Kruse said today that he had hoped the House would revise the bill to be closer to his original proposal and was disappointed by Bosma's decision.
Kruse said he will probably introduce the proposal again next year and that lawmakers shouldn't just rely on the Supreme Court's 1987 ruling on the teaching of creationism.
"We have five pretty decent Supreme Court members who have been ruling pretty conservative on a lot of different things and they might have had a different ruling," Kruse said.
Creationists should not be muzzled, instead, our ideas should be able to compete on their merits - especially at school.
I have to hear from a creationist to explain why the need for creationism to be taught in the public school system in required classes instead of as an elective or in their own religious institutions.
When it says "theories of the origin of life" what do you think it is referring to? It is all too obvious that it is referring to SCIENCE. The bill orders that if scientific theories of the origin of life that the teacher must also teach religious beliefs about the origin of life. Now which class do you think teachers mention the scientific theories regarding the origin of life? Could it be science class?
if it was obvious then it would say it. what you are doing here is classic straw manning.
Shhhh......else they will try changing the constitution instead.
That's exactly what they should be doing!
If the religious right want to turn the US into a theocracy or just have publicly funded religion, then they should be god-damn honest and campaign for that. They should campaign to have the separation of church and state abolished. They would still fail, but at least they wouldn't be engaged in the kind of dishonesty that currently characterises the pro-creationism-in-schools lobby.
quote:Creationists should not be muzzled, instead, our ideas should be able to compete on their merits - especially at school.
Preaching to the choir . . .
No one is stopping creationists from doing the scientific research and presenting this research to scientists at conferences and in peer review journals. 3rd grade science class is not an appropriate arena for hashing out which theories have scientific merit.
Got a response today from my House Rep. Since the Speaker of the House killed the bill, my rep didn't say much.
The bill allowing the teaching of the various theories concerning the origin of life (the legislation was amended in the Senate to require theories from multiple religions be taught) is unlikely to receive a committee hearing or vote in the House. The Speaker of the House stated to the media last week that delving into an issue that the US Supreme Court has said is not compliant with the US Constitution is an area we don’t need to get into and he also assigned the bill to the Rules and Legislative Procedures Committee which is generally where bills are assigned to ensure they don’t get committee hearings.
I highly doubt that this legislation will be passed into law or come before me for a vote. However, should it come before me I will certainly keep your concerns and opposition in mind.
Legislators kept their personal opinions about evolution under wraps yesterday, pointing instead to state statutes promising local control to dismiss unanimously two bills on the matter.
The first bill, sponsored by Rep. Gary Hopper of Weare, told teachers to present all scientific theories as works-in-progress that students should challenge. The second, introduced by Rep. Jerry Bergevin of Manchester, required teachers to present evolutionary scientists' political and religious affiliations along with their scientific theories.
Not exactly on topic here, but probably not deserving of it's own thread.
Right now we've got a whole slew of whackos in the State Legislature; it wouldn't have surprised me to see these go the other way.
no, i am not the one stating what is obvious based on a personal POV, I am reading the letter of the law, instead of reading into the letter of the law.
Which class is most likely to teach theories? A required science class or an elective religious studies class?
on a subject with no answer like say "the origin of life"? I would say both have an equal chance for discussion of theories, though I thought science was more concerned with observable evidence, and therefore would probably not dwell on something that there was no evidence for like the origin of life.
And any lawyer worth his salt knows how to hide intention with words. And similarly legislators (an excellent profession for a lawyer) know how to construct the letter of their nascent laws (AKA "bills") in order to hide the intent of those laws.
A CPA friend once showed me some of the tax laws. Various congressmen wanted special tax breaks for themselves or for another party and they got those special tax breaks by getting tax laws passed. Of course, none of those tax laws expressed the desired intent, but rather hid that in the wording, in the "letter of the law". For example, one wanted to be able to write off a cousin in a mental institution as a dependent and so we have the "crazy cousin" tax law which very few can qualify for, one of those few being that congressman. And another congressman wanted to give a special tax break to a private school, so his law had qualification rules, including geographical location, that only that one private school could qualify for.
We have a history of creationist bills that is literally decades long, starting from the 1970's, and from that history we also have a record just as long of the "letter of law" misdirecting wording that they have used to mask their intentions.
No "personal POV" is involved here, just decades of experience.
on a subject with no answer like say "the origin of life"? I would say both have an equal chance for discussion of theories, though I thought science was more concerned with observable evidence, and therefore would probably not dwell on something that there was no evidence for like the origin of life.
Scientific approaches to origins are not theories, but ideas or hypotheses. If enough information is gathered such that one idea becomes dominant, and withstands repeated tests, it could rise to the level of a theory.
Religious dogma is not "theory" as that term is used in science. Rather, it is the exact opposite. It does not rely on data, and on using that data to form and test an hypothesis, but tries to jump to the head of the line and proclaim itself a "theory," as in "Teach both theories" without doing any of the research and testing that is required in science.
What a load of nonsense. It's not only wrong, but its a lie as we all know that science doesn't work that way. But I guess if that's all you got...
Here are a couple of definitions of "theory." Feel free to point out how religious dogma and ancient tribal myths qualify.
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses. Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws.
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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