Missouri Bill Would Require Creationism in Biology Class

At least four other states now have creationist education bills

Only one month into 2013, at least five states are considering bills that would allow or promote creationist theories in science class: Missouri, Montana, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Indiana. Of course, not all of these bills will pass – but some of them may.

The most pro-creationist of the proposed laws is a bill introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives, which requires biology textbooks to give "equal treatment to biological evolution and biological intelligent design." The bill also mandates that "biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught" in all classes on the origin of life.

Missouri's is the only bill that requires that intelligent design to be taught in biology class. The other bills allow teachers to introduce it if they wish.

The Supreme Court declared bills requiring intelligent design unconstitutional in the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover.

Missouri already has a law requiring teachers have students "critically analyze" evolutionary theory. Texas, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Alabama all have similar requirements, while Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee allow alternatives to evolution in the classroom, but don't require them.

Do you hope these bills are passed, or would you like to see them defeated?

[RedFloppyShoes]

I am a Christian and a Conservative. I also have a degree in Biology. While creationism has its place in church, It isn't science nor is it history, so it has no place in public school.

[bsking]

Well you as a "Christian", should concede that evolution has as much scientific fact as intelligent design.

or are you 1 of those "Christians" who believe a giraffe evolved with 3 pumping stations strategically placed in order to assure proper blood flow to the brain?

[RoyFloyd]

A great outlook on life. One can respect both faith and science, but the often need to be kept separate.

[Speedieg]

@bsking there is no evidence to support intelligent design or that GOD exists. It is a matter of faith and should be left to that. This bill is about religion not teaching useful skills. Maybe I'll try that on my next project, I won't do anything and when my very religious boss asks me why I'll state I'm waiting on GOD to do it.

[Speedieg]

@bsking you really have a problem with judging people and making unfounded statements about people you don't agree with. None of my family is unemployed nor would I suffer from the loss of a job. I have more than enough assets to live the rest of my life comfortably. No I did not inherit it, my parents were poor. I have earned it through hard work and living modestly alIowing me to retain much of what I have made.

[Thunderchicken]

Damn it Akin!! Will ya knock it off!! ;-0

[PNWest]

Another red state - another GOP representative, more republican "science". The party of stupid marches on.

[Thunderchicken]

@PNWest

It's not that big of a deal. Creationism and intelligent design will be taught along with evolution. I have no problem with that.

[PNWest]

@Thunderchicken Why should Creationism be taught in schools? There are no respected biologists that question evolution and there are no respected biologists that support creationism. Why should religious pablum be taught in science classes? Do you think that this is done in any other country in the world?

[Thunderchicken]

@PNWest

I have no problem with exposing kids to what others may believe. In fact I think intelligent design kinda melds creationism and evolution nicely.(God is a heck of an engineer.:-)

[PNWest]

@Thunderchicken Where do you draw the line then? There are many alternate explanations for various physical phenomena. Why don't we teach that the earth is flat because some ignorant people believe that? While we are at it lets teach that aliens created the pyramids because maybe it happened that way. Maybe we should teach that Hitler escaped and is living in South America. Some folks think that is true.
In fact lets reach every crackpot theory anyone comes up with. Because after all we want to be fair. The fact is that there is a limited amount of hours available to teach our kids. We should concentrated on teaching what has the strongest evidence to support it - not what is popular with some religious nuts.

[stepped_in_it]

"The Supreme Court declared bills requiring intelligent design unconstitutional in the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover."
So, more fodder for the fodder pile! The Supreme law of the United States has already ruled on this and these jackass jockeys want to pass a law that will ultimately be brought BACK up to the Supreme Court only to be told we've already decided on this! We are talking about a waste of taxpayer money and time here!
RE-ELECT NOBODY 2014 & 2016

[thatgirl]

Why do the most extreme of the nut jobs seem to live in MO?-sigh-

[Rocker]

Didn't you get the memo... this year it's y'all turn.

[thatgirl]

@Rocker lol, the dog must have eaten the memo!

[Rocker]

@thatgirl - it happens! <snicker>

[Thunderchicken]

That's why I like it here. It's interesting. ;-)

[thatgirl]

@Thunderchicken Dont know that I would call living here interesting...

