Anti-Evolution and Anti-Climate Science Legislation Scorecard: 2017

    Robert Luhn
    11.27.2017

Thanks in part to NCSE’s efforts, it was a bad year for those who would make it easier to miseducate kids about science, with one major exception: Florida. Signed into law in June 2017, Florida’s House Bill 989 allows any county resident—not just any parent with a child in the country’s public schools—to file a complaint about textbooks and other instructional materials. Climate change and evolution were clearly among the targets of HB 989.

Anti-science legislation fared poorly elsewhere in the U.S. None of the “academic freedom” bills aimed at empowering teachers to miseducate their students passed, although it was close in Oklahoma and South Dakota. In Arkansas, a bill that would allow creationism to be taught never got to the point of being drafted. A novelty in 2017 were “academic freedom” bills in the form of non-binding resolutions, which were passed in Alabama and Indiana.

The legislative lay of the land:

Alabama

House Joint Resolution 78
Aim: “Academic freedom”
Status: Passed House and Senate; did not require governor’s signature
Links: Antiscience resolution adopted in Alabama

Arkansas

HB 2050
Aim: would allow creationism to be taught in public schools
Status: Died in House committee
Links: Arkansas creationism bill apparently dies

Florida

HB 989
Aim: Instructional materials challenge
Status: Passed the House and Senate; signed into law

SB 1210
Aim: Instructional materials challenge
Status: Abandoned in favor of HB 989

Links: Florida’s antiscience bill becomes law

Idaho

Senate Concurrent Resolution 121
Aim: Delete climate change from state science standards
Status: Passed both houses; did not require governor’s signature
Links: Climate change deletion finalized in Idaho

Indiana

Senate Resolution 17
Aim: “Academic freedom”
Status: Passed Senate; did not require House passage or governor’s signature
Links: Indiana antiscience resolution passes the Senate

Iowa

HF 140
Aim: Would make state science standards optional or repeal them
Status: Died in House committee

HF 480
Aim: Would require “opposing points of view” to evolution and climate change be taught
Status: Died in House committee

Links: Two down in Iowa

Oklahoma

SB 393
Aim: “Academic freedom” bill
Status: Passed in Senate; died in the House
Links: Oklahoma’s antiscience bill blocked

South Dakota

SB 55
Aim: Would have empowered science denial in the classroom
Status: Died in committee
Links: South Dakota’s antiscience bill stopped

Texas

HB 1485
Aim: “Academic freedom” bill
Status: Died in House committee
Links: Antiscience legislation dies in Texas

Wisconsin

AB 299
Aim: Campus free speech bill; creationist sponsor claims it might protect creationist college students
Status: Passed Assembly, currently with Senate

SB 250
Aim: Campus free speech bill; creationist sponsor claims it might protect creationist college students
Status: Currently with Senate
Links: Would a Wisconsin bill protect science denial on campus?

www.ncse.com

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) defends the integrity of science education against ideological interference. We work with teachers, parents, scientists, and concerned citizens at the local, state, and national levels to ensure that topics including evolution and climate change are taught accurately, honestly, and confidently. Our work is made possible by our members and other generous donors.

Doomsday Clock: It is Now Two Minutes to Midnight #RewindtheDoomsdayClock

Update 1.25.18
It is now two minutes to midnight
2018 Doomsday Clock Statement
Science and Security Board
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Move Clock Ahead 30 Seconds, Closest to Midnight Since 1953; #RewindtheDoomsdayClock: Cool Trump Nuclear Rhetoric, Negotiate With North Korea, Stick With Iran Deal, Reduce US-Russian Tensions, and Insist on Global Action on Climate Change.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 25, 2018  Citing growing nuclear risks and unchecked climate dangers, the iconic Doomsday Clock is now 30 seconds closer to midnight, the closest to the symbolic point of annihilation that the Clock has been since 1953 at the height of the Cold War. The decision announced today to move the Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight was made by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board in consultation with the Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel Laureates. The full text of the Doomsday Clock statement is available at http://www.thebulletin.org and includes key recommendations about how to #RewindtheDoomsdayClock.

Video from the Doomsday Clock announcement at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., is available at http://clock.thebulletin.org/ and on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BulletinOfTheAtomicScientists/.

The statement explaining the resetting of the time of the Doomsday Clock notes: “In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World War II. The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program appeared to make remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks for itself, other countries in the region, and the United States. Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions on both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation …. On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the long run requires urgent attention now …. The nations of the world will have to significantly decrease their greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate risks manageable, and so far, the global response has fallen far short of meeting this challenge.”

Fueling concerns about the potential of a nuclear holocaust are a range of U.S.-Russian military entanglements, South China Sea tensions, escalating rhetoric between Pakistan and India, and uncertainty about continued U.S. support for the Iran nuclear deal. Contributing to the risks of nuclear and non-nuclear clashes around the globe are the rise of nation-state information technology and internet-based campaigns attacking infrastructure and free elections, according to the statement.

