They're at it again

In Tennessee a bill was recently introduced to allow the teaching of creationism in the class room. Again, you might say. Will they never learn?
The house version of the bill states:

This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or principal or administrator from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming. (highlights are mine)

Note the absence of the word creationism in this proposal. The lawmaker seems to be particularly concerned that weaknesses in the theories of evolution and global warming are not being discussed in Tennessean class rooms. The bill doesn't say "scientific strength and weaknesses of Newtonium physics and the theory of electromagnetism" because these theories are not seen as a threat to those who belief that the Christian bible is the word of God. And if you want to hold on to that belief you have to fight all your life against the unfortunate fact that the world as we know it was created about 4 billion years ago, or about 10 billion years after the beginning of the universe. 

Let's be fair, if you included " scientific strength and weaknesses of Newtonium physics and the theory of electromagnetism" you would also, at some level, have to understand what these theories are actually about. Creationists do not seem to appreciate that the scientific theory of evolution would be shaken to its core if we ever found human remains that date back to a time before the emergence of primates. They do understand, however, that the theory of evolution and the biblical account of creation are not compatible from a factual point of view. So, they try again and again to substitute the teaching of science with that of religion. 

As long as there is no test to screen out the scientifically-impaired among our aspiring law makers, we have to put up with attempts like these again and again. What is proposed may seem harmless but adopting this bill as the law of a state, or a governing authority such as school board would mean that a science teacher who argues that a biblical truth is an alternative for a scientific theory cannot be dismissed and send to the same asylum where the lawmaker ought to be heading.

And that would be a shame, wouldn't it?