Here in Colorado, we're once more faced with a brigade of semi-literate knot heads that want to try to inject their idiotic brand of pseudo-science into classrooms under the aegis of "teaching the controversy" .In other words, teaching creationist nonsense along side evolution. I guess they figure that if they can toss up enough gibberish - and because creationism is simplistic compared to evolution-they can get the rank and file of their captive student audiences to gobble this piffle up.
Phil Plaitt, a physicist, in a post on Jan. 22nd, warned of this impending bollocks:
"I live in Boulder, Colorado, which is a bastion of scientific research. There are four major space science centers here (CU-Boulder, SwRI, the Space Science Institute, and Ball Aerospace), two major atmospheric research centers ((UCAR and NCAR, as well as NIST and many other well-known science research centers.
But the state of Colorado, apparently, still wants to live in the 15th century: Just a few days ago, a bill was introduced into my home state’s legislature that would allow teachers “to miseducate students about evolution, whether by teaching creationism as a scientifically credible alternative or merely by misrepresenting evolution as scientifically controversial.”
Those words are from my good friend and tireless hero for science Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, an organization that has the goal of educating people about real science. The antiscience bill HB 13-1089 is one of the Orwellian-named “Academic Freedom” thrusts by creationists, where legislators claim they just want teachers to have freedom about what they can teach, but is in fact a clear and obvious attack on scientific fields that disagree with the beliefs of the conservative lawmakers. Don’t believe me? Here is the opening shot of the bill:
“The provisions of the acts direct teachers to create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming, and human cloning.”
If this were really about academic freedom, why is it so specific? Why not include all fields of science, instead of just those three? In fact, why not include all academic fields? I’d be fascinated to see literature, art, and math added to that. Or religious study…how about supplementary texts that show the contradictions in the Bible? I wonder how that would go over".
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He goes on to note that all the co-sponsors of this bill are, to a person, Republicans. Well, what would you expect of the STUPID party? The party hijacked by Tea Party extremists, religious fundie crazies and warmongering fools? The party that is so detached from reality they deny any human responsibility for global warming-climate change. That alone shows the worth of the bill, as we must always consider the source.
As it is, our students - especially in high school - are falling behind across a broad swatch of disciplines compared to other nations such as Sweden, Norway, Germany, Singapore and China. Do you think THOSE nations dilute their hard science courses with unproven, impossible bullshit - such as dinosaurs being alive at the time of "Adam and Eve" (see also: http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/idiocy-beyond-belief-charles-pierce.html )
As I showed in a number of earlier blogs, e.g. http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/01/of-russet-dinos-and-first-dino-birds.html, no creationist arguments can be supported. The Bible itself, the source book for much of this crap, can't even get scientific facts partially right, e.g. http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-bible-based-scientific-idiocy.html, which is no surprise since it was scribbled by scientifically illiterate nomads. So why in the hell would anyone of normal I.Q. want to teach this ancient bull pockey to any student of the 21st century?
The answer has to be to brainwash the student into being a religious goober or pawn. An unthinking yokel who lacks any questioning or critical thinking aptitude. The fact is, any state which turfs out evolution to accept Adam and Eve and creationism, is already dumb as a sack of hammers. Any state which attempts to mount the Ten Commandments on court house steps, as if our jurisprudence is based on them, is also a collective pack of morons. But it seems that if this asinine bill isn't slain where it stands, Colorado may join the ranks of the dumb Confederate states, like MS, AL, TX. None of us living in this state want that, given we pride ourselves as having the 2nd highest proportion of university grads in the nation - and we interpret that to mean that those university educated ought to side with reality, not mythology or ancient fairy tales.
It would be a cruel injustice to our students to force them to listen to two "sides" of how the Earth and life on it originated and evolved. There is only ONE side, and that is what needs to be taught. And it isn't a matter of being "afraid" of creationism, but rather realizing that every minute consumed by this bullshit is a minute lost for teaching scientific principles and reality - even made more difficult now with state wide tests gobbling so much precious class time.
The (majority) Dems in the Colo. state house need to shut this baloney law down and never let it come up for a vote again. Spreading ancient bull crap is not democracy, it's all about endorsing buffonery!
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