The Missouri State Assembly may soon face a vote on one of the real issues of our time: teaching evolution in public schools. That’s right, apparently William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow didn’t already put this one to bed in 1925.
Rep. Rick Brattin, a Missouri state assemblyman, is set to introduce a bill that will give students the choice to opt out of biology classes that offer evolution as scientific fact. This will stop students who reject evolution from being ridiculed, Brattin argues.
“What my bill would do is it would allow parents to opt out of natural selection teaching,” Brattin said. “It would not prohibit the child from going through biology from learning about cell structure, DNA and the building blocks of life.”
He continued: “Our schools basically mandate that we teach one side. It is an indoctrination because it is not objective approach.”
If there was any question that this vote was a complete waste of time, a little investigating by KCTV5 of Kansas City found that students in Brattin’s district are not even taught evolution in science class. Reporters from the local news station found two 16-year-olds from a local high school and asked the teens what they thought about evolution education in their school. Confused, one teen responded, “What’s that?” The other interrupted: “It’s whether God is real or not.”
The two teens then expressed their support for learning evolution in science class. “I think we should learn about it,” said one. “I think it would be good for all of us to know,” the other interjected.
But Brattin has support from his constituents of voting age. Further reporting by KCTV5 showed parents and residents extremely concerned about the threat of evolution making its way into science class.
Amazingly, one resident would risk incarceration before subjecting his kids — if he had any high-school-aged kids — to evolution in biology class. “Evolution is not taught in the Bible so it shouldn’t be taught in the class,” Brandon Eastwood told KCTV5. “Even if I had to spend some time in jail, I wouldn’t subject my kids to that nonsense.”
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
