7 Science-Education Battlegrounds of 2011

[n2doc]

By Dave Mosher April 16, 2011

Less than four months into 2011, lawmakers in seven states have proposed nine pieces of legislation designed to undermine public science education.

It's a record-breaking pace on schedule to eclipse 11 similar bills proposed in 2009.

"There's been a rising tide of not just evolution denial, but science denial all the way around," Robert Luhn of the National Center for Science Education wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. "Creationists and their kin are attacking global-warming science, plate tectonics, the Big Bang and on and on."

Most of the new proposals aren't explicit attacks on the separation of church and state. Rather, they tend to emulate the Louisiana Science Education Act, an anti-science education law passed in 2008.

more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/anti-science-laws-2011/

[WatsonT]

1. They can teach creationism in schools

when evolution is taught in churches.

Deal?

[vim876]

2. Bad idea.

There are already some churches that teach and/or support evolution. I still don't want any church in my state.

[dimbear]

3. That's a real site on the billboard. A cemetery for dead minds.

You can't leave comments, for some reason. I wanted to explain the atheist plot that lead to naming human blood types after monkeys.

Did you know US police departments couldn't tell ape blood from human up until the 40's? I wanted to leave a post on that atheist plot too.

Now I'm feeling frustrated.

[Lionel Mandrake]

4. plate tectonics, the Big Bang, & global-warming

There are still some young-earth creationists (YECs) attacking Darwin with their metaphorical pitchforks and bibles. Their objections to plate-techtonics and the Big Bang are easily understood. Geology and cosmology show that the ages of the Earth and the universe, respectively, are much greater than what you get by counting the "begat's" in the bible.

It's not so obvious why fundies don't want to hear about global warming. I suspect this has more to do with politics than religion.

[Thor_MN]

5. How could mere man affect guhAWduhUH's creation?

Never ceases to amaze me that one could get four sylables from three letters...

Any way, if man could affect the earth, that might challenge authority...

[Lionel Mandrake]

7. Ah buhLEEyuv you may have a point there.

To the extent that they reason at all, fundies may very well be reasoning along the lines you suggested.

But I don't see it their way. I say that if tiny little cyanobacteria and their descendants (chloroplasts) could modify the atmosphere, there's no reason why big-brained apes like us shouldn't be able to modify it, too. I mean, we're in charge, right? Isn't that what one of the gods decided?

[dimbear]

6. Know why South America and Africa fit together so well? One word:

Satan.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. Did Satan pull them apart?

Or did he make them look like they fit together, just to lead us astray?