Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
(NOTE: Correction and Update Below)
A Missouri lawmaker has proposed legislation that would make learning about evolution in public schools “optional.” State Rep. Rick Brattin (R), the main sponsor of House Bill 291—also known as the “Missouri Standard Science Act”—introduced the bill in January. Brattin told KCTV, a local station, that teaching only evolution in school was “indoctrination.” He continued, “Our schools basically mandate that we teach one side. It is an indoctrination because it is not objective approach.”
The Kansas City Star reported that Brattin said, “…forcing students to study the natural selection theories developed by Charles Darwin a century and a half ago can violate their religious faith. It’s an absolute infringement on people’s beliefs.” Critics of Brattin’s bill say his legislation “would allow religious faith in biblical explanations to crowd out sound science.”
HB 291 would require schools to notify parents if “the theory of evolution by natural selection” was being taught at their child’s school—and give students the opportunity to “opt out of the class.” According to Dana Liebelson of Mother Jones, HB 291 “redefines a few things you thought you already knew about science.”
Liebelson:
For example, a “hypothesis” is redefined as something that reflects a “minority of scientific opinion and is “philosophically unpopular.” A scientific theory is “an inferred explanation…whose components are data, logic and faith-based philosophy.” And “destiny” is not something that $5 fortune tellers believe in; Instead, it’s “the events and processes that define the future of the universe, galaxies, stars, our solar system, earth, plant life, animal life, and the human race.”
Liebelson added that the “Missouri Standard Science Act” also requires that public elementary and secondary schools in the state—as well as introductory science classes at public universities—“give equal textbook space to both evolution and intelligent design.”
From the National Center for Science Education:
HB 291’s text is about 3000 words long, beginning with a declaration that the bill is to be known as the Missouri Standard Science Act, followed by a defectively alphabetized glossary providing idiosyncratic definitions of “analogous naturalistic processes,” “biological evolution,” “biological intelligent design,” “destiny,” “empirical data,” “equal treatment,” “hypothesis,” “origin,” “scientific theory,” “scientific law,” and “standard science.”
Among the substantive provisions of the bill, applying both to Missouri’s public elementary and secondary schools and to introductory science courses in public institutions of higher education in the state: “If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a course of study, biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught. Other scientific theory or theories of origin may be taught.”
For public elementary and secondary schools, HB 291 also provides, “If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a textbook, the textbook shall give equal treatment to biological evolution and biological intelligent design.” After the bill is enacted, new textbooks purchased for the public schools will have to conform to the equal treatment requirement. A committee will develop supplementary material on “intelligent design” for optional interim use.
Eric Meikle, the education director at the National Center for Science Education, said that he couldn’t “imagine” that any mainstream textbook publisher would comply with the bill’s textbook requirement. Meikle said, “The material doesn’t exist.”
Brattin told The Riverfront Times that he was a “science enthusiast” and “a huge science buff.” He added. “This [bill] is about testable data in today’s world.” Meikle disagrees with Brattin. Meikle told Mother Jones, “This bill is very idiosyncratic and strange. And there is simply not scientific evidence for intelligence design.”
And people wonder why some of our students are falling behind international peers in science.
Creation Science 101 by Roy Zimmerman
Correction and Update
It has been called to my attention by Willy Kessler that HB291 was introduced in 2013 and “allowed to die.” Brattin was sponsor of another bill (HB 1472) this year which would require Missouri public schools to notify parents when evolution is being taught and to allow students to opt out of classes.
From the National Center for Science Education (January 17, 2014)
Antievolution legislation in Missouri
Missouri’s House Bill 1472, introduced in the House of Representatives on January 16, 2013, is the third antiscience bill of the year, following Virginia’s HB 207 and Oklahoma’s SB 1765. If enacted, the bill would require “[a]ny school district or charter school which provides instruction relating to the theory of evolution by natural selection” to have “a policy on parental notification and a mechanism where a parent can choose to remove the student from any part of the district’s or school’s instruction on evolution.” Parents and guardians would receive a notification containing “[t]he basic content of the district’s or school’s evolution instruction to be provided to the student” and “[t]he parent’s right to remove the student from any part of the district’s or school’s evolution instruction.”
