Creationist devolution in South Dakota & Virginia
Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of the National Center for Science Education, reports on the latest salvos by creationists in these beleaguered states:
SOUTH DAKOTA "INTELLIGENT DESIGN" BILL KILLED
South Dakota's Senate Bill 112, which would, if enacted, provide that
"no school board or school administrator may prohibit a teacher in
public or nonpublic school from providing instruction on intelligent
design or other related topics," was killed in the Senate Education
Committee on February 6, 2014, according to the Rapid City Journal
(February 6, 2014).
The bill was killed at the request of its primary sponsor, Jeff Monroe
(R-District 24), who told the Associated Press (February 6, 2014) that
he decided that it was poorly written: "Some members of the Senate
Education Committee agreed with the bill, but they would have had to
vote against it, based on the fact that it was written poorly."
Monroe told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader (February 6) that the bill
"was getting too big for the amount of benefit that would come of it.
... I think there are better ways to do this that don't scare the
daylights out of school boards and get everybody riled up." He also
told the newspaper that he thought that students should be allowed to
"see both sides."
"I'm not sorry to bid farewell to Senate Bill 112, which was flawed in
ways that go far beyond its faulty drafting," NCSE's executive
director Ann Reid commented. "But anyone concerned about the quality
of science education in South Dakota should stay alert, in case a
similar bill comes down the pike in a future legislative session."
CONTINUING CONCERN IN SOUTH DAKOTA
"A South Dakota lawmaker wants public school teachers to be free to
teach intelligent design in their classrooms even though courts have
ruled intelligent design is inherently religious -- and therefore
unconstitutional in school," according to a report from KMEG 14,
headquartered in Sioux City, Iowa, just across the Missouri river from
South Dakota. The report was discussing South Dakota's Senate Bill
112, which would, if enacted, require that "no school board or
school administrator may prohibit a teacher in public or nonpublic
school from providing instruction on intelligent design or other
related topics."
NCSE's deputy director Glenn Branch told the station, "A federal court
has already established in 2005 that teaching intelligent design
creationism in the public schools is unconstitutional. (SB 112 is) in
effect encouraging teachers to teach intelligent design creationism
confident in the knowledge that there's a law telling their
superiors that they can't interfere with that." Warning of the
potential for litigation as the result of enacting the bill, he
commented, "In the case (Kitzmiller v. Dover) that provoked the
decision in 2005, a local school district was left paying a million
dollars and it could have been more."
A sponsor of the bill, Jeff Monroe (R-District 24), argued that the
Kitzmiller case is irrelevant: "That case was based on the fact that
it forced the teachers to introduce it. That's different from this."
But KMEG's report quoted a key passage from the Kitzmiller decision:
"intelligent design cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and
thus religious, antecedents." KMEG also quoted the superintendent of a
local school district as reporting that no elected officials have
sought his advice on the bill and as saying, "We don't plan on
changing the way we teach right now and will be following the law of
the land."
MIXED NEWS FROM VIRGINIA
Virginia's House Bill 207, which would deprive administrators of the
ability to prevent teachers from miseducating students about
"scientific controversies," is in search of a home. On February 3,
2014, the House Committee on Education referred the bill to the House
Committee on Courts of Justice on a 14-8 vote. But, unusually, the
latter committee refused to accept the bill, so it returns to the
former committee, which is expected to consider it again at its
February 5, 2014, meeting.
The referral was recommended by the House Subcommittee for Elementary
and Secondary Education, which voted 4-3 for it at its January 30,
2014, meeting,according to the Washington Post (January 31, 2014). The
bill's sponsor Richard P. "Dickie" Bell (R-District 20), who chairs
the subcommittee, was one of the three voting against the referral, so
the vote is regarded as a setback for the bill.
The day before the subcommittee hearing, the Post (January 29, 2014)
reported on HB 207, quoting Bell as acknowledging that evolution and
climate change "might fall into the category" of scientific
controversies mentioned by the bill. Those topics were cited in
similar bills enacted in Tennessee and Louisiana. Bell earlier told
The Recorder (January 23, 2014) that he was himself a creationist and
regarded global warming as "all theory at this point."
Discounting HB 207's appeal to "lofty secular ideals of openness and
inquiry," NCSE's deputy director Glenn Branch told the Post that
"giving teachers this license will encourage them to use it, and no
one will know what is going on." Branch earlier explained to The
Recorder, "After all, they could claim that in doing so, they're
simply helping their students to understand the scientific strengths
and scientific weaknesses of evolution, climate science,
heliocentrism, etc."
Juanita Jo Matkins, a past president of the Virginia Association of
Science Teachers -- representing the supposed beneficiaries of the
bill -- told the Post that the bill was unnecessary, citing the
emphasis on critical thinking and scientific exploration throughout
the Virginia state science standards. "That is part and parcel of
every standard," she said. Matkins also took exception to the bill's
emphasis on "opinion" and "belief."
Walter Witschey, a professor of science education and anthropology at
Longwood University as well as a past president of the Virginia
Academy of Science and a former director of the Science Museum of
Virginia, attended the subcommittee hearing, and told NCSE that about
ten people spoke in opposition to HB 207, including a variety of
science teachers, representatives of science teaching organizations,
and representatives of religious organizations.
According to Witschey, Bell said that the bill was brought to him by
the Virginia Christian Alliance. The organization explicitly promotes
young-earth creationism, and its vice president of public policy Rita
Dunaway, who also works for the Rutherford Institute, represented Ohio
middle school teacher John Freshwater in hisfailed appeal of his
dismissal for insubordination, which included his use of antievolution
methods and materials in the classroom.
WRIC (January 31, 2014) later reported that Bell acknowledged that he
was approached by the Virginia Christian Alliance and that he claimed
that the bill would allow students to challenge topics like evolution
and global warming -- although only teachers, not students, are
mentioned in the text of the bill. Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson of the
Secular Coalition of Virginia described the bill as "code for
creationism" and as "completely unnecessary."
"INTELLIGENT DESIGN" BILL DEEMED "ODD"
South Dakota's Senate Bill 112 was deemed the "odd bill of the week"
by the Rapid City Journal (February 2, 2014). As NCSE previously
reported, the bill would, if enacted, require that "no school board
or school administrator may prohibit a teacher in public or nonpublic
school from providing instruction on intelligent design or other
related topics." The newspaper commented, "If South Dakota lawmakers
can't tell schools what to teach, some apparently are willing to try
the old double-negative end run, and instead prohibit schools from
prohibiting what can be taught."
Nothing that the bill "could lead to legal challenge in any public
schools that might make "intelligent design" part of a curriculum
and that teaching "intelligent design" in the public schools was ruled
to be unconstitutional by a federal court in the 2005 case Kitzmiller
v. Dover, the Journal speculated, "This measure may fall into the
category of bills that South Dakota lawmakers file each year just to
make a personal political statement." SB 112 is not yet on the
calendar of the Senate Education Committee, to which it was referred
after its introduction on January 29, 2014.
Read more:
http://ncse.com/news/virginia
http://ncse.com/news/south-dakota
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What are we, colonies of England again? 
