More Stealth Creationist Bills in Five More States, As the DI Mask Slips in Virginia
Sci/Tech | Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:40:38 pm PST
The deceptive “academic freedom” bills inspired and sponsored by the creationists at the Discovery Institute are multiplying out of control. In addition to the bills currently pending or already passed in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, creationists are also pushing very similar legislation in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Michigan, Missouri, and South Carolina.
Senate Bill 433, introduced in the New Mexico Senate on February 2, 2009, and referred to the Senate Education Committee, is the third antievolution bill to be introduced in a state legislature in 2009. If enacted, the bill would require schools to allow teachers to inform students “about relevant scientific information regarding either the scientific strengths or scientific weaknesses pertaining to biological evolution or chemical evolution,” protecting teachers who choose to do so from “reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so.”
The phrase “academic freedom” is not present in the bill, but it is clearly in the mold of the recent spate of antievolution “academic freedom” bills. As NCSE’s Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott recently wrote in Scientific American, “’Academic freedom’ was the creationist catchphrase of choice in 2008: the Louisiana Science Education Act was in fact born as the Louisiana Academic Freedom Act, and bills invoking the idea were introduced in Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and South Carolina.” Oklahoma, with its Senate Bill 320, joined the list in 2009.
And for the anniversary of the birthday of Charles Darwin this February 12th, the Discovery Institute is also sponsoring Academic Freedom Day on college campuses. In a typical Orwellian passive-aggressive inversion of reality, they call this “honoring Charles Darwin.”
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