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2016's First Batch of Anti-Science Education Bills Arrive In Oklahoma (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: It's only January and we're already seeing the first anti-science education bills of 2016 going through the Oklahoma legislature. The state's lawmakers fight over this every year, and it looks like this year won't be any different. "The Senate version of the bill (PDF) is by State Senator Josh Brecheen, a Republican. It is the fifth year in a row he's introduced a science education bill after announcing he wanted 'every publicly funded Oklahoma school to teach the debate of creation vs. evolution.' This year's version omits any mention of specific areas of science that could be controversial. Instead, it simply prohibits any educational official from blocking a teacher who wanted to discuss the 'strengths and weaknesses' of scientific theories.
The one introduced in the Oklahoma House (PDF) is more traditional. Billed as a 'Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act' (because freedom!), it spells out a whole host of areas of science its author doesn't like: 'The Legislature further finds that the teaching of some scientific concepts including but not limited to premises in the areas of biology, chemistry, meteorology, bioethics, and physics can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on some subjects such as, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.'"
The one introduced in the Oklahoma House (PDF) is more traditional. Billed as a 'Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act' (because freedom!), it spells out a whole host of areas of science its author doesn't like: 'The Legislature further finds that the teaching of some scientific concepts including but not limited to premises in the areas of biology, chemistry, meteorology, bioethics, and physics can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on some subjects such as, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.'"
Why don't we add an amendment to this law saying that anyone in violation will be considered to be a witch and burned at the stake accordingly.
This must be why Oklahoma is such an economic powerhouse. Oh wait, turns out they are the dead last state in GDP. I'm sure these progressive laws had nothing to do with that, not a thing.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The one percenters can't win an election, not enough voters even when half the voters stay home. They require a large block of people who vote as directed, and the religious right provides those voters. So long as the men in charge of their congregation get their quid pro quo, the voters will be directed to keep voting republican forever. Of course this does require the occasional "Christian" act in public, like this bill.
If I were a science teacher I would specifically teach how the theory of gravity (General Relativity) has far more weaknesses than evolution. Also how the germ theory of disease has had to undergo changes when asymptotic carriers, viruses causing cancers, and bacteria causing ulcers, etc. were discovered.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Actually, there have been a few times (at least) where FOX News has 'accidentally' changed the R to a D when a politician has been caught in a scandal.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I would say a small part of it is that there is no equivalent to the Tea Party among Democrats. I mean, I've never heard anyone describe a politician as "Liberal in Name Only" (LINO), but you hear the calls of RINO all the time from the right.
Probably the closest group on the liberal side in terms of kookiness, is the so called SJW's. But that is a very small and not organized group, and most people recognize them for what they are. Not a real threat, more part of the noise. Some of the things they demand are sortakinda being addressed, but aside from silliness like "banning bossy" and women only coding classes, they really are fringing it. Their ideology would be proven just as useless as the teabaggers "I got mine - screw you!" and unworkable financial ideas.
It's like they're trying so hard to prove that they're more conservative than the next guy, that it removes options from the playbook (to mix my metaphors a little), because using one of those options, why that means you're a RINO.
What I don't get, is how did the kooky base get to decide what a Republican is? While I'm a registered independent, until 2000, I was a pretty reliable Republican voter - at least 75 percent. Mostly on financial issues. Then they party turned. First the Trotskyite neocons, then the Teabaggers took over. Now we're looking at Trump and/or Cruz?
Hellamighty - one's a Putin Clone, and the other - well, you need to look up what Dominionists are.
I keep having this recurrent dream that Barry Goldwater is resurrected and saves the Republican Party from itself.
So they have to cater to the ultra-conservative core of the party who espouses these views.
It's like Chanty Binx determining what a true Democrat is.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yeah, that's kind of a problem. We live in a Bible Belt state. My wife is a middle school science teacher. State law requires evolution to be taught. But the School Board doesn't allow the word evolution.
Weirdly, that's probably the best thing possible. By not using the word, she gets to bypass all of the kids preconceptions. She also teaches scientific method, ecology, genetics, nuclear physics, plate tectonics (and a few other subjects). She has them openly debate genetic engineering and the pros/cons of different types of nuclear power.
When she's done, they know the subject wells enough that her guest speakers from a local university are generally shocked to find 8th graders more articulate on the subject than their freshman and sophomore students. In a district that doesn't permit the word evolution.
FYI She's religious, believes in evolution and old earth, but never tells the kids her beliefs. She teaches them how to think and decide for themselves.