Senate Committee Makes State Look Bad

More than two decades ago when Louisiana passed legislation that would allow schools there to teach Creationism, I thought how foolish and uneducated those people are. When Kansas’ state board of education mandated equal treatment for Intelligent Design, I thought how sad it is that the people in that state who decide how their citizens are educated are so dim-witted. When Dover, Penn. Schools decided to sneak Intelligent Design into their science curriculum I thought it was underhanded and uninformed. I sat here as a science teacher in Indiana and bragged about how good our state science standards are, with their heavy emphasis on evolution theory.

Now, however, I don’t feel so confident in our state. This week, the Senate Education Committee, despite lots of expert testimony in opposition, passed a bill (SB 89) that would allow public schools in this state to teach Creationism in science classes. They didn’t even try to mask it as Intelligent Design. They want the biblical version of Creationism taught in science. And that passed out of committee, the education committee, by an 8 to 2 vote.

Now I feel ashamed that my state has taken a big giant leap backward in its science education policy. Although the bill has not passed into law yet, and hopefully never will, the passage out of the education committee highlights the increasing danger to science education in Indiana since Republicans took over the General Assembly. I’m embarrassed by the action of these legislators. Eight out of the 10 members of the state’s education committee apparently do not have enough education of their own.

It doesn’t matter what these people believe. That should be irrelevant. What matters is that they are trying to dictate that students be taught religion, their own personal religion, in science class. Why not just go ahead and teach Flat Earth hypothesis in geography class? It’s also supposedly based on biblical teachings. Why not also teach that insects have four legs, like the bible says, instead of the six that they actually have? They are free to believe whatever fairy tales they want, but to try to force those beliefs on the students of Indiana under the guise of science is inexcusable.

It sickens and saddens me that the people with power in this state are such dullards, and so incompetent and ignorant that they have used the state’s time to pass such idiotic legislation while being paid taxpayer money for it.

On behalf of the more rational people of the State of Indiana, I apologize for the idiots on our education committee for making us all look like uneducated yokels.