why some bills are better left unwritten

One of the most interesting things about elected officials writing bills is that they can propose laws and regulations about anything, regardless of whether they know what they’re talking about or not. Case in point, a Mississippi State bill by Gary Chism that demands stickers on biology textbooks intended to warn readers that what they are about to read is “just a theory” before descending into a few hackneyed criticisms of evolution so obviously wrong and transparent, one begins to wonder just how long it took him to write it and whether he just copied some talking points from the Discovery Institute website.

The bill itself is short, just a few hundred words. But in those few hundred words Chism packed no less than nine major errors about evolution, the scientific method and logic. Let’s begin:

The word ‘theory’ has many meanings: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world.

Hmm, I don’t think that using the common definition of the word from Webster’s dictionary is applicable to what a theory means in science. A theory is systematically organized knowledge based on observations of the natural world and the facts about it. It’s not abstract reasoning or a speculative plan outside a casual conversation. Chism is using semantics to devalue the idea of a theory. I wonder if we should require a similar sticker on physics books because they talk about gravity. Gravity is a theory and according to Chism’s reasoning, a theory has just far too many meanings to give an accurate picture of anything. Plus, if you see your friends randomly take off into the air, it obviously means that the theory is wrong.

This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory [that] some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things.

Really? Evolution is about the origin of life? Since when? And if it’s so controversial that only a few scientists dare present it, why is it mentioned on every education channel and in every state approved textbook as a basis for biology? Want to know a controversial theory? String theory is controversial. Time travel is controversial. Evolution? Hardly. It’s only called controversial by a political handbook for smearing evolution as an atheist ploy; the Wedge Document.

If verbiage like this is being put up for public debate before a school board in your district, you should recommend that the document containing it be thrown away on the basis of being just downright wrong. Evolution deals with living things changing over long periods of time. It says nothing about the origins of life. For evolution to take place, life already had to exist. Biologists who study where it came from rely on basic evolutionary principles to work their way back, but they’re not in the realm of evolution. If you don’t know what a theory is talking about, to try and ridicule it anyway is dishonest at best and negligently reckless at worst.

No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered a theory.

So if nobody was present when life first appeared on Earth, why don’t we teach everyone’s ideas of how it happened? Or none at all? If the burden of proof is being there and recording how life got its start on our planet, nobody is qualified to talk about the origins of life. Also, notice how Chism reverts to using the word theory the same way we would use the word “idea” or “guess.” Not a mention of how a theory needs factual evidence and be backed up by observations which he at least had the decency to include in his preamble. Moving on.

Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, [and] undirected forces produced living things.

According to whom? Other than the Wedge Document and Answers in Genesis that is. And note how we went from theory to unproven belief in less than a few sentences. So we have someone who knows either very little or nothing about a theory and can’t even define what a theory really means, creating language that is intended to undermine the trust of pupils in their teachers. Is it just me or does anyone else think that’s ridiculous?

There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record; the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex [?] set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

In this Frankenstein of talking points from creationist think tanks, Chism doesn’t seem to know or care how the fossil record actually works and what makes transitional fossils. He also uses a pseudoscientific definition of complexity and ignores that the Cambrian explosion lasted some 80 million years in which the development of small animals into larger ones is well tracked and well understood. If 80 million years is sudden, do I even want to know what Chism considers to be slow and gradual? Maybe he thinks that evolution should take 20 billion years to happen but the Earth is only 4.6 billion years old? Or maybe it’s just ignorance coupled with an inability to make factual arguments? Oh and here comes the kicker. The text of the suggested disclaimer asks students to “study hard and keep an open mind.”

You’re kidding, right? Ignoring the facts and listening to criticisms from people who don’t even know what they’re critiquing is keeping an open mind? Let’s remember that this appeal to keep an open mind is written by someone who obviously rejects scientific facts on the basis of his personal ideology. How open minded is that? I suppose the students will have to do like Chism says, not as he does.