Thursday, January 24, 2013

"Academic Freedom" Bill in Colorado

Of all places, I did not expect this to occur in Colorado.  The NCSE has a piece on a new “academic freedom” bill that has been proposed. They write:
House Bill 13-1089 (PDF), introduced in the Colorado House of Representatives on January 16, 2013, and assigned to the House Committees on Education and Appropriations, would create "Academic Freedom Acts" for both K-12 public schools and institutes of higher education in the state of Colorado. If enacted, the bill would, in the words of the summary, "direct teachers to create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming, and human cloning."
This should be a reminder that the influence of the Discovery Institute is alive and well and that they will continue to employ useful idiots who can be easily convinced that “academic freedom” seems like the fair and just thing to legislate, not realizing that it opens the door to attacks on evolution. Some, of course, do realize exactly what they are doing and know that this is a backdoor way of getting creationism taught in the schools.  I don't know how well the legislation is going to fly at the higher levels.  I am betting the learned biologists and palaeontologists won't give it the time of day.

Hat tip to The Panda's Thumb.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:09 PM

    So.... Evolution regards life as a bush of changing, evolving forms of life.

    And.... Creationism regards life forms as supernaturally created and more or less fixed in that form..... never transforming into some other "kind".

    These two models don't appear to share any overlap.

    So.... Calling yourself an evolutionary creationist..... means what, exactly?

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  2. You are referring to proximate causes, not ultimate causes. Taken at face value, it would appear that the two do not overlap, however, I believe in God and I believe that God directs the changes in life through evolutionary processes. There is no dichotomy between acceptance of evolution and belief in God, although many would have you believe that.

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