Pliny's Academic Freedom Statute: Teaching the Controversy

The Discovery Institute (a name that George Orwell would have loved) has posted its version of academic freedom legislation that right thinkers can use as a basis for a cavalcade of proposed bills to chip away at scientific enlightenment. So in a similar vein, Pliny is posting his language that can be used in the front of science texts or recited by teachers to satisfy these stringent requirements laid out in these statutes.

Teaching the Controversy surrounding Descent with Modification

The Board of Education of the State of _________ is another victim in an ongoing culture war between science and superstition dressed in sheep's clothing. Scared to death by the scientific and philosophical implications of the theory of evolution, which could result in a major loss in status, power and revenues, Christian fundamentalist leaning groups have successfully employed the marketing tactics and sound bites used to get us to part with billions of our hard earned dollars buying stuff we don't need, to steadily erode scientific literacy in this country further creating fertile ground for their relentless efforts to return our precious family values and world view to the safety of the 13th century.

Despite the fact that evolutionary theory is more firmly supported by mountains of evidence from multiple disparate disciplines than is our understanding of gravity, these marketeers have successfully created a sense of controversy where none exists aided by decades of work in weakening the public school system's treatment of science. In the face of a relentless stream of new discoveries supporting evolution, creationist marketeers follow the example of Major General O. P. Smith, and "attack in another direction". These opponents will stoop to amazing depths to misrepresent the science of evolution while simultaneously claiming the moral high ground. Demonstrating that lipstick on a pig can indeed be convincing, these religiously motivated groups continue to intelligently design their messaging to avoid objections that derailed their earlier efforts to snuff out the candles of enlightenment. Coining secular sounding names like Intelligent Design, these creationists deny their God thousands of times more than Saint Peter in an effort to save our morals - with the obvious exception of truth telling.

Creationists are aided by the media which either does not understand or is unwilling to present a cogent representation of the scale of the immense disparity between those who oppose evolution and the vast array of actual science supporting it. They are further aided by politicians who are either reluctant to alienate a block of voters, chose to pander to said voting block, or are ignorant of the facts to a degree that makes one fear for the nation's future.

The pseudo-controversy surrounding evolutionary theory is an outstanding example of the successful use of populist adversarial tactics to undermine the foundations of science in a Democracy. As such it is a fertile topic for discussions of group think and behavioral psychology rather than biology.

Now that that is over with, we can get on with learning some hard science. Let's all open our biology texts to page...

Citing Pliny is not necessary. Use it as you see fit...