Tennessee Teachers no longer Monkeys of Evolutionists

The Washington Post and other liberal news outlets report today that a new law goes into effect in Tennessee which allows the teaching of creationism, climate-change denial and other non-science into science classrooms. These critics call the bill the new "monkey bill", with echoes back to the 1925 John Scopes "monkey trial" in Dayton, Tennessee, which opened the floodgates to evolutionist teaching in public schools across the U.S.

This liberal reporting is another example of scare mongering by evolutionists and their mainstream media surrogates. The truth of this new law, appropriately named the "Teacher Protection Academic Freedom Act" (Tennessee Senate Bill 893 and House Bill 368) is that it protects a teacher from discipline for teaching scientific subjects in an objective manner. This bill would make it clear that schools should create an atmosphere conducive to questioning scientific theories and that no teacher can be fired for questioning scientific theories.

The legislators of Tennessee recognized that the real issue here was that teachers had become the monkeys of evolutionists, and were subject to severe discipline for even hinting that theories like evolution and global warming had problems that need to be questioned according to the scientific method, as all scientific theories should be. Also that there is quite a bit of modern "science" that only masquerades as such, and that if it is not falsifiable, or subject to experiment that can disprove a particular hypothesis, that it does not truly qualify as science.

As David Fowler, President of Family Action of Tennessee writes in The Need for the Teacher Protection Academic Freedom Act:

critical thinking skills and an understanding of the scientific method are often discouraged, particularly when it comes to certain scientific subjects. For example, in many classrooms, Darwinian evolution is currently taught in a completely one-sided manner, with most students never learning anything about growing scientific controversies about the theory. This may be particularly true in Tennessee where the curriculum standard regarding evolution requires only that students know “the supporting evidence for the theory of evolution,” with no allowance for knowing anything about the controversies surrounding the theory.

Textbooks routinely contain outdated and sometimes erroneous material about evolution, including various discredited “proofs” for the theory that are no longer accepted by many biologists. As a result, there is growing support among educators, scientist, and the general public to teach evolution more accurately and fairly. Yet, because of threat of censure by some in the scientific community, some scientist are reluctant to do so.

Fowler goes on to counter the scare mongering of the evolutionists who oppose freedom for teachers to teach:

What the bill does not do: The bill specifically states that the information discussed must be “scientific” and must relate to scientific theories “required to be taught under the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education.” The bill does not change the existing curriculum frameworks that govern the subject matter covered. Consequently, the amendment makes it clear that the bill is only addressing the curriculum framework adopted by the state board of education. Thus the bill does not allow the teaching of creation science or intelligent design as they are not “existing theories” being “covered” in the courses taught pursuant to our curriculum frameworks. Further, teaching those subjects has been ruled contrary to the “establishment clause.” State law cannot “trump” the U.S. Constitution.

It is a shame that the "establishment clause" arbitrarily invalidates the teaching of creation science in the public classroom, hopefully this ruling will be overturned in the future.

Nonetheless, the new Tennessee law should be defended in terms of freedom and liberty, safeguarding the teachers of the state from coercion by the evolutionist lobby. Truly, Tennessee Teachers are no longer Monkeys of Evolutionists.