by celerrimus
Some people in Texas have lost their grip on reality:
[Via Bad Astronomy]
I simply don’t know how else to put it. I can only phrase this so many ways, write about it so many times without repeating myself. So I’ll let the Texas Freedom Network say it.
No, I have to say something. Creationists in the government will try anything, do anything, …
[More]
With politicians like this, I sometimes wonder how anyone in Texas ever learned any science in the schools there. I certainly hope House Bill 4224 has no chance of passing. As currently drafted, it would allow teachers to teach just about anything in science. They could teach the Earth was flat or that the Sun went around the Earth, as long as they were doing it to show a weakness.
It would also not allow any student to be penalized if they subscribed to that same view, or any other one, on any scientific hypothesis or theory. If they believe in INtelligent Design, they can not be penalized in any way, presumably including grades.
Now, this is obviously directed at evolution but the law seems to be so poorly written that a Young Earth creationist could teach that the Earth was 10,000 years old and that would be perfectly legal.
What will probably happen is the same thing that happened to me 3 decades ago in Texas. We were fighting against Creationists on the Board of Education way back then.
I took 2 years of Biology in High School in Houston. We used the BSCS yellow book for the first year and an ad hoc set of books for the second. Evolution was a big part of the book but for some reason, we never seemed to get to that section.
We did lab experiments with mutated fruit flies but never got any instruction about the relevance to natural selection. Evolution was just never taught. I remember asking and was told that the syllabus had evolution at the end, because it was so hard. And, what with one thing or another, there was never enough time at the end of the course to fit it in.
I would not be surprised to see a similar thing happen. It is a lot easier for most teachers to just evade any controversy by evading the subject. They will discuss what they explicitly have to and nothing else.
Now this sort of anti-science approach, which indicates a severe misunderstanding of how science actually works, is not always a partisan one. Just this week, the House in Washington passed one of its many non-binding resolutions declaring March 14 as Pi Day. (Get it. 3/14. The first 3 digits of pi)
Both a Democrat and a Republican, the ranking members on the House Science Committee, sponsored the bill, HR 224. It passed 391-10. All 10 votes Nay votes were from Republicans. One, Paul, is also a Texan. Interestingly, Pence changed his vote from a Yea to a Nay. And according to his Twitter, so did Chaffetz.
There always have to be a few stick-in-the-muds when others are trying to be a little light hearted. I guess I could see the viewpoint of some Very Serious Congressmen who do not want to deign to vote for such a mundane resolution (although the House does this ALL the time). But why not just abstain instead of voting no?
And what kind of politician CHANGES their vote on a non-binding resolution about pi?
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