Ethics

Mississippi Disclaimer Bill Dies in Committee

By Ed Brayton

Remember that blissfully idiotic disclaimer that a Mississippi legislator wanted in all biology textbooks? That bill has now died in committee.

Mississippi's House Bill 25, which would have mandated the state board of education to require every textbook that discusses evolution to include a disclaimer describing evolution as "a controversial theory," died in committee on February 3, 2009, according to the state's legislative website. At present, the only state to require a textbook disclaimer about evolution is Alabama, which is currently using a disclaimer adopted in 2005. The proposed Mississippi disclaimer was evidently a hybrid of two previous versions of the Alabama disclaimer: its first paragraph is modeled on the first paragraph of the second version (adopted in 2001), while much of the remainder is modeled on the first version (adopted in 1995).

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on February 10, 2009 (boomark / email).