I was first alerted to the proposal of a new bill in the Virginia House of Delegates last Wednesday by a colleague at James Madison University, Eric Pyle. Eric and I serve as state Councilors for the state of Virginia in the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. As such, we are sincerely concerned about any policy that would weaken science education in the Old Dominion, in particular when it comes to geoscience literacy. The proposed bill, HB 207, would allow creationist teachers to pass creationism off as science. It would undermine the state’s solid record of science education and imperil the utility and employ-ability of Virginia’s science graduates in the economy of the future. We agree that this bill is pernicious at worst, and unnecessary at best. It should not pass the House, nor be ratified into law.
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Encourage students to explore scientific questions? Learn about evidence? Develop critical thinking skills? Delegate Bell, we already do exactly that! That’s exactly what my colleagues and I strive to do every day to produce graduates who will be ready to take their place on the cutting edge of scientific jobs. So clearly, that’s not what this is all about.
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If we want Virginia’s graduates to be contributors and leaders in the global economy, they need to emerge from school unblinkered by superstition and unbrainwashed by the politics of their elders. For them to succeed in science and technology careers, we need them to be data-driven, and capable of logical coherence that transcends individual mythologies and ideologies with verifiable facts. We do not want them confusing their familial belief system or some politically-inspired gobbledygook with peer-reviewed assessments of reality.
Virginia House Bill 207: encouraging pseudoscience is a bad idea - Mountain Beltway - AGU Blogosphere
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