Going South on Science

There is, at the moment, antiscience legislation in South Dakota. It is House Bill 1270. The purpose of the bill would be to improperly represent the standard science curriculum within the science classroom.

The bill was introduced on January 30, 2019. The purpose is to make it so that teachers can be free to assist students in understanding, analyzing, critiquing, and reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of the science information provided to them. This is the double-speak.

What, in actual fact, happens in the contexts of classrooms that would implement this, the aim would be to permit the disputing of evolution and anthropogenic climate change.

“Although no specific scientific topics are mentioned, the language of the bill matches the language in bills explicitly aimed at disputing evolution and/or climate change, including South Dakota’s SB 114 in 2015,” NCSE reported, “In 2016, the identical SB 83 was introduced and eventually died in committee; in 2017, the identical SB 55 passed the Senate but ultimately was defeated in the House Education Committee.”

SB 55 was a prior bill that was defeated. It was one that had received a consistent amount of opposition from the Associated School Board of South Dakota, the South Dakota Education Association, the School Administrators of South Dakota, and the South Dakota Department of Education.

The reportage concluded, “HB 1270 has eleven sponsors, nine in the House and two in the Senate, of whom seven are also sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution 1002 and House Bill 1113.”