[Neo_NtheMatrix]

If we can teach kids they are accidents that mistakenly came into existence, why can't we also teach them the truth, that there is a God out there that created them, loves them, and wants to make sure they lead happy fruitful productive law abiding lives? Or maybe we should teach them what kids are taught in liberal inner cities schools that has their dropout rate in the 60% range?

[Angry_man]

Amen brother

[thatgirl]

Its called Sunday school.

[hankf68]

Truth based on? Leave it out of public schools...

[Synthesis]

Because its not science. You want creationism? Put it in world history where students already learn about the worlds religions, and include the other creation stories too. You will not get creationism in any science class. You get nothing! Good day sir!

[stepped_in_it]

Because PRIMARY education should be just that....primary. If we want to teach creationism, darwinism and/or any other advanced studies, that's what secondary education is for. Jeez, let's teach them the fundamental 3 R's first and after they master those (about the time they reach 13th grade...lol) then we can pump their heads full of other things.

[Pammo]

Every farmer, gardener, & dog breeder knows evolution occurs - in their cases it is called selective breeding. Evolution is the best theory to explain species changing over time. It best explains observations & data & , yes, it is a theory. This is how science works & creationism or intelligent design is not supportdd by evidence. No, scientists are not working against religion. In fact, almost all of the scientists i know have deep faith that is strengthened through their work.

[Arumizy]

Personal i think we are doing the kids a disservice by not teaching all plausible theories, the only thing is how to keep it from being a religious endorsement. All though to be fair evolution has become the atheist religion in a ways.

[hankf68]

Here you go again speaking for Atheist and as one, I will inform you that no, evolution is not becoming our religion, for as Atheist, we don't have any, based on any theory or idea, it's a contradiction, stop speaking about things you clearly know nothing about, just stick to your christian cultism knowledge without your false comments about people you know nothing about.

[harold_lloyd]

Creationism is not a plausible theory. It's not even a good hypothesis. It's an attempt to make reality fit biblical teaching. When you start with the answer and have to alter reality to make it valid, you have gone astray somehow.

[Arumizy]

@hankf68 The sign of the unintelligent, blind insults and disrespect for others beliefs.

[hankf68]

@Arumizy ...if you think me "unintelligent" for what I said, so be it, whatever...I wasn't insulting you personally in any way, I was only responding to your blind assumptions that are insulting to the many who no further believe in fairy tales.. Believe as you wish, I was only saying, stop speaking falsely about a subject and people you know nothing about, that's not an insult, only a request..

[Pete-o]

Theories in science are a series of facts that explain a natural occurrence. A theory in science is also considered a fact. To date, Creationism has not presented a testable hypothesis to be taken seriously as a theory.
You are talking about teaching anything plausible which would include ANY creation story, so it would include creation stories from the Eskimos, Apaches, Mayans, Egyptians, African.
In other words you are talking about a comparative religion class, not a science class.

[lawnmowrman]

Being Agnostic I integrated creation and evolution as a solution for my dilemma with my family. The two fit together very well. Both should be taught in public schools.

[lawnmowrman]

There is no reason to dismiss the possibility that Adam and Eve, assuming they existed, lived in the Garden of Eden for a hundred million years before being expelled.

[stepped_in_it]

@lawnmowrman One (of many) of the great falsehoods of the bible that makes me an atheist is the writings of people living to 400-500 years....another wishful thought of early writings of man.....to live forever!

[Dan_Tien]

@lawnmowrman "There is no reason to dismiss the possibility..." There is no reason, but reason itself.

[DerivePI]

One "creationist theory" that can easily be promoted in schools would be evolution. Yeah, I know, its pretty racy stuff.

[Rocker]

Great!! Like we need to be proud what we've evolved to. Just stick to 'Readin', Ritin', & Rithmatic' and I'll handle that education at home.

[WMCOL]

Teaching creationism in Public Schools as science is to water-down an already watered down educational system and perpetuate the status quo which produces a more inordinate number of ignorant students who are then turned aloose on the world.

Maybe in a religion class it could be one of many theories taught that relies on feelings, speculation, suppositions, inuendo, and lack of fundamental scientific evidence.

