Antievolution bill dead in Iowa

[struggle4progress]

House File 183, the so-called Evolution Academic Freedom Act, died in committee in the Iowa House of Representatives on March 13, 2009. The bill purported to protect the right of teachers in the state's public schools and instructors in the state's public community colleges and state universities to "objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological evolution," providing that they "shall not be disciplined, denied tenure, terminated, or otherwise discriminated against" for doing so. Also, the bill added, although students "shall be evaluated based upon their understanding of course materials through standard testing procedures," they "shall not be penalized for subscribing to a particular position or view regarding biological or chemical evolution ... http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/03/antievolution-bill-dead-iowa-004653

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:


Profs protest alternative evolution teaching
Brian Morelli • Iowa City Press-Citizen • February 26, 2009

Professors around Iowa are rallying against a piece of state legislation that supports alternative teaching of evolution, such as creationism, as a scientific view ... The bill maintains that alternate theories on evolution fall under academic freedom, which should be protected for teachers and students that want to present such theories as scientific views in the classroom ... http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20090226/NEWS01/90226004/1079

[Kali]

1. Good. Nice to see sense prevail.

that morons are still trying this shit...:grr:

[Chulanowa]

2. You know, the wording of the bill itself isn't bad...

"objectively present SCIENTIFIC information relevant to the full range of SCIENTIFIC views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological evolution,"

There is, flat-out, NOTHING scientific about ID / Creationism. Nothing. Therefor this bill, if taken as written, would actually exclude those theories.

Of course that would be redundant, wasting legislative time. So... Yeah. Dead bill.

[Posteritatis]

3. Except it allows IDers/creationists to get a free pass

Students "shall not be penalized for subscribing to a particular position or view regarding biological or chemical evolution," meaning the law would forbid a teacher from saying "Uhh, no" if a student denied evolution so long as they prefixed it with the whole "it's my personal belief!" defense.

[Chulanowa]

5. No, they're penalized for having the wrong answer

They can subscribe to whatever they want, but if the answer is X, the answer is X. I'm a religious person myself. But I'm not going to pretend that saying the tectonic forces of the earth are caused by angry spirits is going to be the right answer in a classroom.

[Posteritatis]

6. That law would've disagreed with you (nt)

[Lost in CT]

4. I'm glad to see natural selection is killing off stupid bills. nt

[BadgerKid]

7. By my reading, teachers could circumvent this

by prefacing the test question by something like "According to the chemical/biological theory of evolution,..." I don't understand how the testing of students' understanding of the material taught is a personal challenge of their belief.

[Posteritatis]

9. If you're of the "exposure to 'evil' = temptation" school of thought it would

There's plenty of people these days who think mere exposure to differing opinions is a direct attack on their being. Of them, there's a pretty big number who would use religious reasoning to make it a direct attack on their soul.

"My beliefs do not allow me to answer this question," and going by the letter of that bill a teacher couldn't penalize the student over the answer.

[sakabatou]

8. Let's teach alchemy with chemistry!

Astrology with astronomy! Woo-hoo!

:sarcasm:

[amyrose2712]

10. Or maybe Schizophrenia is possibly caused by

possession by demons. Or that disease is spread by witches rather than microorganism. OYE!

[callous taoboy]

11. Great news! We're battling the same thing here in TX. Sign the petition:

If you'd like to help support science visit Texas Freedom Network:

http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer

[Orsino]

12. Guess Iowa has changed over time. n/t