Missouri Republican Representative wants to alter the definitions of scientific terms in order to make Creationism seem like science. Which it's not!

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

Late last month, Rick Brattin, a Republican state representative in Missouri, introduced a bill that would require that intelligent design and "destiny" get the same educational treatment and textbook space in Missouri schools as the theory of evolution. Brattin insists that his bill has nothing to do with religion—it's all in the name of science. 

"I'm a science enthusiast...I'm a huge science buff," Brattin tells The Riverfront Times. "This [bill] is about testable data in today's world." But Eric Meikle, education project director at the National Center for Science Education, disagrees. "This bill is very idiosyncratic and strange," he tells Mother Jones. "And there is simply not scientific evidence for intelligence design." 

HB 291, the "Missouri Standard Science Act," redefines a few things you thought you already knew about science. For example, a "hypothesis" is redefined as something that reflects a "minority of scientific opinion and is "philosophically unpopular." A scientific theory is "an inferred explanation...whose components are data, logic and faith-based philosophy." And "destiny" is not something that $5 fortune tellers believe in; Instead, it's "the events and processes that define the future of the universe, galaxies, stars, our solar system, earth, plant life, animal life, and the human race." 

The bill requires that Missouri elementary and secondary schools—and even introductory science classes in public universities—give equal textbook space to both evolution and intelligent design (any other "theories of origin" are allowed to be taught as well, so pick your favorite creation myth—I'm partial to the Russian raven spirit.) "I can't imagine any mainstream textbook publisher would comply with this," Meikle says. "The material doesn't exist."

"I'm a science enthusiast?" Don't you have to have some understanding of a subject BEFORE you can become a fan?

This guy is a fan of science the way a rapist is a fan of women.

You know this may be one of the most devious and  troubling attacks on science yet.

If this asshole is successful in changing the very definitions that science uses in order to differentiate itself from faith or belief, than he will make it that much harder to fight allowing Creationism to be taught in the public school classroom.

I would usually make jokes at this idiot's expense, but this actually sends a chill up my spine. The people of Missouri need to stand up to this ignorance before it takes hold and then spreads to other states as well.