Fill in the
blank for the town, city, county, state, region, nation of choice.
Corporations Wrote a Law Requiring Climate
Denial be Taught in School. Tennessee Just Passed It.
…“One such model
bill has just passed the Tennessee state legislature, and this one mandates
that schools teach climate science as a theory alongside other 'credible'
theories—like those ones preferred by fossil fuels companies, for example, that
hold that global warming is caused by solar cycles and other nonsense. Sound
familiar? This is the same structural tactic employed by creationists to try to
discourage the teaching of evolution in schools…”
Cassi Creek:
The people we elect to govern us should be of
somewhat higher intellect than the average citizen. They should understand that the term “Theory”
does not signify unproven or questionable in nature. Thus, the theories of evolution and of human
mediated global climate change are demonstrable truths. Plants and animals do evolve, proving Darwin
correct. The rise in mean high tide due
to decreased polar icecaps is also demonstrable.
The local elected leaders in Tennessee have all
deliberated about how to assure that the state’s children are to receive an
education that takes note of the “possibility” that climate change and
evolution might possibly be real and demonstrable. Such scientific subjects, even if real, do
not agree with what appears to be the textbook of absolute authority – that confusion
of allegories, genealogies, and myths concerning creation, global disaster, and
imaginary heroes and dreamers that Christians believe instead of science based
information.
In their collective wisdom, the good Christians in
Nashville have decided that if students are to be burdened with pagan-derived
science, they must also be fed the myths that have generated Christian
dogma.
I vaguely recall a trial about teaching evolution
that resulted in Tennessee becoming a target of derision among educated people
not living in what are now called “red states.”
Not to be outdone by their predecessors, the current generation of
legislators has not only challenged evolution but also the disciplines of
geology, meteorology, climatology. In addition, various schools of physics,
chemistry, biology, and genetics have been flagged as being tools of Pagans,
atheists, socialists, and “liberals.”
Since we’ve been committed by our elected officials
to teach children that myths are as valid as science, we may as well tell them
to commit fully to teaching folly. It is
time to include education blocks about Santa Claus, Easter bunnies, tooth
fairies, and all manner of fictional creatures.
We can revel in our collective ignorance much as does
contiguous Kentucky with its creation museum depicting the co-existence of man
and dinosaur, or the follow-on life-sized ark museum complete with animal
pairs.
We’ve already created such a low quality education in
the red states that a few more laws such as the one linked above can’t further
damage the level of education being demanded by Christians in control of
education. I can’t imagine anyone being
content to have their children taught such drivel in public schools. Perhaps the parents in the red states can’t
imagine their spawn competing with people educated in the real world. Perhaps they’ve had so much religious mythology
hammered into them by our Taliban that reality has become whatever myth they
heard repeated last.
One thing is for certain. I’m not proud of Tennessee public schools or Tennessee
schools products. If, unlike me, you
plan on the good fairy or some mythical angel swooping in to set it all aright
with a sweep of its slide-rule, clap your hands.
Oh, wait! That’s
Disney Land where magical thinking is based upon science.
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