By R.K. Barry
Think Progress had a piece yesterday on pending legislation in Tennessee that would open the door to curtailing the teaching of evolution by prohibiting administrators, according to the bill's summary, from:
prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming.
It will also apparently allow teaching religious and pseudo-scientific ideas -- such as creationism or intelligent design -- as legitimate scientific theories comparable to evolution.
In essence, this means that teachers are to be allowed to help students question the scientific validity of evolution while presenting creationism as a legitimate alternative theory.
Of course, there is no question among scientists that evolution is one of the most widely accepted principles of modern science. But this is the approach of the pro-creationist types who like to suggest that one theory is as good as the next, and what is science anyway? Just a bunch of people addicted to facts.
As for myself, the matter was settled years ago by Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind, the famous movie about the Scopes Trial. You can access a wonderful clip from the movie here.
Spencer Tracy said it; I believe it; and that settles it (for me).
(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)
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