Anti-Evolution Legislation Shows Descent With Modification

Found this very interesting and alarming. Evolution of antievolution movement with agenda to affect and downgrade education. I believe we've seen similar evolution here on ATS with antievolition folks. What do you think?

Nicholas Matzke, an American evolutionary biologist currently at the Australian National University in Canberra, performed a phylogenetic-style analysis of dozens of antievolution education bills in various state legislatures to track their relatedness.


“Creationism evolves and sometimes those new strategies succeed.”

Nicholas Matzke, an evolutionary biologist currently on a fellowship at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“So I think a lot of people, it might not have been on their radar, that we have two states that have a statewide policy that encourages teachers to introduce sort-of false criticisms of evolution…and it also more explicitly tries to prevent administrators from doing anything about it.”

Those states are Tennessee and Louisiana. Matzke used to work for the National Center for Science Education, the NCSE, which tracks these legislative efforts to get religiously motivated creationism and its thinly disguised offshoots like Intelligent Design into public school classrooms.

Matzke and the NCSE were involved in the Kitzmiller versus Dover case in Pennsylvania in which the judge found the inclusion of Intelligent Design in the biology curriculum to be a violation of the First Amendment. December 20th marks the 10th anniversary of that decision. But dozens of similar bills that do not explicitly mention creationism or intelligent design have been proposed since.

“Over the years I’d kept in touch with NCSE people and we had always talked about, you know, these bills look like they’re just being copied and modified, we should do a phylogeny at some point—do an evolutionary analysis of them…so it had gotten up to being about 60 bills…I took all those bills, lined up all those texts, coded all the characteristics, all the variations between these texts, and then ran them through the standard phylogenetic analyses that we use for DNA. We use them for dinosaurs, they get used to study virus evolution. Those same programs can be used on texts that have been copied and modified.”

Matzke’s tongue in cheek, or rather panda’s thumb in a creationist’s eye, analysis is in the journal Science. [Nicholas J. Matzke, The evolution of antievolution policies after Kitzmiller v. Dover]

It reveals a high degree of relatedness among the bills—that is, legislators make slight alterations in bills either from their own state or other states in the hopes that this time the particular wording will get the bill passed.

“With the phylogenetic analysis we can tell when do these steps happen and how influential are they on future antievolution legislation…so it’s worth alerting people to the fact that these bills exist and alerting people to how these strategies change through time.”

Source: www.scientificamerican.com...

a reply to: SuperFrog

I thought it was a good bit of fun.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...

Perhaps someone could do a study to show that Evolutionary Theory was created?

a reply to: SuperFrog

My girlfriend is a junior at a well-respected state University (hint: has the highest in-state tuition in the nation), and guess what she told me last night?

That in her CSD class (i forget what the acronym stands for but something with "Communication"), the professor did a huge lecture on how


scientists haven't "proven" evolution is real, ALONG with a bunch of other well-known scientific ideas because "we have only been recording/finding evidence recently" and the laws of the universe itself could be changing as we speak.

the gist of it is "don't believe in SCIENCE" because it's so new...

Thought it kind of went along those lines as well so I wanted to share - thanks for posting Superfrog!

I never even heard the words ," intelligent design" before my philosophy 101 class.

So I'm thinking it's a legitimate part of education that a change in labling would allow the crybishes to stop shunning.

Oh no... the crazy is evolving!

I think something just snapped in my head. The rhetoric and tactics used to deny that things change over time are changing over time...

a reply to: FamCore

There is proof of evolution, the evolution of morons who come up with ever increasingly stupid reasons over generations as to why people should deny the sciences of their choosing.

You know, it's the same thing with anthropogenic climate change (or whatever the trendy nomenclature is this week)--if there's indisputable proof, let's have it. Where's the smoking gun?

There isn't one. And the single possibility scientists hypocritically refuse to consider is that evolution might be total bulls#.

originally posted by: NthOther
You know, it's the same thing with anthropogenic climate change (or whatever the trendy nomenclature is this week)--if there's indisputable proof, let's have it. Where's the smoking gun?

people keep being shown the indisputable proof, but they try to dispute it anyway..

There isn't one. And the single possibility scientists hypocritically refuse to consider is that evolution might be total bulls#.

In the scientific method, considering something bulls# is the standard position until reliably proving otherwise. the scientific method is the bulls# tester.. Evolution has passed with flying colours..

originally posted by: boncho
Oh no... the crazy is evolving!

I friggin' love this, may I knick it for my sig?

Oh there there

It can't be a science if it's above criticism,

It's kind of like global warming, nobody can question it

originally posted by: FamCore
a reply to: SuperFrog

My girlfriend is a junior at a well-respected state University (hint: has the highest in-state tuition in the nation), and guess what she told me last night?

That in her CSD class (i forget what the acronym stands for but something with "Communication"), the professor did a huge lecture on how


scientists haven't "proven" evolution is real, ALONG with a bunch of other well-known scientific ideas because "we have only been recording/finding evidence recently" and the laws of the universe itself could be changing as we speak.

the gist of it is "don't believe in SCIENCE" because it's so new...

