionists have been nervous about cdesign proponentsists-like quicksands that can’t separate anti-evolutionism from its religious roots, regardless of how much LSEA proclaims it’s not allowed to promote religion.
Please, anyone, explain what benefit LSEA had brought to Louisiana (even while LSEA has led science entities to avoid the state (see here). What has LSEA done and what could a potential Tennessee law do other than set anti-evolutionists up on shaky constitutional grounds and for anti-evolutionists to pay through the nose for a very expensive court challenge.
Byers, what is fair about using the political process to take an idea around the normal science peer-review process and then forcing the idea into classrooms via the backdoor? (see this brief link) How is this “freedom”? Sounds more like special treatment. Why should astrology, alchemy and other ‘sciences’ not get the same special treatment?
Why can’t your ‘scientists’ at AIG, ICR, at the Big Valley Creation Science Museum in Alberta use the normal mainstream science peer-review process? As has been explained numerous time to you, if per chance the scientific evidence is on the side of your ‘scientists’, it could convince the scientific consensus and evolution might be tossed into the proverbial waste basket rather quickly.
Then again, you won’t answer the question of where all the fossils are within evo-devo, you won’t talk about the Gordon Glover/Glenn Morton material, you won’t discuss why Flood geology is virtually without qualified Flood geologists, you won’t.…
Very true. You could debate in class the merits of Germ Theory vs Mary Baker Eddy’s “Christian Science” version. Or the scientific view of the origins of Native Americans vs Joseph Smith’s Mormon version (He thinks that ancient Israelites sailed to the Americas a LONG time ago).
I felt that unklehank’s outstanding post should be repeated here, too.
The funny part is that the law, as written, wouldn’t allow either outright Creationism or the stealthy Intelligent Design repackaging to be taught, used, or advanced in the schools. We all know that this much is not intended to be applied as written, though. Encouraging teachers to waste everybody’s time and the state’s money in court costs by giving them false hope about using anti-evolutionist materials is not going to further the cause of education.
It’s worth noting that a nearly identical bill in Oklahoma goes further by attempting to shield students who reject evolution (or other wingnut-right issues) in a rather oblique way. It specifies that they may be evaluated on their understanding of the material being taught (you know, as with any school material), but then specifies that they cannot be penalized for holding any particular beliefs about the material being covered. I guess just to make sure that good, honest disagreement with things like evolution, AGW, and human cloning don’t open up students to being persecuted by their teachers, which of course is a serious problem in the US today. *eyeroll*
I, as a Conservative Republican, have arrived reluctantly at the conclusion that we need national science standards for all of America’s public schools merely to ensure that the teaching of valid mainstream science like biological evolution is not held up for ransom by either delusional creationist supporters of the Dishonesty Institute or Answers in Genitals or by Radical Leftist supporters of “relativism”, who regard scientific truth as a “truth” that has as much validity as others. But such standards should be drafted by scientists and eminent K-12 science educators, not by educational bureaucrats, or else we run the risk of running into nonsense such as this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/[…]ref=false#sb
As an aside, I’m not convinced that simply throwing more money toward education would be the best means of curing this “disease”. What is needed is the establishment of both higher educational standards and higher expectations for students, which, I might add are the very recommendations that former Washington Post journalist Alec Klein has emphasized in his writing.
apokryltaros -
I will single out a few important selections from Uncle Hank’s comment, and add some qualifiers. Emphasis mine.
This can’t be emphasized enough. Look at Robert Byers, the congenial Canadian who can actually express himself, if not perfectly in terms of grammar, without flying into a rage, making him something of an elite figure among creationists.
He still believes that private publishers are obliged to publish the dogma of his group, but not of other groups. He still believes that members of his cult cannot be fired from jobs no matter what they do, or even laid off for budgetary reasons, but that others don’t deserve such protection.
And they want to destroy everyone else, and then destroy themselves. Of course they love the ideas of nuclear war and environmental destruction. They are obsessed with prophecies of global apocalypse.