NCSE’s deputy director Glenn Branch commented, “House Bill 1472 would eviscerate the teaching of biology in Missouri.” Quoting “The OOPSIE Compromise — A Big Mistake,” which Eugenie C. Scott and he wrote for Evolution: Education and Outreach in 2008, he added, “Evolution inextricably pervades the biological sciences; it therefore pervades, or at any rate ought to pervade, biology education at the K–12 level. There simply is no alternative to learning about it; there is no substitute activity. A teacher who tries to present biology without mentioning evolution is like a director trying to produce Hamlet without casting the prince.” Teachers, schools, and districts would suffer as well, Branch observed. “The value of a high school education in Missouri would be degraded.”
The sponsors of HB 1472 are Rick Brattin (R-District 55) and Andy Koenig (R-District 99). Both have a history of sponsoring antievolution legislation in Missouri. In 2012, Koenig sponsored and Brattin cosponsored House Bill 1276, a “strengths and weaknesses” bill, and Brattin sponsored and Koenig cosponsored House Bill 1227, which would have required equal time for “intelligent design” in public schools, including introductory courses at colleges and universities. In 2013, Koenig sponsored and Brattin cosponsored House Bill 179, a “strengths and weaknesses” bill, and Brattin sponsored and Koenig cosponsored House Bill 291, which would have required equal time for “intelligent design” in public schools, including introductory courses at colleges and universities. All died.
SOURCES
Missouri lawmaker wants to make evolution teaching optional (KCTV)
Unprecedented Attack On Evolution ‘Indoctrination’ Mounted In Missouri (Talking Points Memo)
Anti-Evolution Missouri Bill Requires College Students to Learn About Destiny (Mother Jones)
Rick Brattin, Who Wants Anti-Evolution Lessons In Missouri Schools: “I’m A Science Enthusiast” (Riverfront Times)
Missouri bill would let parents pull kids from evolution classes (Kansas City Star)
Missouri lawmaker introduces bill allowing familes to ‘opt out’ of learning evolution (Daily Kos)
“Intelligent design” bill in Missouri (National Center for Science Education)
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
rafflaw–you’re right, that’s why we need vouchers–let the parents place their children where they want them educated.
Anonomously yours–home schooling is for parents who don’t have to go out and work to pay bills, like the 45% of welfare parents.
Wayne–Are you saying that only (D) are brilliant. You poor fool.
FYI–there are some religions who believe in parts of the evolution theory.
BTW Darwin has been going through a lot of scrutiny lately and scientist are now questioning some of his theories.
Religion offers simplistic answers to complex questions. When scientific methods are used to provide more complex answers, religionists seem to take this as a personal attack. It’s not. It’s just a more accurate explanation of what was previously unknown.
Justin,
You are wrong about there being room in science classes for both evolution and creationism. The latter is a religious teaching, not science. If you want religion, go to your house of religious faith, not a science classroom.
When my oldest son was in pre-med, the first day of classes his biology professor started off his first lecture by warning the students that evolution was a fact of science, not a belief system that can be argued. He also told the students that if anyone wanted to hang on to creationist claptrap, they were in the wrong class, in the wrong program, in the wrong school, and should withdraw while they could still get a refund on tuition. That particular college is run by the Methodist Church. It is known as a “doctor factory” because they have a tough, science based curriculum. 100% of their pre-med graduates are accepted to medical school.
As for what you call “anti-creationists,” the rest of the world calls them scientists. Science is based on observable and measurable evidence. It does not try to shoehorn evidence into a preconceived notion of what it ought to mean based on a unmeasurable and unscientific belief system.
I live in Missouri and the truly scary thing is that homeschooling is protected by law but is not monitored and has only the barest of requirements. It offends me greatly and maddens me that idiotic and ignorant legislation like this is foisted on the public schools when it is easy enough already to prevent your child from ever getting real science information. All a parent has to do is say to the school, “Hey, I’m home-schooling science.” That’s it. No one will ever check to see if the Bible is your science text book. Seriously. And people here truly do use their Bibles as history textbooks. I have home-schooled myself at times but that is because I don’t think the academics have been rigorous enough and the schools have low expectations. When I’ve done this, I’ve used real textbooks and even used some nationally accredited courses. By far, though, most of the home schooling families here are of the religious bent and it scares me to think of the ignorant generation they are raising.
