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.
nick,
Ken Ham and Bill Nye debate…
Elaine M.
Thanks for the laugh with the video.
🙂
And, welcome Justin.
Truly mind-boggling, Elaine. Thanks for the post.
Bratin’s bill if enacted would assure Missouri students finish high school with the equivalant of a 17th century science education. If Rick chooses to live in a bag it is his right. The good citezens of the state should stop him from consigning their childern to ignorance.
More wastes of the legislative session.
pete,
🙂
There you have it: the easiest way to recruit future Christian soldiers. One of the most dangerous places where one can find the Evangelical Christian (Dominionists) soldiers is the Air Force. If you have time, google Mike Weinstein’s work on this. He’s sometime difficult to embrace but he surely has found a hornet’s nest, well, a nest of Dominionist hornets.
if creationism is given equal time in schools then evolution should be given equal time in church.
save me a spot in the pulpit sunday.
If there is a God, then what is the purpose of all the pain and suffering in the world.
I don’t want to start World War 3 here, but if you really want to heat up the discussion, let’s move it from the classroom out into the real world. Is there a God? and if there is a God, why do you believe there is a God and if you believe there is no God, then why do you believe there is no God. Just let’s follow Nick Spinelli’s suggestion of let civility rule.
Elaine, oh my gosh, funny, the Ascent of Man cartoon! 😀
Marching inch by inch, foot by foot, step by step, to leap by leap of the cliff of rationality. So will it be like like Prayer in the School day? On Monday the prayer and science lesson will be Judeo Christian,Tuesday-Hindu, Wednesday-Rasatfarian, Thursday-Flying Spaghetti Monster, Friday is Islam day. Who gets to decide which creation story trumps the others? Who gets left out? The Wiccans are hurt and cast a spell, the Santerians are going to kill a chicken and curse the school board. Oh so many choices, I like the Native American creation story best myself.
Willy,
Thanks. Here’s what I just found:
A second antievolution bill in Missouri
January 27th, 2014
http://ncse.com/news/2014/01/second-antievolution-bill-missouri-0015338
Missouri’s House Bill 1587, introduced and given its first reading in the Missouri House of Representatives on January 23, 2014, is the fourth antiscience bill of the year and the second in the state. As is increasingly common with antiscience legislation, HB 1587 would, if enacted, in effect encourage science teachers with idiosyncratic opinions to teach anything they pleased — proponents of creationism and climate change denial are the usual intended beneficiaries of such bills — and discourage responsible educational authorities from intervening. The bill specifically cites “the theory of biological and hypotheses of chemical evolution” as controversial.
HB 1587 would require state and local educational authorities to “assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies and permit teachers “to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of the theory of biological and hypotheses of chemical evolution”; it would prevent such authorities from “prohibit[ing] any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of biological or chemical evolution whenever these subjects are taught.”
The sponsor of HB 1587 is Andrew Koenig (R-District 99); its cosponsors are Rick Brattin (R-District 55), Donna Lichtenegger (R-District 146), Kurt Bahr (R-District 102), Galen Higdon (R-District 11), Sandy Crawford (R-District 129), and Paul Wieland (R-District 112). Koenig was the sponsor of a string of similar bills: HB 179 in 2013, HB 1276 in 2012, and HB 195 in 2011. All failed. Koenig is also a cosponsor of House Bill 1472 in 2014, a bill that would require equal time for “intelligent design” in Missouri’s public schools, including introductory courses at colleges and universities. He cosponsored the similar HB 291 in 2013 and HB 1227 in 2012; both failed.
Why stop at evolution?
Imagine how advanced our studies of Newtonian physics, Relativistic Mechanics, Wave-Particle duality theory, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory (etal) would be if science would only adhere to the rigid dogma of religion.
How did religion fare in it’s dogmatic adherence to the geocentric model of our solar system?
Ignorance is truly bliss.
Personanongrata wrote: “How did religion fare in it’s dogmatic adherence to the geocentric model of our solar system? Ignorance is truly bliss.”
There is a lot of scientific mythology surrounding this event. Many people do not realize that both Copernicus and Galileo were Bible believing Christians who saw no conflict between science and religion. The work of Copernicus written a hundred years before Galileo was dedicated to the Pope and not put on the list of books in need of correction until Galileo’s time. Galileo attempted to prove the Copernican theory with a false understanding of tides that he believed was due to the earth’s movement and not the gravity of the moon as proposed by Kepler. Galileo even referred to Kepler’s theory as relying upon occult properties. Galileo put the burden of proof upon those who disbelieved his theory, to prove it false. Many tried to show how Galileo was wrong about the tides, but he would not see it. Galileo continued to believe that his understanding of the tides was the smoking gun to prove heliocentrism. Ultimately these factors led to the trial, which was not so much a conflict between science and religion, but just the arguments of a religious man who was also a scientist. Galileo was attempting to provide a scientific demonstration that would force a reinterpretation of Scripture that he considered to be divinely inspired. When his demonstration failed, partly because of his reliance upon a false scientific notion of tides, he recanted his position on the matter. Later his theory of tides was shown to be wrong but the heliocentric theory of Copernicus to be correct. And rather than maintain blind obstinence, the church finally accepted that theory and reworked their misunderstanding of Scripture.
