A new bill introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives looks identical to the “academic freedom” bill that died in the state last year.
Again, the bill would require public school officials and administrators to create an environment “that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues, including biological and chemical evolution.” (Keep in mind that evolution is not a point of controversy or debate in the scientific community.) It would also permit teachers “to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of the theory of biological and hypotheses of chemical evolution.”
Regular readers of this blog will recognize the bill—with its “strengths and weaknesses” language—as another attempt to undercut the teaching of evolution and sneak religious ideas like creationism and “intelligent design” into the science classroom (even though the bill itself claims not to “promote philosophical naturalism or biblical theology, promote natural cause or intelligent cause, promote undirected change or purposeful design, promote atheistic or theistic belief, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or ideas, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.”)