With homeschooling so easy here in Missouri, I can only conclude that this kind of legislation isn’t really about equal time or some kind of imposition on religious beliefs/rights, but rather is a sneaky way to once again try to impose their ignorance on the rest of the kids whose parents feel like maybe science is a good thing to learn. The hypocrisy is outrageous.
Why should schools be teaching evolution anyway? Everybody knows that Santa Claus created America in six days and on the seventh day He thought about banging the Tooth Fairy, giving us Christmas. Then the virgin fairy gave birth to Adam, who made a Bunny from some short ribs, giving us Easter. Aren’t we born knowing all this?
Evolution is just some kind of crazy myth.
Intelligent Design Creationism: Fraudulent Science, Bad Philosophy.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/creation.htm
This guy is of the same ilk as the nut cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan who slaughter teenagers for dancing to wester rock and roll. He is, of course no where near as extreme and thank heavens and hells that that sort of extremism is not possible today in the US. It was possible in the 17th Century but not today.
We should send his kind to Geneva for a sit down with the Taliban.
the anti-creationism crowd can be just as fanatical as the anti-evolution crowd.
Evolution and Creationism in Schools
National Academy of Sciences
http://www.nas.edu/evolution/InSchools.html
The pressure to downplay evolution or emphasize nonscientific alternatives in public schools compromises science education.
Despite the lack of scientific evidence for creationist positions, some advocates continue to demand that various forms of creationism be taught together with or in place of evolution in science classes. Many teachers are under considerable pressure from policy makers, school administrators, parents, and students to downplay or eliminate the teaching of evolution. As a result, many U.S. students lack access to information and ideas that are both integral to modern science and essential for making informed, evidence-based decisions about their own lives and our collective future.
Regardless of the careers that they ultimately select, to succeed in today’s scientifically and technologically sophisticated world, all students need a sound education in science. Many of today’s fast-growing and high-paying jobs require a familiarity with the core concepts, applications, and implications of science. To make informed decisions about public policies, people need to know how scientific evidence supports those policies and whether that evidence was gathered using well-established scientific practice and principles. Learning about evolution is an excellent way to help students understand the nature, processes, and limits of science in addition to concepts about this fundamentally important contribution to scientific knowledge.
Given the importance of science in all aspects of modern life, the science curriculum should not be undermined with nonscientific material. Teaching creationist ideas in science classes confuses what constitutes science and what does not. It compromises the objectives of public education and the goal of a high-quality science education.
Map: Publicly Funded Schools That Are Allowed to Teach Creationism.
Thousands of schools in states across the country can use taxpayer money to cast doubt on basic science.
By Chris Kirk
1/26/14
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/creationism_in_public_schools_mapped_where_tax_money_supports_alternatives.html
Excerpt:
A large, publicly funded charter school system in Texas is teaching creationism to its students, Zack Kopplin recently reported in Slate. Creationist teachers don’t even need to be sneaky about it—the Texas state science education standards, as well as recent laws in Louisiana and Tennessee, permit public school teachers to teach “alternatives” to evolution. Meanwhile, in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, taxpayer money is funding creationist private schools through state tuition voucher or scholarship programs. As the map below illustrates, creationism in schools isn’t restricted to schoolhouses in remote villages where the separation of church and state is considered less sacred. If you live in any of these states, there’s a good chance your tax money is helping to convince some hapless students that evolution (the basis of all modern biological science, supported by everything we know about geology, genetics, paleontology, and other fields) is some sort of highly contested scientific hypothesis as credible as “God did it.”
From the National Center for Science Education:
The year’s antievolution legislation so far
2/1/14
http://ncse.com/news/2013/02/years-antievolution-legislation-so-far-0014699
Excerpt:
“Four US states are considering new legislation about teaching science in schools, allowing pupils to be taught religious versions of how life on earth developed in what critics say would establish a backdoor way of questioning the theory of evolution,” the Guardian (January 13, 2013) summarizes. The states in question are Colorado (House Bill 13-1089), Missouri (House Bill 179 and House Bill 291), Montana (House Bill 183), and Oklahoma (Senate Bill 758 and House Bill 1674) — to which should be added Arizona (Senate Bill 1213) and Indiana (House Bill 1283), for a grand total of eight bills in six states.
