Bills like these pop up a lot, says evolutionary biologist Josh Rosenau, who works on policy issues for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). But in recent years the language of the bills has been converging, suggesting that it is essentially the same bill being re-introduced around the country, rather than something original to each state.
"It is almost identical language in all of the bills," said Rosenau. "It's a package of bills that we've been tracking since the 2004 'Academic Freedom' bill." That bill, which was passed into law, was based on language generated by the Discovery Institute, which has long pushed for the inclusion of biblical creationism and pseudo-scientific "intelligent design" into science classes in public schools.
The academic freedom approach sounds good because it seems to protect students and teachers from being expelled if they want to argue about creationism, deny climate science, or refer to stem cell research in the classroom. The only catch, said Rosenau, is that it's a solution in search of a problem.
"No one has been expelled," said Rosenau.
On the other hand the bills would create problems for administrators and teachers, said Eric Feaver, president of the Montana Education Association and the Montana Federation of Teachers.
“It affects the supervisors of the schools,” said Feaver, because they would not be able to stop the teaching of religion disguised as science. “Teachers who teach creationism would be immune to punishment.” That basically undermines school supervisors, he said.
In Montana, HB 183 reflects the same "academic freedom" approach, and was introduced by newly sworn-in legislator Clayton Fiscus, a realtor and high school graduate.
Read more at Discovery News
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