ThomasT said:
I'm just asking exactly how the bill might be used to promote religious opinions over scientific ones. So far nobody's answered, or even addressed, that question.
I believe the above question by ThomasT is a very important one. Q_Goest has posted a superb explanation of some of the objectionable aspects of Tennessee House Bill 368 and Senate Bill 893. So, at the risk of repeating material that has already been posted, below are some examples of how the bill can be used to promote religious opinions over scientific evidence. This list is not complete; there are even more criticisms.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam indicated that he opposed this so-called “monkey bill,” but he refused to veto it. Instead, he allowed it to become law without his signature. Haslam released this statement: “The bill received strong bipartisan support, passing the House and Senate by a three-to-one margin, but good legislation should bring clarity and not confusion. My concern is that this bill has not met this objective.”
Opponents point out that there is no scientific controversy in the subjects mentioned in the bill, but only a political and religious one, therefore "teaching the controversy" would only be appropriate in a social studies, religion, or philosophy class.
Direct opposition to this legislation comes from the following organizations:
• The American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Alan Leshner, Chief Executive Officer of AAAS, wrote a letter to Tennessee Representatives DeBarry and Naifeh of the House Education Subcommittee that articulates the potential harm to science education if this Bill becomes state law:
Dear Representatives DeBarry and Naifeh:
On behalf of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society, I am writing to provide input on the scientific questions raised by HB 368. There is virtually no scientific controversy among the overwhelming majority of researchers on the core facts of global warming and evolution. Asserting that there are significant scientific controversies about the overall nature of these concepts when there are none will only confuse students, not enlighten them.
The core principles concerning both evolution and global warming have been subjected to substantial scientific scrutiny. They have been tested and retested for decades, and their scientific merits have been consistently reinforced. Assertions to the contrary are incompatible with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.
The science of evolution underpins all of modern biology and is supported by tens of thousands of scientific studies in fields that include cosmology, geology, paleontology, genetics and other biological specialties. The concept of evolution informs scientific research in a broad range of fields, including both agriculture and medicine, which significantly affect our everyday lives.
Scientific observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence. Indeed, our understanding of the greenhouse effect goes back more than a century.
HB 368 states that students should be taught to think critically, but such thinking is already inherent in the way science is taught. To truly benefit the students of Tennessee, teachers must present the best peer-reviewed research; only in this way will students gain the strong understanding of science necessary to compete for high-skill jobs in an increasingly high-tech world economy.
We encourage you to continue to support a rigorous scientific education curriculum in Tennessee schools by rejecting HB 368. Founded in 1848, AAAS has a longstanding interest and expertise in science education. We stand ready to assist you.
• The National Center for Science Education. Eugenie C. Scott, the executive director said that "Telling students that evolution and climate change are scientifically controversial is miseducating them. Good science teachers know that. But the Tennessee legislature has now made it significantly harder to ensure that science is taught responsibly in the state's public schools."
Josh Rosenau, also from the National Center for Science Education said “The sponsors say that it's meant to improve science education and do all sorts of wonderful things. I think they'd say that it cleans your floors too, if you asked them. The effect of the bill, regardless of what they might want to say that it does, would be to make it harder for parents and teachers and administrators to make sure that science was being taught accurately in science classes. It would open the door to creationism, it would open the door to climate change denial, and to other sorts of pseudosciences being introduced into Tennessee classrooms. The concern is that this sends a signal to teachers that certain subjects are controversial--subjects that are not scientifically controversial--things that are subject to political controversy, perhaps, but that in the science classroom are not controversial and shouldn't be treated that way.”
• The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which said “it (the HB 368 law) is cover for teachers who want to teach creationism or intelligent design.”
• The U.S. National Academy of Sciences of Tennessee, including Vanderbilt University medicine Nobelist Stanley Cohen, has written a letter objecting to the measure, saying it could force teachers "to emphasize what are misdescribed as the scientific weaknesses of evolution." Larisa DeSantis, a scientist at Vanderbilt University, told MSNBC that, “what it does is bring the political controversy into the classroom, where there is no scientific controversy.” Three prominent scientists from Tennessee, all members of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote a letter published in the Tennessean newspaper that derided the legislation as "misleading, unnecessary, likely to provoke unnecessary and divisive legal proceedings." In fact, the eight Tennessee members of the National Academy of Sciences wrote a statement to the Tennessee House Education Committee saying "By undermining the teaching of evolution in Tennessee's public schools, HB 368 and SB 893 would miseducate students, harm the state's national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy.
• The Tennessee Science Teachers Association. Here is a letter from the President of the TSTA, Becky Ashe:
“On behalf of the science educators of Tennessee represented by the Tennessee Science Teachers Association (TSTA), I write to you as their President to express my grave misgivings about House Bill 368 being introduced by Representative Bill Dunn at the Education Committee meeting. This bill purports to encourage our State's science teachers to teach "scientific controversies" and to protect them from administrative discipline if they choose to do so. HB 368 singles out evolution as an example of a "scientific subject" that "can cause controversy." The bill states that "teachers shall be permitted to help 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."
