The latest creationist test bill

[_EAllusion]

The Ohio House has passed a law that forbids schools from penalizing students from giving scientifically wrong answers in school work if their answers are based on religious beliefs. Specifically, public schools would be forbidden from discriminating against "religious content" in said answers. Instead students are graded on "substance and relevance" which is another way of saying that conservative Christian teachers can positively grade conservative Christian answers by injecting alternative, vague criteria. It has a decent chance of becoming law as a new, and fairly clever creationist backdoor.

There's no real way to enforce such a bill that prevents students from taking advantage of claiming any wrong answer is based in a religious belief without privileging some religious beliefs as more valid than others. It should fall quickly on 1st amendment grounds, but the courts have recently been stacked for moments like this. We'll see where it goes.

[_Some Schmo]

Nothing like religion if you want to encourage ignorance.

[_Gunnar]

I agree that it is an incredibly stupid and ignorant law. No students should be penalized for their religious beliefs, but they should be required to understand and competently explain currently established scientific theories and the evidence supporting them, whether or not they believe in them. Failing that, they deserve a poor grade, no matter how strongly they believe in the innate superiority of their faith based convictions.

Similarly, atheists taking a course on comparative religions and their truth claims should be required to accurately state and explain what those truth claims are and their historical context, even if they believe they are nothing but a bunch of hooey. Failing that, they deserve a poor grade, no matter how confident they are in the superiority of objective, scientifically established truth.

[_Some Schmo]

I agree that it is an incredibly stupid and ignorant law. No students should be penalized for their religious beliefs, but they should be required to understand and competently explain currently established scientific theories and the evidence supporting them, whether or not they believe in them. Failing that, they deserve a poor grade, no matter how strongly they believe in the innate superiority of their faith based convictions.

Similarly, atheists taking a course on comparative religions and their truth claims should be required to accurately state and explain what those truth claims are and their historical context, even if they believe they are nothing but a bunch of hooey. Failing that, they deserve a poor grade, no matter how confident they are in the superiority of objective, scientifically established truth.

Gunnar, yours is the more gentle, soft spoken version of my brain.

[_canpakes]

... (S)tudents are graded on "substance and relevance" which is another way of saying that conservative Christian teachers can positively grade conservative Christian answers by injecting alternative, vague criteria.

This will get interesting for the students of those teachers who might be, say, LDS. Or Satanists. Insert just about anything there.

I wonder how the teachers will be trained up on how to evaluate the "substance and relevance" of religious views outside of their own that they're probably not terribly familiar with. I'd like to get an answer from someone who at least claims to be religious, for starters.

[_canpakes]

Test question: Explain the basic theory and conditions involved in the planetary formation process for gas giants.

Answer 'A': (insert technical, amazing and spectacular scientifically-supported conclusions about particular planetary formation processes)

Answer 'B': "God did it"

Thanks, Ohio, for helping to turn schools into another tool for guaranteeing ignorance and the dumbing-down of children, for the sake of being too fearful of offending the delicate egos of their religious parents.

[_MeDotOrg]

Nothing like religion if you want to encourage ignorance.

Not just any ignorance. Religious ignorance. Ask for it by name, and receive a discount in the state of Ohio, the state of ignorance.

[_Some Schmo]

Thanks, Ohio, for helping to turn schools into another tool for guaranteeing ignorance and the dumbing-down of children, for the sake of being too fearful of offending the delicate egos of their religious parents.

Antipathy toward education has been a GOP thing for a while now. It makes sense. The more educated people are, the less inclined toward the GOP people will be.

[_Res Ipsa]

We do live in Zombieland.

[_Gunnar]

Thanks, Ohio, for helping to turn schools into another tool for guaranteeing ignorance and the dumbing-down of children, for the sake of being too fearful of offending the delicate egos of their religious parents.

Antipathy toward education has been a GOP thing for a while now. It makes sense. The more educated people are, the less inclined toward the GOP people will be.

I agree. That is probably the main reason I left the GOP years ago. It has become increasingly apparent to me that the Republican Party has been largely hijacked or, at least, unduly influenced by the hard, fundamentalist, religious right. They have been for decades relentlessly engaged in dumbing down the American electorate. This shows in the declining academic performance of our school children compared to other developed nations, and is, I think, a significant factor leading to the election of the immoral, corrupt, intellectually challenged and incurious idiot who now resides in the White House.