Thought it kind of went along those lines as well so I wanted to share - thanks for posting Superfrog!

Your girlfriend sold out for a handful of silver.

The gist is not don't believe in science, the gist is test what you are learning,

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Oh there there

It can't be a science if it's above criticism,

It's kind of like global warming, nobody can question it

They can question it with evidence proving otherwise and accounting for current evidence, or accept the consensus and direct their criticism elsewhere.

Simple as that.

You simply cannot convince some people of evolution. Show them all the evidence you like, you won't change their minds.

What I think would be nice, is if school students were taught philosophy, so that the concept of intelligent design can be introduced in a rational, productive manner.

If somebody chooses to believe in intelligent design and/or that the world is only like 6,000 years old, then that's okay, because everyone should have the freedom to believe in what they will. The only problem is when the beliefs of one group are pushed onto others, especially when it's at the detriment of scientific reasoning. I've heard various stories of American schools teaching students Creationism rather than science, and actually going so far as to instruct students that evolution is false.

I'm no expert in American Constitution, but this has got to be unconstitutional, something about freedom of religion - different religions have different creation stories, and indoctrinating children in the arts of one particular religion, and failing students who disagree has got to be illegal, surely.

Questioning theories scientific is fine, by the way. For the people who don't know the different between a idea-theory and scientific theory, scientific theory is an established explanation of natural phenomena that is supported by multiple studies producing the same results. Lots of people say "oh but evolution is just a theory" and these people show an amazing ignorance of what science actually is, which is a shame. Science in general is pretty much comprised of questioning things - if I publish a paper saying that, I dunno, dingos navigate via echolocation or whatever (they don't by the way), then in order for this finding to be accepted, other scientists will conduct their own studies into the echolocation capabilities of the dingo, and only if multiple studies come up with the same result, only then will my theory become established. So for the people who whinge and say "oh but we should be able to question science" then yes, science is all about questioning things. That's the nature of the scientific method.

originally posted by: NthOther
And the single possibility scientists hypocritically refuse to consider is that evolution might be total bulls#.

That entire premise is complete bulls#. In Anthropology, we consider any possibility if the evidence and data lends itself to that hypothesis. The reason there isn't an "alternative" to evolution is because there isn't any evidence to support it while there is more evidence in favor of evolution than any other scientific theory in the history of mankind. Evolution is a fact. The theory, Modern Evolutionary Synthesis serves only to explain the HOW of evolution, not to prove its existence.

originally posted by: spygeek

people keep being shown the indisputable proof

Like what? Show me the proof that says evolution is an indisputable fact. Produce it. Don't send a handful of obscure sources that you have to piece together and contort to fit your assumptions after the fact.

I can do that with God. It doesn't impress me.

So where's the journal article, eh? Where's the academic synthesis of evolution? Where's the observational data and laboratory reproduction meta-analysis?

They don't exist. It's bunk science they've used to sell you an ideology that makes you easy to control.

Insignificant, random mass of unintelligent matter.

originally posted by: NthOther
You know, it's the same thing with anthropogenic climate change (or whatever the trendy nomenclature is this week)--if there's indisputable proof, let's have it. Where's the smoking gun?

There isn't one. And the single possibility scientists hypocritically refuse to consider is that evolution might be total bulls#.

Put evolutionary evidence and creation evidence next to each other and see which one can back up it's claims.

originally posted by: peter vlar

The theory, Modern Evolutionary Synthesis serves only to explain the HOW of evolution, not to prove its existence.

So you're studying the mechanics of something that may or may not even exist, yet teaching those mechanics as though they are unquestionably valid?

Gotcha.

originally posted by: spygeek

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Oh there there

It can't be a science if it's above criticism,

It's kind of like global warming, nobody can question it

They can question it with evidence proving otherwise and accounting for current evidence, or accept the consensus and direct their criticism elsewhere.

Simple as that.

I can question it because all the computer models are in error when compared to reality. I don't have to prove the absence of man-made climate change - the absence is the default state. It's the people who want to turn our lives upside down with legislation and regulation that need to prove all the effort is worth the time and resources.

a reply to: NthOther

No, you don't got me. Nice quote mine where you leave out the part where I mentioned evolution is a fact though, very we'll done. You don't seem to understand how science works at all and what the roll of a Scientific Theory actually is. It's quite different than the laymans definition of a theory. You don't need to believe the science that explains how evolution works but if you want to take that stance, then please demonstrate the errors of modern Evolutionary Synthesis and show me the evidence in favor of your preferred hypothesis. There are enough threads on ATS providing mountains of evidence demonstrating the facts of evolution. There is no evidence supporting any other position. Again, as I mentioned above, in science we explore all if the evidence. Not just the evidence that is conducive to a preconceived notion being held.

a reply to: peter vlar

Lol. So now my conception of "theory" is wrong?

Jesus, you win.