Hey, remember when the JSS was starting up? Well one of the first things that we all bitched about “back in the day,” was Representative Gary Chism and his attempt at getting anti-evolution warning stickers put onto biology textbooks in Mississippi.
Chism, the southern baptist insurance salesman from Columbus, Mississippi, now has an even weaker bill he’d like to pass – I’m not even sure, entirely, what it would require after reading it here.
From Section I:
The lesson provided to students shall not evidence bias through selective instruction on the theory of evolution, but rather, shall have proportionately equal instruction from educational materials that present scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution.
Even making the world-shattering assumption that scientifically sound arguments by “antagonists of the theory of evolution” actually exist I don’t think that we’re going to be able to buy all those copies of “Pandas and People,” so lets add “unfeasible” to the list of problems this bill has.
Now on to part 2, where what I think of as the real intent of the bill exists:
No local school board, school superintendent or school principal shall prohibit a public school classroom teacher from discussing and answering questions from individual students on the origin of life…
Ah, so when one kid keeps sidetracking the biology class into theology, or one teacher wants to chat Answers in Genesis instead of Darwins finches, no one can stop them.
This is just about the last thing we need. Fortunately, Chism brings such a bill to the house yearly, and it is soundly stomped (none have ever gotten out of committee) – probably more for political bragging rights than anything else.
So for you Jacksonians, Representative Cecil Brown is the Chairman of the Education Committee – and he’s from our district (district 66), so let him know – he’s the guy with his hand on the throat of this thing at the moment.