[Thunderchicken]

Your local public school is only as good as the board members the community elects. Nut case board members adopt nut case ideas.

[WMCOL]

@Thunderchicken
I used to deal with the nuts by taking a couple of people to a board meeting and taking it over. Usually no one but members show up at meetings so a couple of non-members plus a couple of board members can override the crazies on the board.

[Thunderchicken]

@WMCOL

I never had that problem. Most of the board members are friends that I knew before they became members. Although that changed as the county grew, we still have a pretty good board. I expect that to change still as the big city influence becomes stronger.

[WMCOL]

@Thunderchicken
My scenario described a way to get things done when there is a problem with the kind of "nuts" board members you mentioned.

[Thunderchicken]

@WMCOL

Ya do whatever works.:-)

With ours after the board made several reforms (fired a goofball principal, got the districts finances in order, raised the academic standards and instituted an advanced curriculum for those who tested into it...) things were going well. We were ranked very highly. Now with my kids almost out of school, I haven't been involved too much and I hear from the board members that are left and my youngest that things are getting weird again.(Some out there programs and drugs moving in. I kinda feel bad but I have other stuff to deal with now.)

[PaulBurnett]

It is very important that the scientific illiteracy of creationism - including the pseudoscience of intelligent design creationism - be taught about in schools. The willful ignorance of creationists about evolution, biology and all of science should be displayed to the students and discussed at length, so the students can understand why the anti-science movement exists: Because reality disagrees with the fundagelicals' millennia-out-of-date creation mythology. In the world of actual science, there is no doubt that both the fact and theory of evolution are true, and that the ignorance of creationism and intelligent design creationism are false.

[Russell797]

Thank you for that blunt, rational statement in support of science. However, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Hopefully by the time of the 22nd century the horses will be thirsty enough the drink. Old habits and beliefs die hard.

[rkinsawjoe]

@Russell797 As do horses who refuse to drink.

[DARSB]

2nd!

[Raptor]

Religion belongs it the church not our public schools.

[Thegrif]

Since the odds of one stran of DNA forming on accident, free from intelligent design, are 1 in 10 to the 161 power-
1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000.
The odds of the second stran also formining on accident are even more outragous.
And that is exactly what evolution ask us to believe, that all the information needed to create suns, planets, blades of grass, trees, all known life, or even the human eye ( with 12,000 nerve endings making 122,000 connections in the brain). To think that DNA formed from dumb luck (chance) is one thing, to think that it happened along with all these other things, without the hands of intelligent design, is another.
Chance really doesn't have a chance.

[Russell797]

You are misusing statistics to support your predefined conclusion. Events in nature follow the laws of nature. The four fundamental forces we are aware of explain every interaction we can physically detect. The Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy) guides the formation of structure since order is more efficient at smoothing out gradients than is complete disorder. NO we don't have it all figured out, but we are on the right track in pursuit to that end by utilizing the scientific method.

[stepped_in_it]

Yet, here we are!
I've dealt with many people in my life (as I'm sure you have to). Dealings with these people have convinced me that the "intelligence" in intelligent design just does not always exist. Sometimes to the point of being scary....

[Dan_Tien]

What are the odds that God formed from nothing in order to create everything?

[Thegrif]

In simple terms, the measure of the level of disorder in a closed but changing system, a system in which energy can only be transferred in one direction from an ordered state to a disordered state. Higher the entropy, higher the disorder and lower the availability of the system's energy to do useful work.
Yet we are to believe that at first our planet was free of life, full of poisonous gases, lava flowing volcanos, earthquakes. From that here we are today?
Not in my opinion.

[AndBegin]

the is no such thing as biological intelligent design. It is faith not biology. You tell me how in the hell they would explain adam and eve scientifically without using the word faith?

[Buzzfriendly]

Might as well discuss the relationship between warm weather northern dragon migration and its effect on expectant female trolls lactation cycle.

[NTBFW]

I don't argue religion.

[kyrebel]

The earth is too perfect not to have been created. We are just the right distance from the sun. If we was a little closer, water would evaporate and we would die. If we was farther away, we couldn't survive the cold. If the sun was hotter or colder than it is we would die. We are not here by chance. Someone had to make it, someone had to build it.

