Why, oh why, doesn’t someone just explain to these people that, in the vernacular of science, a “theory” is not just an opinion or a fleeting thought?

The Dunns, whom I understand home school their children, should certainly know that in the context of science “creationism” and “intelligent design” are merely hypotheses and that it is the body of scientific evidence collected to support those hypotheses that would constitute “theories.”

There are no bodies of scientific evidence to support those particular “hypotheses,” though, hence there are no “theories” to support them.

So far as I know, the terms “hypothesis” and “theory” are still introduced and explained in grade school science curricula...

But do-able, if we dumb down our teachers enough.

I know what: Let's avoid hiring any more with masters degrees, bring in as many as possible with no training or professional experience teaching, and do everything we can to ensure that no good students will ever enter the profession at all.

That should help.

The Supreme Court has already ruled the teaching of ID as unconstitutional.

If this is passed and implemented, TN gets to fork out $$$ to lose a lawsuit.

Meanwhile still no bills to grow jobs.

Thanks. I think Cari did a really good job on that. But for the record, we "noticed" a long time ago (and mentioned it in at least a few earlier stories). We just didn't write about it in detail til it got out of committee, because there are so many weird, dumb, and/or alarming bills floating around the Legislature right now that there's no point devoting a lot of time to them unless and until they start to look like they might become laws. (As for other local media, Gene Patterson grilled Dunn about it pretty well on Tennessee This Week a few weeks ago. Don't know what other broadcast media have done.)

Of course, with the current Legislature, the percentage of weird, dumb, and/or alarming bills with a good chance of passing has gone way up.

Evolution has never been proven, shouldn't be taught.

Presumably this Congresscritter was standing upright and using opposable thumbs. Oh, wait...

Thanks Dunn for protecting teachers from intellectual bullies.

Now if only someone could do something about the anti-intellectual legislators.

Some people want teachers to only teach certain objective scientific facts, bill allows teachers to teach other objective scientific facts.

Some doctors would treat headaches with analgesics, but this would allow doctors to treat headaches with trepanning.

Rep. Butt

Gold.

Make it possible for student to ask difficult questions.

Actually, it shuts down inquiry by elevating charlatanism as on par with the scientific method.

It also makes that biology final so much easier.

Q: Describe the mechanics of the celluar meiosis function necessary to the reproductive cycle.

A: God did it.

All for time for critical thinking. But it is too time consuming. Don't have time to teach critical thinking.

"And that is why you fail."

Won't bring in Buddhism or anything.

Oh, no. Heaven forfend that alternative theories of Creation get introduced to our children...

Unfuckingbelievable.

Plus ça change, etc.

"The most ignorant man, when he is ill, may enjoy whatever boons and usufructs modern medicine may offer -- that is, provided he is too poor to choose his own doctor. He is free, if he wants to, to take a bath. The literature of the world is at his disposal in public libraries. He may look at works of art. He may hear good music. He has at hand a thousand devices for making life less wearisome and more tolerable: the telephone, railroads, bichloride tablets, newspapers, sewers, correspondence schools, delicatessen. But he had no more to do with bringing these things into the world than the horned cattle in the fields, and he does no more to increase them today than the birds of the air.

On the contrary, he is generally against them, and sometimes with immense violence. Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands."

--H.L. Mencken, "Homo Neanderthalensis," 29 June 1925

I think the big problem with this bill is that it effectively removes administrators' ability to remove a teacher who uses religious arguments against science in the classroom. It is vague enough to cause massive amounts of trouble in the hands of a local crusading DAG for instance.