{"id":6020,"date":"2012-02-01T09:04:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T14:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=6020"},"modified":"2012-02-01T09:04:47","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T14:04:47","slug":"good-news-and-bad-news-in-indianas-new-creation-science-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/02\/good-news-and-bad-news-in-indianas-new-creation-science-law.html","title":{"rendered":"Good News and Bad News in Indiana’s New Creation Science Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The news is circulating that Senate Bill 89, which allows for the teaching of \u201ccreation science,\u201d has passed the senate and now awaits approval from the house<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is at least some good news. On the one hand, the proposed law makes no mention of science classrooms, and so there is nothing that directly encourages schools to engage in the unconstitutional and unscientific activity of promoting religion in science classrooms.<\/p>\n

As a result of an amendment, however, the proposed law now requires that if a school teaches about religious theories of origins that it must do so fairly and provide a representative survey of a variety of religions. Here is how it is now worded<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Sec. 18. The governing body of a school corporation may\u00a0offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism<\/a>, and Scientology.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"And so perhaps one can look on the bright side<\/a>. The law, if it passes, will not legally enable schools to inject religion into science classes, since it is still unconstitutional to do so and the law does not change that. On the other hand, if a school teaches about religion, it needs to cover a variety of religions and not focus all its attention on one<\/a>. And so the law cannot be used to do any real harm to science education, and might represent a step forward for education about world religions!<\/p>\n

Of course, this doesn\u2019t mean that someone won\u2019t be able to try to appeal to this law to justify injecting creationism into the science classroom. But I don\u2019t see that this law as now worded will in any way get such a person off the hook when they are taken to court for doing so.<\/p>\n

What do others think? \u00a0In its present form, is the law still dangerous to science education? And with respect to teaching about<\/em> religion, is the law merely redundant or an actual step in the right direction?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news is circulating that Senate Bill 89, which allows for the teaching of \u201ccreation science,\u201d has passed the senate and now awaits approval from the house. There is at least some good news. On the one hand, the proposed law makes no mention of science classrooms, and so there is nothing that directly encourages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17,137,28,148,78,80,85,108],"tags":[1200,2269,2970,5125,9084,10175,10831,10878,10886,12516],"class_list":["post-6020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-education","category-evolution-science","category-genesis-bible","category-intelligent-design-pseudoscience","category-pseudoscience","category-religion","category-science","category-young-earth-creationism","tag-biology","tag-creation","tag-education","tag-indiana","tag-philosophy","tag-religions","tag-sb89","tag-schools","tag-science","tag-theories"],"yoast_head":"\nGood News and Bad News in Indiana's New Creation Science Law<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The news is circulating that Senate Bill 89, which allows for the teaching of "creation science," has passed the senate and now awaits approval from the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/02\/good-news-and-bad-news-in-indianas-new-creation-science-law.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Good News and Bad News in Indiana's New Creation Science Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The news is circulating that Senate Bill 89, which allows for the teaching of "creation science," has passed the senate and now awaits approval from the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/02\/good-news-and-bad-news-in-indianas-new-creation-science-law.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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