New creationism bill in Oklaholma
Details here.
So far this year we have:
New creationism bill in Alabama.
HB 133 seeks to “authorize local boards of education to include released time religious instruction as an elective course for high school students.” The bill’s sponsor noted that “Creation has just as much right to be taught in the school system as evolution does and I think this is simply providing the vehicle to do that.”
So far this year we have:
And while you were away …
It’s been nearly seven months since I last posted. For much of that time I was busy as one of the authors of The State of State Science Standards 2012. While I was away, my review of Wiker and Witt’s A Meaningful World appeared in Reports of the National Center for Science Education [pdf]. As you can imagine, I din’t like it very much. Here’s the final paragraph:
A Meaningful World is certainly a work that would not have survived review by a mainstream press. In fact, I would say that it would not have survived as an undergraduate thesis. The very fact that it has appeared in print is symptomatic of the ID movement’s ability to find sympathetic pulpits from which to preach to the choir. No one without preconceived sympathy is going to be convinced by the arguments presented by Wiker and Witt and, like much ID literature, it serves as a justification of belief rather than a scientific or philosophical investigation. It is notable that the publisher chose not to classify the work as science but as discussing religious aspects of nature and meaning
Predictably our creationist friends have been busy and four states have already introduced creationist legislation for consideration, namely:
- Indiana (SB 89)
- Missouri (HB 1226 and HB 1227)
- Oklahoma (SB 1742 – doc)
- New Hampshire (HB 1147 and HB 1148)
Last year you may remember that bills in Florida, Missouri, Texas, Tennessee, New Mexico, Kentucky and Oklahoma all died. It’s nice to see that Missouri and Oklahoma are willing to step up to the plate again.
Status update
Things have been monumentally quiet here over the past year (only 38 posts, and most of those trivial), largely because I have been busy but also because I’ve been thinking about this whole blogging thing. At least for the short term, most of my blogging energy will be devoted to the group history and philosophy of science blog that I participate in, Whewell’s Ghost (also on Facebook and Twitter), and this blog will really only serve as an online notebook, primarily about creationist activity and more for my own benefit. I also may be on Twitter a little more (@jmlynch) with the stress on ‘a little’.
Given that there have been few posts in the past year, I found the following interesting:
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