Earlier this week, the Volunteer State took a big step backward when Tennessee joined Louisiana to become the second state in America to enact an "academic freedom" bill. Tennessee's new law invites creationist teachers to interject religion into science classrooms -- and forbids administrators from stopping them.
These "academic freedom" bills purport to "create an environment ... that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, [and] develop critical thinking skills" regarding "scientific controversies." On its face, that doesn't sound too radical -- who is opposed to encouraging more critical thinking in the science classroom?
The problem is how they define "critical thinking." To paraphrase The Princess Bride, they keep using those words; I do not think they mean what they think they mean.
For one thing, the law isn't about "critical thinking" in general, but focuses on four alleged controversies: "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."
What is taught in public schools about evolution and climate change is simply not controversial among scientists. Sure, legions of creationists and climate change deniers convey the opposite impression; doubt is their product, as it was for the tobacco industry when it sought to downplay the link between smoking and lung cancer. But within the scientific community, where consensus is reached through research rather than ideology, the idea that evolution and climate change are scientifically controversial is laughable. Don't take my word for it: polls demonstrate that the percentage of scientists who accept evolution and climate change is in the high 90s.
The law is misleading when it implies that evolution and climate change are scientifically controversial topics, and that teaching non-scientific "alternate views" will somehow improve critical thinking. What will be the consequences for science education in Tennessee?
For students lucky enough to have good teachers, probably not much will change. The new Tennessee law does not require teachers to introduce misinformation to "balance" the textbook or the curriculum. Unlike Tennessee's infamous Butler Act, under which John Scopes was tried in 1925, this new bill does not make it a crime to teach human evolution.
This new law allows -- indeed, encourages -- teachers who are already inclined to attack evolution and climate science to do so. Unlucky students may be subjected to creationist or climate-change-denying rants from their teachers. And if students or parents object, the law forbids school boards and administrators from doing anything about it.
Creationism is already part of America's public schools. Nationally, 1 in 8 high school biology instructors teach creationism as a scientifically credible alternative to evolution. A similar fraction of those teachers who discuss climate change also give a platform to climate change denial. The new law will exacerbate the problem and encourage teachers to interject their personal non-scientific and religious views into the science classroom.
But wouldn't this use of public school class time to promote such a religious agenda violate the separation of church and state?
Here the creationists have employed a clever trick. Near the end of the Tennessee law is a provision saying that it:
... shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.
Nice try. The problem is that the language a law uses to describe itself means nothing. What matters, constitutionally, is the purpose and effect of the law. And the clear purpose and effect here is to promote a religious agenda in public schools.
The disclaimer is not going to help. Think of this way: If you come home to find your television and computer stolen, along with a note saying, "This removal of your goods shall not be construed as a burglary," you would not be fooled. Likewise, when Tennessee parents come home to find that their children's First Amendment rights have been violated, a few sentences denying that the law meant to do this will mean nothing. Tennessee parents will not be fooled.
Tennessee was the site of the Scopes trial in 1925, and so Tennessee should be especially concerned about a repeat performance occasioned by the new law. But even aside from the constitutional problems, it's clear that the quality of science education in Tennessee will suffer as a result. As the Memphis Commercial Appeal editorialized, "in a time when a firm knowledge of science is an important element in our students being prepared to compete in the global marketplace, passage of this kind of legislation is baffling."
This is why so many citizens of the Volunteer State have come out against this law. Those who have put their opposition on record include:
Even Gov. Haslam expressed reservations about the new law, declining to sign it on the grounds that he would prefer legislation to "bring clarity and not confusion." (The bill became law automatically, without his signature.)
At a time when so much of the United States' economy and international competitiveness depends upon fields related to science and technology, rather than improving science education and giving our children the best scientific information possible, Tennessee has volunteered to move in the other direction.
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BEST ANSWER: Since “evolution” and “intelligent design” are considered unproven “theoretical concepts”…at least in the study of "how life began" and "the origin of man"... close examination of the elements and features of a perfectly balanced world of nature reveals the fact that the proposition of a world created by an “Intelligent Designer” has infinitely more “evidences” that correlate, leaves fewer questions unanswered, presents unchanged claims that date back to the beginning of time, and makes better practical sense than does “evolution”… which relies on ever-changing suppositions based on a handful of variably designed fossils, a file cabinet full of “abstracts”, and a few laboratories displaying human altered examples of microscopic organisms which they present as “evidence of evolution”! God denying scientists and educators simply need get out more and discover the fascinating world of nature God created!
As for the reality of Klingons, they must be real since we see them often on TV and in the movies. They are also real since an official Klingon Language Institute exists. Moreover, there are fellow humans who speak Klingon during religous ceremonies, including the exchanging of marriage vows. And of course, both the Bible and Shakespeare's plays have been translated into Klingon. In stark contrast, nothing Intelligent Design creationists have offered as supporting evidence comes close to the evidence supporting biological evolution and the existence of Klingons.
This all changed in the mid-1800s with Ellen White, the teenage founder of the Seventh Day Adventist church who claimed to see visions of Noah's flood burying the dinosaurs. This led to George McReady Price's teachings in the early 1900s about "flood geology". These teachings, and general anti-science sentiment were widely adopted by the nascent Fundamentalist movement not on their own merits, but because they saw them as tools to use against a general erosion of belief in the Bible.
This led to Henry Morris's "The Genesis Flood" in 1961. Henry Morris's organization, the Institute for Creation Research, is still around today, joined by Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis. These are now multi-million dollar organizations which sell homeschooling materials and sponsor creation museums (usually with a large ark). Many such museums even show Noah loading 2 dinosaurs on the ark.
Sites like http://truecreation.info, http://biologos.org expose the sham of creation science in all its forms.
Please take note that the book was published in 1909!
* Schools are forbidden to advocate ANY religion.
* Schools are forbidden to teach Creationism because it is nothing less than advocating Christian religious doctrine.
* ID is nothing less than Creationism.
Those who propose ID be taught in schools care not one iota about what is actually legal. They, like their more honest Creationists, have but one tactic to promulgate their goals: they lie. As has been said before regarding Creationists by William J. Benetta, "They lie continually, they lie prodigiously, and they lie because they must."
But what worries me is the majority who, through the shyness and uncertainty and the lack of information normal for children of that age, will be unable to challenge their teachers and stand up for their constitutional rights. After all, how many children--not to mention adults!--truly understand how the First Amendment governs religious content in science classrooms?
What alternative is there to global warming theory? Some 97-98% of the world's top climate scientists accept it. Do you think we should be things in public school science classes that almost no scientists qualified in the field believe?
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/carbon-kb.htm
for the T-rex soft tissue
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0020381
see actually reading up on a topic can be fun and informative.
I can't understand why climate science and global warming have become a right-wing issue but the students themselves will eventually humiliate any teacher advocating the Koch Brothers positions.
If the Christians in the Military, led by Petreus, would ease off trying to convert the Afghan Nation to Christianity maybe they would take us seriously.
problem solving...biblical history......church rules for health care....why...in no time at all we will be
the population that lived in the most advanced centers of learning....in the 14th century.... pity
the children who will be educated in tennessee and must compete for positions in higher
education and in the job market.
Although, I wouldn't be so worried about going to war with a group that uses "alternative math", as their weapons would end up quite useless.