Missouri bill to create ‘parental warning’ requirement to teach evolution debated
Education in science will be opt-out in Missouri, if a bill requiring schools to notify parents if “the theory of evolution by natural selection” is being taught at their child’s school passes.
The bill proposed by Republican State Rep. Rick Brattin had its first public hearing Thursday. Brattin has described teaching only evolution in school as “indoctrination” to local TV.
The language of the bill makes little provision separating discussion of the specifics of evolutionary biology from any other element of biology upon which evolutionary theory rests, like anthropology, examination of dinosaur fossils, genetic sciences, disease or modern medicine.
“My fear is that every mention of a fossil, every conversation about the development of organs and vital structures, every single mention about the genetic similarity that we share with other organisms could potentially be systematically whittled out of these student’s education,” wroteMaxton Thoman, a student columnist for the University of Alabama’s Crimson White. “In the end, a lack of an education in this field will put students behind the rest of their class, and the rest of the world for that matter, in a way that they will not be able to recover from – much like leaving out multiplication would severely hinder any further advancement in mathematics.”
The bill also provides for the right of parents to inspect all “curriculum materials used in the district’s or school’s evolution instruction” before they can be used in class.
The National Center for Science Education’s deputy director Glenn Branch said in letter online