Someone once told me that Missouri is the buckle on the belt of the “Bible Belt.” Regarding Elaine Magliaro’s article, Missouri Lawmaker Introduces Legislation That Would Make Learning about Evolution in Public Schools “Optional” It does not seem too complicated to me. There is enough room in our great country for Evolution & Creationism, and let the individual decide for them self.
As unambiguous evidence that I, for one, am not intelligent, consider the following demonstration from my immediately prior comment, to wit”
“In my Wisconsin state-licensed standing as a Wisconsin Professional Engineer, whose engineering degrees (B.S. and Ph.D. are in bioengineering), ”
Were I even slightly intelligent, surely I would have used parentheses properly, as in:
In my Wisconsin state-licensed standing as a Wisconsin Professional Engineer, whose engineering degrees (B.S. and Ph.D.) are in bioengineering,
I believe that my not being intelligent is thus amply proved.
In my Wisconsin state-licensed standing as a Wisconsin Professional Engineer, whose engineering degrees (B.S. and Ph.D. are in bioengineering), I find that the Wisconsin regulations of my profession require that i work in accord with the Code of Ethics of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), of which I happen to be a member.
For non-engineers (people not formally or informally educated in the ways of engineering as a profession that connects science with practical applications of science?), I have confabulated a simple (or, non-engineering based?) explanation of the NSPE Code of Ethics, with all the “filler fluff” that I observe in the NSPE Code of Ethics extricated from said confabulation:
The confabulation is, to wit, as I can write it right now: “In my work as a Professional Engineer, I am to 1. hold paramount the public safety. 2. work in, and only in, areas of my professional competence. 3. do (1) and (2) without deception.”
As my work is in bioengineering and bioengineering is engineering applied to the phenomenon of life, to not be in violation of the NSPE Code of Ethics, I need to be a competent biologist. I herewith stipulate that, in accord with the NSPE Code of Ethics, I am a competent biologist with respect to the state of the creation of the evolution of the creativity of human evolving unriddling and fathoming of biology. I neither stipulate nor claim to live in a future which has yet to exist nor to live in a past which no longer exists save as what can be remembered of its having completed itself before now.
As I stipulate that, with respect to my bioengineering work, I am a competent biologist, and as I have stated that my license requires that I work without deception, I find I need to state something about my biology-based grasp of “intelligent design.”
I am reminded of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, one which I deem worth some modicum of effort because the nature of so-called “intelligence” intrigues me.
For starters, I have sometimes come upon the term, “military intelligence.” As a biologist/bioengineer, I have grave doubts that “military intelligence” can ever actually exist in any actually tangible form whatsoever.
The SETI thing is more intriguing to me than the phantasm of “military intelligence,” alas…
Were it up to me to choose where to look for intelligence, I would start here on what I take (mistakenly, i suspect) to be what intelligent design believers may hold to truly be Terra Firma. (Please note that I am fully content to avow that, from the view of intelligent design, Alfred Wegener was an unconscionable heretical apostate.)
I would start the search for actual intelligence here on Planet Earth because it is conveniently close at hand. If no hint, trace, wisp, iota dissipated vapor of intelligence can be found on Planet Earth, how on earth, or any where else, can people accurately understand what they are looking for extraterrestrially?
The one principle (not “principal”) problem I have with the view of intelligent design is my never yet having observed that actual intelligence has yet been created.
Oops?
More money will be spent on litigation if they ram this through.
Some people seem to think ignorance is a virtue. And why am I not surprised to see an (R) after his name?
Amazing… Just absolutely amazing…. Don’t they have the ability to home school their kids so they won’t be subjected to anything that disagrees with there views of the world….
An amazing story Elaine. It is disturbing that people just don’t get it. People who try to get creationism into the mainstream public school education process are either ignoring the facts or want the Bible to replace the constitution. They can enroll in a private religious school and get all the creationism nonsense that they want, without violating the Constitution.
Looks like Rick Brattin has been getting some mail order from Colorado. These people do not have much on the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists. Amazing ignorance in a time of immense and easily attainable knowledge. Shame
Stork Theory should be taught in sex-ed. Stop the indoctrination of our adolescents regarding this whole “natural” sex dogma. You know, balance.