The New Anti-Science Assault on US Schools

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/12-0

headline:

Published on Sunday, February 12, 2012 by The Guardian/UK

The New Anti-Science Assault on US Schools
In a disturbing trend, anti-evolution campaigners are combining with
climate change deniers to undermine public education

by Katherine Stewart
You might have thought it was all over after the 2005 decision by the
US district court of Middle Pennsylvania (pdf), which ruled in the
case of the Dover Area schools that teaching intelligent design is
unconstitutional. You might have guessed that they wouldn't come back
after the 1987 US supreme court decision in Edwards v Aguillard, which
deemed the teaching of creationism in Louisiana schools
unconstitutional. Or maybe you figured that the opponents of evolution
had their Waterloo in the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial in Tennessee.

They are back. There are six bills aimed at undermining the teaching
of evolution before state legislatures this year: two each in New
Hampshire and Missouri, one each in Indiana and Oklahoma. And it's
only February.

Charles Darwin, circa 1854: 12 February, his birthday, is marked by
International Darwin Day. (photo: Corbis)
For the most part, the authors of these bills are singing a song we've
heard before. Jerry Bergevin, the Republican sponsor of one of the New
Hampshire bills, says of evolution that "It's a worldview and it's
godless." He blames the teaching of evolution for Nazism and
Columbine. Josh Brecheen, the sponsor of the Oklahoma bill, wants to
stop the teaching of "the religion of evolution." These legislators,
and their colleagues in Missouri and Indiana, trot out the hoary line
that evolution is "just a theory" and that real science means saying
that every point of view is just as good as any other.

Most of these bills aren't likely to get anywhere. The Indiana bill,
which specifically proposes the teaching of "creation science", so
obviously falls foul of the supreme court's 1987 ruling that it's hard
to imagine it getting out of committee. The same could be said for the
Missouri bill, which calls for the "equal treatment" of "biological
evolution and biological intelligent design".

Still, it's worth asking: why is this happening now? Well, in part,
it's just that anti-evolution bills are an indicator of the
theological temperature in state houses, and there is no question that
the temperature has been rising. New Hampshire, Indiana, Oklahoma, and
Missouri turned deeper shades of red in the 2010 elections, as did the
US Congress ... (cont)
.

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