S4: Athiests are our friends act (failed)

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

I also happen to believe this bill is unconstitutional as it suppresses teachers' freedom to speak truthfully on certain topics.

I myself was questioning the constitutionality on this bill, and was hoping Ben could elaborate on his reasoning for it.

[fhtagn]

I mean why stop at this step? Just go full on Biblical and require schools to teach creationism and the punishment for teaching anything else be stoning?

[Clyde1998]

The South should be teaching their children facts; this bill prevents teachers from being able to properly educate their students. I hope the Chamber of Delegates votes against this bill.

[OneJ]

Ben I feel that this is quite overbearing. The teaching of the theory of Evolution is just that, a theory.

A theory is an explanation that isn't fully proven, but has some evidenice that could back it up.

Teachers should be allowed to teach different theories to students because that's what makes young people better prepared for debate and arguments and dish out their points of view.

Therefore, I see no reason why teaching the theory of Evolution should be banned if you want the theory of creationism to also be considered in schools.

[Maxwell]

lolololololololololololololol

I somehow guessed that a. This bill makes it clear that Athiests are the enemy and b. Ben Kenobi was behind it. I didn't expect it to be as hilarious as it turned out.

The Atlas Conservative Party strikes again folks!

[fhtagn]

So no one is on board with the stoning?

[Clyde1998]

So no one is on board with the stoning?

I don't mind people being stoned, I just think that it's a different type of stoning that you're talking about.

[JustinTimeCuber]

So no one is on board with the stoning?

I don't mind people being stoned, I just think that it's a different type of stoning that you're talking about.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[fhtagn]

What about beheading?

[JustinTimeCuber]

What about beheading?

Let the states decide
FINAL VOTE!!1!1!!11!eleven!!!1!

[fhtagn]

well, since the discussion has dwindled to me trolling, I'm going to go ahead and call for a 24 hour final vote.

[JustinTimeCuber]

NAY

[Wisconsin+17]

Christ guys. We've had exactly zero discussion on the bill.

[Wisconsin+17]

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You've not yet survived your vote yet, fhtagn.

[JustinTimeCuber]

Christ guys. We've had exactly zero discussion on the bill.

You had almost a week to discuss it but declined to do so.

We're voting now, you're still allowed to advocate your bill but motions in this thread are out of order as the current order of business is voting.

[JustinTimeCuber]

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You've not yet survived your vote yet, fhtagn.

As I've said before, she remains speaker unless the motion is successful, which it wasn't as it failed to find a second in the time YOU allotted.

[Wisconsin+17]

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Well, tough titties. I'm here discussing it now.

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Sez who? Speaker fhtagn, who's still got her confidence motion against her? I suggest you vote in the confidence motion thread.

[JustinTimeCuber]

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Sez who? Speaker fhtagn, who's still got her confidence motion against her? I suggest you vote in the confidence motion thread.

Your non-confidence motion a) did not go into effect yet and b) was not seconded, so fhtagn remains Speaker and you don't get to stop a vote.

[Wisconsin+17]

What, didn't you know that seconders no longer matter since fhtagn will just overrule anyways?

Anyways, let's get back to the actual business of discussing this bill here.

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I don't see how teaching the theory of evolution is something that is a part of the constitution. Personally, I'd be in favor of modifying the bills to provide for local choice, so that municipalities and school districts would be able to decide if they wanted evolution to be a part of the Biology curriculum.

With your approval, I'd like to submit the bill with this amendment.

As for me personally, as a teacher, I don't think evolution should be taught in high school. There's nothing in high school biology that would require it to be taught (and I have taken biology, chemistry and physics). At the college level in first year, absolutely. High school biology should be teaching anatomy, how all the parts of the body work, how all the systems of the body work and why. That's plenty for a high school student to study.

[JustinTimeCuber]

What, didn't you know that seconders no longer matter since fhtagn will just overrule anyways? She just ignored your out of order motion that happened to be seconded.

Anyways, let's get back to the actual business of discussing this bill here. Go ahead, I'm not changing my vote though, call me closed-minded.

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I don't see how teaching the theory of evolution is something that is a part of the constitution. Personally, I'd be in favor of modifying the bills to provide for local choice, so that municipalities and school districts would be able to decide if they wanted Biology to be a part of the curriculum. Prohibiting teachers from discussing certain topic(s) is unconstitutional under free expression clauses in the Southern and Federal constitutions.

With your approval, I'd like to submit the bill with this amendment. We're already on the final vote here, so you'd have to submit a new bill.

As for me personally, as a teacher, I don't think it should be taught in high school. There's nothing in a high school biology that would require it to be taught (and I have taken sciences). At the college level in first year, absolutely. High school biology should be teaching about anatomy, how all the parts of the body work, how all the systems of the body work and why. That's plenty for a high school student to study. lol nice try

[Wisconsin+17]

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If I'm studying gravitation in physics classes, I learn how the theory was proven and what the theory is good at proving. Evolution has a couple of problems.

One, evolution isn't testable in a high school environment. How would I prove to students that it is actually true? You can do the proofs with gravitation, as gravitation makes specific predictions regarding the acceleration of a falling object. We can measure the force of the earth acting on the ground, and with an object that we know the mass, we can actually measure the weight of the earth.

Two, the testability issues are well beyond what a high school student would understand. We can't have them work with the actual fossils that would be used. Mostly because those fossils would deteriorate over time. Nor can we send them out to an archaeological dig, etc. Nor do they study the history behind it, the discoveries in archaeology, nor do they actually study archaeology in order to understand evolution.

In short, we sit them down and tell them what to believe and expect them to obey. This isn't teaching. This is indoctrination. If we're going to be teaching students we should be able to show them why it is the way that it is.

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I'm fine with that and would like to amend the bill.

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Personally I don't think Creationism belongs in a science class because it's not a testable scientific theory.

[Wisconsin+17]

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Take it to the other thread, please.

And again, sorry for not being here earlier. I'd like to discuss the bill for a bit and then we can have a vote on it.

[JustinTimeCuber]

Let's also not BAN teaching about the speed of light because it's not testable in a high school environment.
Also let's ban teaching history before around 1920 because there's no one from back then to remember it.

[Wisconsin+17]

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School curricula is actually not protected by the first amendment. Schools are permitted to set a course for teachers to follow and to fire teachers for not following a curricula. Schools ban all kinds of topics that are considered to be inappropriate for their classroom setting.

You're right though, to ban evolution from all universities and school would be unconstitutional. But pushing it to college level biology classes would not fall afoul of the first amendment.

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I think we can have a very good high school biology curricula without it. Evolution is never the core part of a high school biology curricula. Anatomy, however, is. Learning about all the parts of the bodies and the systems within the body and how they all function together is very useful knowledge for quite a few careers, especially within human kinetics and the medical sciences.

If you're not studying archaeology, how do you understand evolution?

[Wisconsin+17]

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You could teach the speed of light in a high school environment. We did the Michelson/Morely experiment.

We were able to show within the limits of our equipment that there was no deviation.

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Seeing as history teaches about reliable sources, there are no issues with using primary sources in historical research in our history classes. Now, granted, we didn't use many (as we had a lot of ground to cover), but we did use a few. We learned about why primary sources are always preferred to secondary sources and how any historian worth his salt is going to start from the archives and work out there rather than the opposite.

Start with the evidence that you do have, and keep an open mind to reading what your source actually does say.