From the article:
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N.Y. Lawmaker Proposes Teaching Creationism
Lauren Wolfe 06/02/2005 12:33 pm
Built more than a century ago, New York's State Capitol tells a curious tale of
evolution.
Each step leading up to the Senate chambers is etched with an evolutionary
chapter: The first shows a single-cell organism. There is a fish, a reptile,
and so on up to an ape. For the last step, after the ape, the next logical
stage to depict, it seems, was...a camel.
Whether it was because the architects didn't want to have the final step on the
evolutionary ladder be hubris?the Senate itself?or because evolution was still
very much under debate at the time, the irony is not lost on some present-day
members now that one representative has introduced legislation to bring a form
of creationism to New York State schools.
"And here we've come full circle," says Assemb. James Conte (R-Huntington
Station), a member of the education committee.
Conte and some other Long Island representatives are surprised to see the debate
over evolution flare up in New York in the 21st century, so far from the Bible
Belt where debate has been hot. The proposed bill would require public schools
to teach the newest twist on creationism, a theory that says man must have been
created by an "intelligent designer," rather than through happenstance. A
justification tacked on to the proposal states: "Teaching just one theory can
inadvertently result in that theory being looked at as an absolute truth."
Assemb. Daniel L. Hooker (R-Saugerties) is the bill's only sponsor. He has also
sponsored another piece of legislation that would allow the posting of the Ten
Commandments on government property. Hooker was unavailable for comment; he has
been called into active service in the Marines.
Calling the bill "nonsense on its face," and the idea behind it "medieval" and
"reactionary," Assemb. Steve Englebright (D-East Setauket) speaks from a
background as a paleontologist who went to a university a few miles from where
the 1925 Scopes trial?in which a Tennessee biology teacher challenged a state
statute that made teaching evolution illegal?took place. Englebright says the
idea of teaching "intelligent design" is "particularly absurd in New York,
which has a sophisticated, highly educated population."
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Read it at http://www.longislandpress.com/?cp=38&show=article&a_id=4117
J. Spaceman
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My email address (notreally@jspaceman.homelinux.org) is fake. Email sent to it
will only get caught in my spam tarpit.
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