It's been a while, but the anti-science legislation mills that exist on the state legislature level are back in action as usual. To wit:
Missouri: House Bill 179 (primarily sponsored by Andrew Koenig [R-District 99] who was also responsible for House Bill 1276 from last January) was introduced to the Missouri House of Representatives on January 16th. Unsurprisingly, the language of the new bill seems just a little reminiscent of the earlier one.
Colorado: House Bill 13-1089 was introduced on the same day by cosponsors Stephen Humphrey (R-House District 48) and Scott Renfroe (R-Senate District 13) and regurgitates the usual boilerplate about "respectfully (exploring) scientific questions and learn about scientific
evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming,
and human cloning." It's as if merely repeating those words in every one of these bills will somehow cause them to get passed by accident. It's also the first time a pro-creationism bill was proposed in the Colorado legislature since 1972.
Oklahoma: Not to be outdone, the state with one of the worst records in similar legislation attacking the biological sciences saw the introduction of two more bills, namely Senate Bill 758 (Sponsored by Josh Brecheen [R-District 6], who was also responsible for Senate Bill 554 in 2011 and Senate Bill 1742 in 2012) and House Bill 1674 (sponsored by Gus Blackwell [R-61], who also sponsored the revival of 2011's House Bill 1551 in 2012). What's surprising here is the lack of Sally Kern's hand in promoting this latest slew of bills; she's practically made a career out of it.
The really frightening thing here actually isn't the bills themselves, since most probably won't make it out of committee and certainly none will survive a court challenge. The really terrifying fact is that politicians continue to do this for all the usual reasons (pandering to a still virulent conservative evangelical voting bloc, for example) despite the fact that just like Flat Earthers, Holocaust deniers and Birthers their obvious quackery just gets more and more unintentionally funny (while remaining disturbing for its anti-intellectual tone) with time.
UPDATE: this is somewhat old news, but the Oklahoma bills are effectively dead - at least for now.
(Also in WTTFTG)
