Two anti-evolution bills have been struck down in South Carolina this week. Both bills died in committee, which is exactly what should happen to all such bills in any state.
From the NCSE article:
Both bills were sponsored by Senator Michael Fair (R-District 6), who spearheaded a number of previous antievolution efforts in South Carolina.
Senator Fair needs to give it a rest and stop wasting the taxpayers’ money with his shenanigans.
Mississippi can now lay claim to hosting the first anti-evolution bill of 2010, according to the National Center for Science Education. Gary Chism (R-District 37), who last year introduced a bill that would have required biology textbooks to include a classic creationist disclaimer about evolution, has sponsored this new bill, HB 586.
From the NCSE article:
[The bill] would, if enacted, require local school boards to include a lesson on human evolution at the beginning of their high school biology classes. The catch: "The lesson provided to students … shall have proportionately equal instruction from educational materials that present scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution."
Chism seems to be a classic creationist… meaning that he has no business poking his nose into the science education of our children. This is from the NCSE article referring to his 2009 bill…
Speaking to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (January 24, 2009), Chism was candid about his motivations for the bill [HB 25 from 2009], explaining, "Either you believe in the Genesis story, or you believe that a fish walked on the ground," and adding, "All these molecules didn’t come into existence by themselves." HB 25 died in committee on February 3, 2009.
Chism is obviously ignorant about evolution.
The (sort of) bright side is that the newly proposed bill also says…
The lesson provided to students shall not evidence bias through selective instruction on the theory of evolution, but rather, shall have proportionately equal instruction from educational materials that present scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution.
I’m amused by the phrase "selective instruction," but the good part is the phrase "educational materials that present scientifically sound arguments." As anyone who’s honestly studied evolution knows, there are no scientifically sound arguments against evolution… so Mississippi could be safe. I doubt Chism sees it that way, however, so perhaps we should still be worried.
Let’s hope HB 586 suffers the same fate as HB 25.
(via)
Over at EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse links to an editorial by Steven Newton, a project director for the National Center for Science Education. The editorial is posted on Huffington Post, which, as Rosenhouse points out, is "not usually the go-to place for intelligent commentary on scientific issues," but in this case, Steven Newton represents the NCSE and does it quite well.
Some excerpts:
From evolution to global warming to vaccines, science is under assault from denialists–those who dismiss well-tested scientific knowledge as merely one of many competing ideologies. Science denial goes beyond skeptical questioning to attack the legitimacy of science itself.
[…]
Science requires conclusions about how nature works to be rooted in evidence-based testing. Sometimes progress is slow. But through a difficult and often frustrating process, we learn more about the world.
Science denialism works differently. Creationists are unmoved by the wealth of fossil, molecular, and anatomical evidence for evolution. Global-warming denialists are unimpressed by mountains of climate data. Denialists ignore overwhelming evidence, focusing instead on a few hoaxes, such as Piltdown Man, or a few stolen e-mails. For denialists, opinion polls and talk radio are more important than thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles.
[…]
Understanding science has never been more important than it is today. Critical issues such as climate change and the threat of newly evolved flu strains demand greater scientific literacy among the public and politicians. As long as scientists must squander their time defending their work from denialism, we will fall behind on our fundamental responsibilities.
Check out the full piece. Newton makes some great points about denialism, things I’ve seen happen over and over. What makes it increasingly frustrating is that the denialists themselves can’t recognize what they’re doing. They think they’re actually being scientific. They think they’re rational. They think they have actual damning evidence.
They’re not, they aren’t, and they don’t.