Actually HB291 was introduced last year and was allowed to die. Brattin has introduced a new anti-evolution bill that is potentially just as disastrous, HB1472, which would force schools to notify parents if they teach evolution and allow parents to “opt” their children out of the classes.
Missouri bill redefines science, gives equal time to intelligent design
Bill has a long list of brain-melting stipulations.
by John Timmer
Feb 12 2013
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/missouri-bill-redefines-science-gives-equal-time-to-intelligent-design/
Excerpt:
Each year, state legislatures play host to a variety of bills that would interfere with science education. Most of these are variations on a boilerplate intended to get supplementary materials into classrooms criticizing evolution and climate change (or to protect teachers who do). They generally don’t mention creationism, but the clear intent is to sneak religious content into the science classrooms, as evidenced by previous bills introduced by the same lawmakers. Most of them die in the legislature (although the opponents of evolution have seen two successes).
The efforts are common enough that we don’t generally report on them. But every now and then a bill comes along that veers off this script. Late last month, the Missouri House started considering one that deviates in staggering ways. Instead of being quiet about its intent, it redefines science, provides a clearer definition of intelligent design than any of the idea’s advocates ever have, and it mandates equal treatment of the two. In the process, it mangles things so badly that teachers would be prohibited from discussing Mendel’s Laws.
Although even the Wikipedia entry for scientific theory includes definitions provided by the world’s most prestigious organizations of scientists, the bill’s sponsor Rick Brattin has seen fit to invent his own definition. And it’s a head-scratcher: “‘Scientific theory,’ an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy.” The faith or philosophy involved remain unspecified.
Brattin also mentions philosophy when he redefines “hypothesis” as “a scientific theory reflecting a minority of scientific opinion which may lack acceptance because it is a new idea, contains faulty logic, lacks supporting data, has significant amounts of conflicting data, or is philosophically unpopular.” The reason for that becomes obvious when he turns to intelligent design, which he defines as a hypothesis. Presumably, he thinks it’s only a hypothesis because it’s philosophically unpopular, since his bill would ensure it ends up in the classrooms.
Intelligent design (ID) is roughly the concept that life is so complex that it requires a designer, but even its most prominent advocates have often been a bit wary about defining its arguments all that precisely. Not so with Brattin—he lists 11 concepts that are part of ID. Some of these are old-fashioned creationist claims, like the suggestion that mutations lead to “species degradation” and a lack of transitional fossils. But it also has some distinctive twists, like the claim that common features, usually used to infer evolutionary relatedness, are actually a sign of parts re-use by a designer.
We have a legislator in East Sedalia who will sponsor an amendment to the bill that will give the option to learn 8th Day Dog Adventist curriculum.
National Science Ed Center on Anti-Evolution Bill: “Last Thing Missouri Teachers Need”
By Sam Levin
Feb. 13, 2013
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2013/02/national_center_science_education_rick_brattin_evolution.php
Excerpt;
The Missouri legislature is getting national attention again — and not exactly the good kind. As we reported last week, Representative Rick Brattin, a Republican, is pushing a proposal to mandate that “intelligent design” be taught in all Missouri schools alongside evolution, telling us that he’s a “huge science buff,” who believes different origin theories should get equal treatment. His comments got him some love from Mother Jones magazine, and now the National Center for Science Education is weighing in. Unsurprisingly, they aren’t pleased.
“This is the last thing Missouri teachers need,” says Eugenie Scott, executive director of NCSE. “Particularly since his definition and understanding of allegedly scientific defintions are simply wrong.”
House Bill 291, called the Missouri Standard Science Act, as we outlined last week, would mandate that textbooks covering any scientific theory of biological origin devote equal treatment to evolution and intelligent design…
“There’s plenty of information on evolution,” she says. “The trouble is intelligent design has shown no ability whatsoever to explain nature. So there’s really nothing to present for the intelligent design position as science…. And a careful reading of the intelligent design position would quickly reveal that the message is…evolution doesn’t work.”
And on top of all these concerns, it also makes little sense to have lawmakers dictate so closely the content of a subject in the classroom. “It goes to such extraordinary detail about all of these specifics that teachers ought to be teaching.”
Justin, The civility rule is key in creating the atmosphere that brings a diversity of opinion.