Wisconsin Legislator Wants 'All Options' Taught Re: Origin of Life
by Jim Brown
February 23, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Two Democrats have introduced a bill in the Wisconsin legislature to ban public schools from teaching intelligent design as science.The measure, sponsored by Representative Terese Berceau, would require science curricula to describe only national processes and follow definitions from the National Academy of Sciences. The sponsor says the legislation is designed to stop what she calls the "undermining" of science instruction by "pseudo-science" like intelligent design and creationism.
But State Representative John Ainsworth, who opposes Berceau's bill, believes intelligent design should not be banned from science classes. He feels students should be presented with all views on the origin of life -- and that elected officials may be stepping over the line on this issue.
"It seems like going into the schools and telling them what they can teach in which class is a little bit beyond our purpose," he says. "I don't think that we need to be that specific as to dictate where they teach something if they choose to teach it."
But intelligent design, he adds, is "certainly one of the options I would hope that would be presented to the students."
Ainsworth says permitting discussion and presentation of intelligent design theory in schools is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, as Berceau and Darwinists claim. But if those claims were on target, and if teaching intelligent design constituted injection of religion, then he says "teaching Darwinism may be just the opposite" -- implying that by not giving students the option of learning about the possibility of creation, schools are promoting atheism. "I think they should be presented all options," he concludes.
The lawmaker says Berceau's newly drafted legislation is a "waste of time" and a likely "campaign statement" that he predicts will fail to make it through the legislative process.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
