What! It's not bad enough that Texas is the laughing stock of the country and the world because of the yokels that sit on the State Board of Education and are trying to covertly push the teaching of creatiionism to the detriment of science? So now one of the Texas State House Reps wants to help along the misguided opinions of the SBOE and make a bill that would legislate teaching strengths and weaknesses of evolution? Does Christian think that SBOE can't handle it themselves or did they ask for legislatiion to do this?
Let's examine. The FW Star-Telegram has an article about this bad bill today.
Don’t believe in the theory of relativity?
Students wouldn’t have to and could not be penalized for it in school under proposed legislation filed Friday.
Teachers could not be penalized, either, if they reject plate tectonics or the kinetic theory of gases.
The bill says that neither student nor teacher could be penalized for subscribing to any particular position on any scientific theories or hypotheses.
"Students could claim they believe anything they wanted in anything in science and if that’s what they say, the teacher would be forced to give that student an A," said Steven Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science. "That’s how bad this bill is written."
To add to that, Don McLeroy, the dentist in charge of the SBOE, is pushing a book he particularly likes, Sowing Atheism. Let's see. Here's a guy who says that the science debate has nothing to do with religion or trying to push creationism into schools..but his recommended book for other teachers and the public is about atheism. It isn't even really a book-it's put out by some guy from his home address in the form of a downloadable PDF. And has a big ole section at the back about comparing Genesis accounts wih Greek mythology. I smell a rank hypocrite in McLeroy.
From Texscience.org, which points out, first, that the author of the Sowing Atheism PDF is conflating evolution with atheism, gee, just like McLeroy is conflating creationism with science.
I guess it is too much to hope for that either Mr. Johnson or Dr. McLeroy (who thinks we claim humans are descended from a banana) realize that their knowledge of evolution is completely incompetent. Evolutionary scientists say humans and worms (and bananas) share a common ancestor, not that we are descended from them. Also, evolution is not solely a chance process; if it were, the biological diversity we have today would be essentially impossible. The natural selection component of evolution does not operate by chance, but by mechanistic and deterministic processes that are devoid of chance and operate by statistal laws. Natural selection operates on genetic variation, which provides the random or chance element necessary for evolution to proceed, but natural selection, the non-chance component, is equally essential. Modern scientists are fully convinced that these two components explain the diversity of life.
On what other states are doing. Here's from March 13 2009.
- Mississippi - dead in committee
- Oklahoma - dead in committee
- Iowa - dead in committee
- New Mexico - in committee
- Alabama - in committee
- Missouri - in committee
- Florida - in committee
- Texas - at state board
P.S. Here's some pretty hilar reviews for that dang book.
Consider this passage:
"Imagine yourself standing in the administrative offices of your local junior high school. You are there to bring a forgotten lunch to one of your children. Two tall, forbidding men enter wearing black business suits with red-letter NAS (National Academy of Sciences) armbands. They sneer and brush past you. They ignore the receptionist and the other people working there, and head straight for the principal's office. Just as the startled educator looks up at the intruders, both slam their fists on his desk. In unison, they cry, "We represent infallible science. You must teach these children that they are descended from reptiles. It is impossible to disprove our findings, and wrong to challenge them; therefore, no other point of view will be tolerated."
So now scientists dress like identical twin Nazis, too? Really? This book is good for a laugh, then a tear as you realize that the state of Texas is seriously considering removing the teaching of evolution from schools. If successful, I expect Texas will begin unicorn hunts the following year.