They want more than to “own”, they want total, in their own word, “dominion”.
There really is no choice but to resist. They don’t even offer another choice.
An alternative piece of education legislation:
Whereas some topics in science such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning arose debate and disputation, it is imperative teachers be encouraged to present the very best scientific findings in these fields. This is necessary in order to avoid confusion and misunderstanding and to prevent the insertion of pseudoscientific or religious ideas into the science classroom. The scientific consensus should be taught exclusively, as determined by the peer reviewed literature in the relevant field. Such an approach can only serve to demonstrate and reinforce critical thinking and to demonstrate the power of the scientific method.
What? You say such legislation isn;t necessary? You say that teachers are already completely free to use this approach? RIght. Then why do they need special permission top present “strengths and weaknesses? Maybe counter legislation such as this should be introduced every time creationists try to wedge their legislation into place. After all, if this is the actual intent of their proposals, how can they possibly object?
Actually this is a good point and brings up another in my mind. Why do the insurance companies that cover the school districts in states that pass laws such as these continue to cover teacher or institutional malpractice? It seems to me that the insurance companies could at the very least put in a waiver sying that they won’t cover lawsuits involving the teaching of Creationism since the state is inviting litigation.
I’m sorry, but I’m going to stop reading now…
Byers, how about we work up a teaching module on the “strengths and weaknesses” of talking snakes, talking donkeys, stopping the sun in the sky, ethnic cleansing, pi=3.00 and a few other Biblical literal truths? Would you support presenting that in all public schools?
While I personally like the idea of national curriculum standards, I’ll play devil’s advocate and say that, in the vast majority of states, the state departments of education seem to be doing very well writing standards. With only a few exceptions, civil-service developed standards aren’t the problem. Its elected officials adding laws or rules on top of them that cause the problems - and unfortunately, that problem wouldn’t go away if we had national standards. Texas is a good example - there was nothing wrong with the science standards developed by the professional educators. It was the elected officials that caused the problems.
So, while I agree that national standards might make evolution education stronger, I don’t think they are the main cause of today’s problems or the magic bullet fix for the problems we have. Getting legislators to legislate responsibly (and, underlying that, getting public to recognize why such creationist legislation is bad) is really the main issue here.
Nick wrote
I think a closer parallel is the Freshwater affair in Ohio (not that I feel proprietary about it! :)). There the State Board of Education adopted “Critical analysis of evolution” language, which was a direct cause of Freshwater’s original proposal to adopt the Intelligent Design Network’s “Object Origins” policy and to his subsequent use of flatly creationist materials (some from Kent Hovind and Ken Ham) in his classroom. It’s another Dover Trap for some poor rural district, and it’ll cost them in real dollars just as it cost Dover and Mt. Vernon.
The sponsors of the current legislation in my home state of Tennessee admitted in hearings that they had no big problems with Tennessee’s school science standards.
So basically, the Tennessee General Assembly has come up with a solution looking for a problem. Time will tell if the governor will stop this nonsense. On the one hand, I’m not hopeful as he is Republican. However, he has talked about discussing this legislation with the state board of education which is a hint of hope. Let’s also keep in mind that Judge John Jones is a conservative Republican, yet he ruled quite decisively for science in the Kitzmiller/Dover trial.
Once again, Mr. Kwok demonstrates his lack of reading comprehension. What I said was that I attended a summer institute at Brandeis, Un. Also, Mr. Kwok the birther, is the one who informed us that he had the hots for some 15 year old girls he met on the NY Subway. They certainly are derelict in their teaching of reading comprehension skills at Stuyvesant.
Like many a creationist, he reads what he wants to read into a passage, ignores what is inconvenient, fails to get irony or otherwise misinterprets, as it suits his argument. And acts dumb as a post to uncomfortable facts, then goes off on some tangential issue as a distraction.
What the heck happened to this thread? Shutting it down now-ish.
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