Anti-Evolution Missouri Bill Requires College Students to Learn About Destiny

[demmiblue]

Source: Mother Jones

Late last month, Rick Brattin, a Republican state representative in Missouri, introduced a bill that would require that intelligent design and "destiny" get the same educational treatment and textbook space in Missouri schools as the theory of evolution. Brattin insists that his bill has nothing to do with religion—it's all in the name of science.

"I'm a science enthusiast...I'm a huge science buff," Brattin tells The Riverfront Times. "This [bill] is about testable data in today's world." But Eric Meikle, education project director at the National Center for Science Education, disagrees. "This bill is very idiosyncratic and strange," he tells Mother Jones. "And there is simply not scientific evidence for intelligence design."

HB 291, the "Missouri Standard Science Act," redefines a few things you thought you already knew about science. For example, a "hypothesis" is redefined as something that reflects a "minority of scientific opinion and is "philosophically unpopular." A scientific theory is "an inferred explanation...whose components are data, logic and faith-based philosophy." And "destiny" is not something that $5 fortune tellers believe in; Instead, it's "the events and processes that define the future of the universe, galaxies, stars, our solar system, earth, plant life, animal life, and the human race."

The bill requires that Missouri elementary and secondary schools—and even introductory science classes in public universities—give equal textbook space to both evolution and intelligent design (any other "theories of origin" are allowed to be taught as well, so pick your favorite creation myth—I'm partial to the Russian raven spirit.) "I can't imagine any mainstream textbook publisher would comply with this," Meikle says. "The material doesn't exist."

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/intelligent-design-missouri-evolution

[hatrack]

1. Kind of like your doctor saying "I'm a HUGE medicine buff" before checking that growth . . .

Whatever, Representative Assclown.

This state just keeps getting stupider by the day.

[TheMastersNemesis]

2. You've Got To Be Effing Kidding?

[LAGC]

3. FFS...

Its scary too, because these wing-nut Republicans are gaining super-majorities in many (mostly rural) states.

Pretty soon we're going to have dual-standards. An entire swath of America ignorant about science.

[hobbit709]

4. too late, we're already there.

[Berlum]

5. A youtube primer on Destiny

[Sheldon Cooper]

6. Wow.

a "hypothesis" is redefined as something that reflects a "minority of scientific opinion and is "philosophically unpopular."

You have got to be kidding me. That statement doesn't even make sense.

[hatrack]

7. I know - come to think of it, his statement is a working definition of creationism

[d_r]

8. yes I really tripped over that one too

college students today are confused enough about what a "hypothesis" is and how to think critically, without state legislatures sticking their hands in to stuff they obviously don't understand. Its like any freaking idiot who can elected in a gerrymandered district suddenly becomes an expert in education and science. But what about the alien astronauts?? HUH?

[Angry Dragon]

11. YES

Space explorers from the planet Adameve stopped here and left packets of DNA to see what would grow.
The plan was for Terra to become a food supply planet.
They never came back because Adameve got sucked into a blackhole.

That should explain everything

[etherealtruth]

9. How .... ? Why....?

How the hell did idiocy come to reign supreme?

I am still stammering and sputtering ....?

[whistler162]

10. Easy just remember it is in Syracuse....

[dawg]

12. I'm a Christian. Here's my perspective on these anti-evolution bills.

They aren't a reflection of the strength of their proponents' convictions. They are a reflection of the weakness of their faith.

Their faith isn't strong enough to handle any ambiguity. Different perspectives scare them, and everything in the Bible must be literally true, just like their preacher explained it, or otherwise there is no God for them at all.

If we allowed them to teach creationism, and only creationism, in the schools, it would only be a matter of time before they were having fierce battles amongst themselves over how many animals were on Noah's ark, where Cain got his wife, and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. That's why we have so many denominations. People who have a weak faith cannot abide anyone thinking anything different from exactly what they believe.

The best solution is to teach science in school and to teach religion at church. And at home, anything goes!