“We are in complete agreement with this last statement and are confident that good science teachers throughout our State are already doing this in an educational environment supported by their administrators. Therefore, this bill is unnecessary. However, this proposed legislation's major flaw implies that there is a scientific controversy surrounding evolution. As teachers and developers of other teachers, the members of TSTA recognize some communities’ contextual climate regarding the teaching of evolution. However, we also recognize that the scientific theory of evolution is accepted by mainstream scientists around the world as the cornerstone of biology and as the single, unifying explanation for the diversity of life on earth. This bill is an anti‐evolutionary attempt to allow non‐scientific alternatives to evolution (such as creationism and intelligent design) to be introduced into our public schools. Scientific theories must provide natural and testable explanations. Creationism and intelligent design fail on both counts because they invoke supernatural ultimate causes (e.g. God, or an unspecified "intelligent designer") that cannot be tested by the tools of science (e.g. no one can disprove the existence of God). These ideas are religiously motivated (directly countering Section 1e of HB 368) and have been shown time and time again (from court cases in Arkansas and Louisiana in the 1980s to the Dover, Pennsylvania, intelligent design trial in 2004‐05) to violate the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.
We therefore urge you and your colleagues to vote against this legislation; a proposed law that is unnecessary, anti‐scientific and very likely unconstitutional. Thank you for your attention and consideration.
Becky Ashe
President, TSTA 2011‐2013
Exec. Director Curriculum & Instruction
Knox County Schools
865.594.1705 or
becky.ashe@knoxschools.org”
• The National Association of Biology Teachers.
The NABT expressed its opposition to Tennessee's "monkey bills" — House Bill 368 and Senate Bill 893 — in a letter to Governor Bill Haslam. The bills, which if enacted would encourage teachers to present the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of "controversial" topics such as "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning," have passed their respective houses; it is still necessary for discrepancies between the two versions of the bill to be reconciled before the legislation is sent to the governor.
In its letter, NABT's Jaclyn Reeves-Pepin explained "We feel that the wording of this legislation clearly allows non-scientific explanations for topics such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming and human cloning to be introduced into the science classroom," adding, "Concepts like evolution and climate change should not be misrepresented as controversial or needing of special evaluation. Instead, they should be presented as scientific explanations for events and processes that are supported by experimentation, logical analysis, and evidence-based revision based on detectable and measurable data."
The letter concludes, "We respectfully request that you reject HB 368 and SB 893 in support of science education that imparts to students an understanding of science based on the key components of the scientific method and content agreed upon by scientists and professional educators. As an organization dedicated to biology education, we are confident that students of your state are best served when curriculum reflects these issues appropriately and maintains scientific integrity in the science classroom."
• The Americans United for Separation of Church and State notes that the group who helped author the bill, The Discovery Institute, “Describes itself as a think tank 'specializing in national and international affairs,' (but) the group's real purpose is to undercut church-state separation and turn public schools into religious indoctrination centers." In a statement the group also said the bill will “encourage public school teachers to discuss the alleged ‘controversy’ over evolution and offer them legal protection if they teach creationist concepts.”
•National Earth Science Teachers Association.
March 16, 2012
Tennessee State Senators
Tennessee State Representatives
Governor Bill Haslam
Dear Tennessee Leaders,
On behalf of the thousands of geoscience teachers represented by the National Earth Science Teachers Association, I write to express my grave misgivings about Senate Bill 893 and House Bill 368, currently under consideration by the Tennessee General Assembly.
These bills misrepresent key scientific concepts and principles, and would undermine the education of Tennessee's students. The bills present topics including evolution and global warming as scientific subjects which "may cause controversy" or "debate and disputation." These ideas are not scientifically controversial, and when taught correctly, do not cause debate or disputation in science classrooms. The only controversy, debate, or disputation about the legitimacy of these concepts occurs in the political arena, and these disputes do not belong in science classrooms.
NESTA affirms, along with the National Science Teachers Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, the American Geophysical Union, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, and other leading scientific and educational organizations, that evolution is central to biology and to the Earth sciences and that it is an essential component of science classes. Furthermore, based on the overwhelming scientific evidence, NESTA agrees with the positions taken by many other organizations and leading scientists that Earth's climate is changing, that human activities are responsible for much of the warming seen in recent years, and the science of climate change is a fundamental part of Earth science education.
These bills encourage teachers to emphasize what are misrepresented as "scientific weaknesses" of evolution and climate change (among others). In practice, this term is often applied to scientifically unwarranted and widely-debunked attacks by creationists and others attempting to cloak a political agenda in the guise of science. While scientific research continues to illuminate how evolution and climate change influence the world around us, there is no scientific debate about whether they do so, and these bills are wrong to suggest otherwise.
By undermining the teaching of evolution and climate change, and by singling out science classes for special scrutiny, HB 368 and SB 893 would damage the scientific preparation of Tennessee’s students, harm Tennessee's national reputation, and weaken its efforts to participate in the 21st century economy.
We therefore urge you and your colleagues to vote against this legislation, and ask that the Governor veto this legislation, if it reaches his desk. This proposed law is unnecessary, anti‐scientific, bad for Tennessee’s future and very likely unconstitutional. Thank you for your attention and consideration.
Dr. Roberta Johnson
Executive Director
National Earth Science Teachers Association
A few more entities that have published objections to the new law:
• The American Institute for Biological Sciences,
• The Knoxville News Sentinel
• The Nashville Tennessean
• The National Association of Geoscience Teachers
• The Tennessee Science Teachers Association
