PRI: Public Radio International

New Tennessee law: encouraging creationism or academic freedom?

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:00:00 -0500

A new law in Tennessee will allow public school teachers to discuss alternatives to such scientific topics as evolution and climate change. The bill, known as the "academic freedom" law by its supporters and the "monkey bill," by its detractors, went into effect Friday.

Brandt Hardin

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:52:20 -0500

This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.

Chris Weiss

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:06:01 -0500

The problem is the initial assumption that there are controversies related to the theory of evolution. Individual facts and hypotheses are always under review, but to make it seem like there is a scientific controversy regarding the fundamental correctness of evolution is absolutely misleading.

The only people questioning evolution as a valid theory are people proposing ID or literal creationism. Consequently, this bill is intellectually dishonest regardless of what amendments or qualifiers are included.