Feb 14 2012

Indiana hesitates before the abyss

Categories:

Creationism

by PZ Myers

Good news for Hoosiers: that Indiana creationist bill has been shelved, for this session, at least.

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20 comments

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1

Markr1957

14 February 2012 at 4:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Good – for now!

As much as I don’t really want to wish anyone dead if one or more of the wingnut judges on SCOTUS doesn’t retire soon then we need one to die. This country will go down the crapper fast if the religionists don’t get shut down legally for good. We need SCOTUS to be secular, not religious.
2

doktorzoom

14 February 2012 at 4:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Let’s hear it for the House Speaker, who recognized the bill for what it was: “a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
3

Rip Steakface

14 February 2012 at 4:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Let’s hear it for the House Speaker, who recognized the bill for what it was: “a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Talk about the most annoyingly pragmatic way to look at it. How about recognizing the bill for what it represents: a massive breach of the Constitution.
4

Matt Penfold

14 February 2012 at 5:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Talk about the most annoyingly pragmatic way to look at it. How about recognizing the bill for what it represents: a massive breach of the Constitution.

Using the constitution to keep such laws from the statute book is also annoyingly pragmatic. The bill should not have been introduced simply because it would have allowed school boards to teach bad science.
5

Tualha

14 February 2012 at 5:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

ITYM Indiana hesitates before the stupid, unnecessary, expensive lawsuit that they can’t win. FTFY.
6

Matt Penfold

14 February 2012 at 5:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

As much as I don’t really want to wish anyone dead if one or more of the wingnut judges on SCOTUS doesn’t retire soon then we need one to die. This country will go down the crapper fast if the religionists don’t get shut down legally for good. We need SCOTUS to be secular, not religious.

This is why I have long argued that fighting attempts to get creationism/ID into science classes on constitutional grounds is a defensive measure only. The real reason they should not be taught as science is because they are not science. That legislatures and school-boards still discuss introducing creationism/ID after all the legal set-backs suggests that at best the evolution side is holding its ground.
7

Rey Fox

14 February 2012 at 5:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Sad that these bills often seem to get shelved not due to majority legislature action, but procedural moves by the one relatively sane adult human being in the room
8

Randomfactor

14 February 2012 at 5:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Scientology?

REALLY?

I hope that was an amendment aimed at killing the silly thing outright.
9

Duckbilled Platypus

14 February 2012 at 5:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Surprisingly… It was a Republican who saved the day for education, even if he really didn’t intend to.
10

Glen Davidson

14 February 2012 at 5:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Yay, the poison killed it.

Like they were really going to mandate teaching other religions’ myths, along with Dembski’s restatement of John 1.

All you poor Hoosiers, going to have to suffer with science for yet another year (at least in the good districts), or at least won’t get to supplant science with religion. Going to have to keep that A in science education, not flush it down the creationist toilet.

Glen Davidson
11

XXIst Century (updated) Vole

14 February 2012 at 5:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Meanwhile, here’s some reassuring news from New Hampshire:

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/950053-196/students-science-teachers-lash-out-at-evolution-as-theory.html

The bottom line:

Rep. Jerry Bergevin (House Bill 1148′s sponsor) was the only person to speak in favor of the bill to legislators at a public hearing Tuesday morning in Concord.
12

feralboy12

14 February 2012 at 6:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It might not be the bestest reason ever to shelve the bill, but wanting to avoid a lawsuit at least provides some evidence that the Speaker has some sense of priorities when it comes to spending the school district’s money. Educate kids, or defend lawsuits? The Cranston school board had opportunities to give up a lost cause and save some money, but chose to go to court and try to defend the indefensible. Not because they had a winnable case, but because God.
Though in Indiana one has to wonder if the result would have been the same without the references to scientology, et al. Christians might have pushed harder without the “poison.” Still, a surprisingly sensible decision by a republican–actually taking likely consequences into account.
13

MasterDarksol

14 February 2012 at 6:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Here’s hoping that when the bill comes back down off the shelf, it gets put in the waste-bin, where it belongs.
14

humanape

14 February 2012 at 6:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“Bosma said Tuesday that he considered the proposal a lawsuit waiting to happen since the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled before against public schools teaching creationism.”

I would have been more impressed if Bosma said the proposal to teach magic in a science classroom is just plain stupid.

Thank goodness for the Dover trial where one million dollars of taxpayer money was wasted by Christian assholes trying to stick their dead Jeebus into biology.

A worse problem is being ignored. From an Indiana news website: “Only 28 percent of teachers show the science behind evolution in a straight forward manner and follow the recommendations made by the National Research Council for doing so.”

This means 72% of America’s biology teachers should be fired for incompetence but nobody cares and nobody complains. America’s idiots only complain about the 28% of teachers who are competent.
15

jaycee

14 February 2012 at 6:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I guess it accomplished its main purpose, which was to let the sponsor’s prove their crazy to the base.
16

truthspeaker

14 February 2012 at 7:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Randomfactor says:
14 February 2012 at 5:22 pm

Scientology?

REALLY?

I hope that was an amendment aimed at killing the silly thing outright.

It was.
17

willow2054

14 February 2012 at 8:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s amazing that Bosma did the right thing here, although his reasoning is shaky. I’m still glad we teachers won’t have to deal with that this fall!
18

robro

14 February 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Whatever got them to put a stop to this stupidity, fine. Better to not have it for a bad reason than to have it. The scary thing is that if wackos like Santorum get in charge of this country, then this sort of thing could just sail through.
19

meanmike

14 February 2012 at 11:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hooray! As a native Hoosier I can temporarily remove my palm from my face where it has rested since I heard about this bill.
20

DLC

15 February 2012 at 12:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Yes, but that’s the strategy. keep the lawsuits coming, keep the courts going, so you can once in a while rack up a win. This way you can point to “look, the courts are on our side!” and when they rule against you, you can point to “Judicial Activists ” as being one of the enemies to fight. But, you should also know that the other prong of the attack is to put “our kind of judges” on the bench, from the local level on up.