WV Republicans refile bill to get "Intelligent Design" in classrooms... with a twist

State Sen. Amy Grady wants to give teachers cover to spread misinformation to students

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Once again, West Virginia Republicans are trying to inject “Intelligent Design” in public school science classes.

State Sen. Amy Grady, along with her colleagues Jay Taylor, Mike Stuart, Rollan A. Roberts, Rupie Phillips, Vince Deeds, Eric J. Tarr, and Michael T. Azinger, recently filed Senate Bill 280, which would add a clause to the state code permitting teachers to tell kids some Higher Power poofed them into existence.

State Sen. Amy Grady (screenshot via Facebook)

Teachers in public schools, including public charter schools, that include any one or more of grades kindergarten through 12, may teach intelligent design as a theory of how the universe and/or humanity came to exist.

The bill that was introduced didn’t define “Intelligent Design.” All you need to know about it, though, is that there’s no scientific support for the idea. It stands in direct opposition to evolution and is nothing more than a religious myth promoted by Christians as a way to push God into the classroom using a plausibly legal framework since Creationism wouldn’t make the cut.

(Even more bizarre? The bill added that clause to a part of the state code that currently says teachers can’t be forced to change a grade and that teachers should decide if a student can move on to the next grade level… which is to say they shoved this pro-Creationism bit in the first place they could find.)

This is nothing more than an attempt to destroy science classes by giving teachers leeway (and legal cover) to spread misinformation to students.

If the bill were to pass, you can expect a lawsuit to be filed. After all, Intelligent Design advocates (or, pejoratively, Cdesign Proponentsists) have already lost this battle in federal court before.

For now, the bill has been referred out of the Senate Education Committee, which happens to be chaired by Grady herself, with no audible objections. That tells you a lot about how little West Virginia cares about public schools.

It did, however, undergo one change before it passed out of the committee on Tuesday: The phrase “intelligent design” was replaced with “scientific theories.” The latest version of the bill now says teachers can’t be prevented “from discussing or answering questions from students about scientific theories of how the universe and/or humanity came to exist.”

That… makes the entire bill meaningless.

Teachers can already talk about those theories in the classroom. What they can’t do is lie to students by responding with ideas that have no basis in science… like Intelligent Design or Creationism. If this revised bill passed, it would still be illegal to teach Intelligent Design as if it had any legitimacy among scientists.

To put it another way, if teaching “scientific theories” about the origins of our existence are permitted in the classroom, that would, by definition, exclude Intelligent Design and Creationism, which aren’t scientific.

Not that Republicans seemed to understand any of this. The revision gave one lawmaker everything he needed to support the bill.

Sen. Charles Trump… said he had “heartburn” over a version of the bill that appeared before the committee during last year’s session.

“I ended up deciding that I would have to vote against it,” he said. “This committee substitute has addressed the concerns that I had last year, and I’m happy to say that I [am now] able to support [it].”

What does that even mean?! Of course he can support it! The revised bill says teachers can teach legitimate science in the classroom. What they can’t do is promote Intelligent Design or Creationism.

If there’s any confusion here, it’s only because Republicans went so far right that they circled back around to the beginning.

On Tuesday, before the revision was made, the ACLU of West Virginia threatened to file a lawsuit if the bill passed:

It’s not clear if they would file a lawsuit against the revised bill… since there’s no substance there anymore.

By the way, before the Senate Education Committee passed this bill, two high school students who clearly need better science education testified in support of it and it may explain the wording in the revised bill:

Two Hurricane High School juniors, Hayden Hodge and Hunter Bernard, promoted the bill to the panel.

Hodge, who also addressed the senators last year, said the idea came to him from a science teacher who wished he could discuss ID it as an option but feared repercussions.

Hodge reminded them that ID is “agnostic, meaning it only proposes some kind of consciousness behind the design of the universe; it’s not biblical creationism; it doesn’t posit any attributes of the consciousness or promote any religious precepts. It doesn’t even challenge the theory of evolution, only evolution’s precept that the formation of the universe was blind and undirected.

“It could be god or it could be a flying spaghetti monster,” he said.

That’s… just embarrassing for them.

Intelligent Design is 100% Creationism wearing a trench coat and fake mustache. And if these kids had a science teacher who desperately wanted to lie to kids, that teacher had no business being in a classroom. The fact that they’re already this confused about Intelligent Design reveals that their school has failed them.

More to the point: If this revised bill passes, their science teacher still couldn’t discuss Intelligent Design in class. So if Republicans are taking a victory lap, it’s because they don’t even know what they’re fighting for anymore.

Grady and Taylor attempted to file an identical bill (with the phrase “Intelligent Design”) last year. It passed in the State Senate 27-6 (with one absence) before it died in the House Education Committee. Perhaps this new bill will be more successful. Keep in mind that the House didn’t vote against the last bill. They just didn’t give it consideration, perhaps because of a lack of time. That happens often. But West Virginia has more than enough Republicans who could pass this bill if they wanted to.

If they succeed, and if there’s confusion about what the bill does or does not allow, it’ll only make lives worse for the teachers who already work in the state ranked 47th in education.

(Parts of this article were published earlier, because Republicans never learn)

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