Gus Blackwell, the Republican state representative who introduced the bill, insists that his legislation has nothing to do with religion; it simply encourages scientific exploration. “I proposed this bill because there are teachers and students who may be afraid of going against what they see in their textbooks,” says Blackwell, who previously spent 20 yearsworking for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. “A student has the freedom to write a paper that points out that highly complex life may not be explained by chance mutations.”
HB 1674 goes further than a companion bill under consideration in the state Senate by explicitly protecting students, teachers, and schools from being penalized for subscribing to alternative theories. It does, however, say that children may still be tested on widely accepted theories such as anthropogenic climate change. “Students can’t say because I don’t believe in this, I don’t want to learn it,” Blackwell says. “They have to learn it in order to look at the weaknesses.” (here)
So… They can answer tests about the material presented in class with “God did it.”
This country is stoo-pid.
Related articles
- Another day, another Oklahoma anti-science bill (dailykos.com)
- Insist That People Coexisted With Dinosaurs… and get an A in Science Class! (richarddawkins.net)
- Oklahoma joins the benighted, tries to pass antiscience bill (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
Connect
Clearly he doesn’t understand the point of education.
If you’re asked what Hamlet did, it’s not acceptable to say that he didn’t do anything because he’s a fictional character.
Whether you believe a theory or not, if you’re learning about it then your questions about the theory must be answered from that perspective.
The dumbing of America continues, and clearly the GOP is doing its darnedest to help.