The other day someone was flying over a field in a plane. They pushed out four trees, two buckets of sand, a wheel barrel of pvc powder, and 200 steel bars. On the way to the ground, the trees evolved into boards. The sand heated up into glass. The pvc powder heated up into bunch of vynil siding and pipes. The steel bars evolved into thousands of nails. All of it fell exactly unto place and made a house.
If you believe this airplane flight then you believe in...

The miracle of Evolution.....

[norezen]

You just described billions and billions of other planets in the universe.

[S-N-A-F-U]

We're living in perilous times, with wars and atrocities being committed everywhere. Could we be hearkening back to our roots when the Bible was used in schools as a reader, hmmm?

Our debased culture is rife with degradation, the aroma is corrosive to ones thinking process. Methinks, we need all the help we can get.....

"Man cannot direct his own footsteps without God." Jer. 10:23

And so it tiz.....

[Russell797]

You are of the belief that life was somehow better in the past? We are living at the absolute pinnacle of human existence, you should feel fortunate to be alive in the here and now. Our lives are so insulated from the harsh realities that everyone who lived in the past had to endure. Most of us do not appreciate how lucky we are.

[S-N-A-F-U]

@Russell797

In the physical and material sense only. We are at the pinnacle of moral rot and decadence, where personal responsibility, deviant behavior and corruption has been defined down.
http://www.newsmax.com/Boone/moral-compass/20...

http://www.dawodu.com/ajibola1.htm

The following portrays our society as it is right now. A Biblical precursor that defines the "End Times."

"But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreements, slanderers, without self control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstong, puffed up [with pride], lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power, and from these turn away." 2 Tim. 3:1-5

[Russell797]

@S-N-A-F-U We clearly view the world from very different points of view. I can not make the leaps of faith which you seem to have. I am a man of science and for me the world is a materialistic place, made of matter and energy which we do our best to try and understand. I leave it to you to figure out the moral rot and decadence you perceive to have grown worse over time. I don't think human nature has changed a whole heck of a lot, but there are a whole lot more people than there used to be, so naturally you may perceive more of what you find objectionable.

[S-N-A-F-U]

@Russell797

Human nature hasn't changed much since the first couple violated God's admonishments in the 'Garden.' However, more and more of humanity have been exposed to Satan's influences over the earth, as "the god of this system of things," and knowing his time is short, and out of desperation, he has unleashed more sin, havoc, hate and uncertainty on the inhabitants of this earth -- which will finally lead up to mans accountability to his Creator.

"Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short." Rev. 12:12

"In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 cor. 4:4

Regarding science; God is science, he allows man to discover what is already there for discovery. Even a perceptive 'agnostic' scientist, such as the following knows that there is a higher power, but can't define it......

"Religion, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. "
Albert Einstein

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind." Albert Einstein

[Russell797]

@S-N-A-F-U I can believe in what you term a higher power, and also that it can not be defined. For me the mystery is in where or how did the finely tuned laws of nature which govern our universe derive. The answers to these questions are currently beyond the scope of science, however that may not always be the case. For now the best I can say is that these laws "just are".....For now you are free to invoke a god, but then where did the god come from? If god is eternal, then why could not the universe in some sense also be eternal even in a state unimaginable to us?

[jessejaymes]

It remains a mystery to me why it is that your "God" would throw Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden in a rage, would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah in a rage, Part the waters so Moses and the Jews could escape yet bring the waters down and drown thousands of Egyptians, destroy the earth in a rage while "saving" Noah his family, crash down the walls of Jericho to help the "Christians" in a war. YET this same "God" would not lift a finger to help 20 first graders in Newtown. That's not a God. That's a frigging myth.

[stepped_in_it]

But "God has His reasons", "God called them to Heaven", "God works in wonderfulness ways".......etc. Old testament to New testament...Bad God to good God. Good golly miss molly, great balls of fire!

[Dan_Tien]

If it is scientifically impossible that life originated and became increasingly complex without intelligent design, then what is the scientific explanation for the origin and complexity of the proposed intelligent designer?