Creationism News: RIP bad bills, New Jersey Evolves

Missouri, the "Show Me State," had two bills in the state house that wuld have promoted Intelligent Design in the public school science class. The legislature adjourned a couple of days ago without advancing the bills, and that is how a bill dies. RIP bad bills in Missouri.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Evolution is Real! The Asbury Park (as in The Boss) carried out a poll along with Monmouth University which asked if citizens "believe in" evolution. 51% said yes, 42% said no, and 7% said they didn't know. I would apply a 1% correction to that to account for Snarky Skeptics who would say "Believe in? Belief? What's that? I accept evolution. I don't believe in anything" and could therefore not be counted as a "yes" even though that is clearly what was meant.

The poll showed that Democrats and independents, males, college grads, and folk between 35 and 54 were more likely to say yes. Those with a high school education or less and people over 55 were more likely to say no. This was reported here by the NCSE.

Alabama had a bill that would have created a "credit for creationism" course as part of a release time for religions instructions scheme. That is an interesting idea, and I suspect we will see more plans like this one. According to the NCSE,

While released time programs are generally constitutionally permissible, a controversial feature of HB 133 was its allowing local boards of education to award course credit for participating in religious education. A case currently before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Robert Moss et al. v. Spartanburg County School District No. 7, concerns a local school district's implementation of the South Carolina Released Time Credit Act, enacted in 2006, which similarly awards course credit for participating in released time religious education. Besides the question of the bill's constitutionality, the state board of education opposed the bill when it was introduced as HB 568 in 2011, according to WAFF.

The bill died when the Alabama legislature ended its regular session. RIP bad bill.

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^{Photo courtesy of elmada}