Also highlighted as an overarching global concern: The decline of U.S. leadership and a related demise of diplomacy under the Trump Administration. “… [T]here has also been a breakdown in the international order that has been dangerously exacerbated by recent U.S. actions. In 2017, the United States backed away from its longstanding leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict U.S. actions or understand when U.S. pronouncements are real, and when they are mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surrealistic sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening.”

In January 2017, the Doomsday Clock’s minute hand edged forward by 30 seconds, to two and half minutes before midnight. For the first time, the Doomsday Clock was influenced by statements from an incoming U.S. President, Donald Trump, regarding the proliferation and the prospect of actually using nuclear weapons, as well as statements made in opposition to U.S. commitments regarding climate change.

Rachel Bronson, president and CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said: “Because of the extraordinary danger of the current moment, the Science and Security Board today moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe. It is now two minutes to midnight­­­­—the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War.”

Lawrence Krauss, director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, Foundation Professor at School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department, Arizona State University, and chair, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Board of Sponsors, said: “The current, extremely dangerous state of world affairs need not be permanent. The means for managing dangerous technology and reducing global-scale risk exist; indeed, many of them are well-known and within society’s reach, if leaders pay reasonable attention to preserving the long-term prospects of humanity, and if citizens demand that they do so. This is a dangerous time, but the danger is of our own making. Humankind has invented the implements of apocalypse; so can it invent the methods of controlling and eventually eliminating them. This year, leaders and citizens of the world can move the Doomsday Clock and the world away from the metaphorical midnight of global catastrophe by taking common-sense action.”

Robert Rosner, William E. Wrather Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Physics at the University of Chicago, and chair, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, said: “We hope this resetting of the Clock will be interpreted exactly as it is meant—as an urgent warning of global danger. The time for world leaders to address looming nuclear danger and the continuing march of climate change is long past. The time for the citizens of the world to demand such action is now: #RewindtheDoomsdayClock.”

Sharon Squassoni, research professor of practice at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, said: “In the past year, U.S. allies have needed reassurance about American intentions more than ever. Instead, they have been forced to negotiate a thicket of conflicting policy statements from a U.S. administration weakened in its cadre of foreign policy professionals, suffering from turnover in senior leadership, led by an undisciplined and disruptive president, and unable to develop, coordinate, and clearly communicate a coherent nuclear policy. This inconsistency constitutes a major challenge for deterrence, alliance management, and global stability. It has made the existing nuclear risks greater than necessary and added to their complexity.”

Sivan Kartha, senior scientist at the Stockholm Environmental Institute and co-leader of SEI’s Gender and Social Equity Program, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, said:  “2017 just clocked in as the hottest year on record that wasn’t boosted by an El Nino. And that matches what we’ve witnessed on the ground: the Caribbean suffered a season of historic damage from exceedingly powerful hurricanes, extreme heat waves struck across the globe, the Arctic ice cap hit its lowest winter peak on record, and the U.S. suffered devastating wildfires. And while this was happening, the Trump administration dutifully carried through on the campaign promise of derailing U.S. climate policy, putting avowed climate denialists in top cabinet positions, and announcing plans to withdraw from the Paris climate Agreement. Thankfully, this didn’t cause global cooperation to unravel, and other countries have reaffirmed their commitment to take action against climate change.”

#RewindtheDoomsdayClock is a major message of the 2018 statement, with the following action steps among those recommended:

  • U.S. President Donald Trump should refrain from provocative rhetoric regarding North Korea, recognizing the impossibility of predicting North Korean reactions. The U.S. and North Korean governments should open multiple channels of communication.
  • The world community should pursue, as a short-term goal, the cessation of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests. North Korea is the only country to violate the norm against nuclear testing in 20 years.
  • The Trump administration should abide by the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for Iran’s nuclear program unless credible evidence emerges that Iran is not complying with the agreement or Iran agrees to an alternative approach that meets U.S. national security needs.
  • The United States and Russia should discuss and adopt measures to prevent peacetime military incidents along the borders of NATO.
  • U.S. and Russian leaders should return to the negotiating table to resolve differences over the INF treaty, to seek further reductions in nuclear arms, to discuss a lowering of the alert status of the nuclear arsenals of both countries, to limit nuclear modernization programs that threaten to create a new nuclear arms race, and to ensure that new tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons are not built, and existing tactical weapons are never used on the battlefield.
  • U.S. citizens should demand, in all legal ways, climate action from their government. Climate change is a real and serious threat to humanity.
  • Governments around the world should redouble their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so they go well beyond the initial, inadequate pledges under the Paris Agreement.
  • The international community should establish new protocols to discourage and penalize the misuse of information technology to undermine public trust in political institutions, in the media, in science, and in the existence of objective reality itself.
  • —————-

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will host a live international news conference at 10 a.m. EST/1500 GMT on Thursday, January 25, 2018, to announce the 2018 time of the Doomsday Clock. Watch the announcement live atclock.thebulletin.org, or on our Facebook page through Facebook Live.

Speakers for the Doomsday Clock announcement on January 25, 2018 will include:

•    Rachel BronsonPresident and CEOBulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

•    Sivan KarthaBulletin Science and Security Board; Senior Scientist at the Stockholm Environmental Institute and co-leader of SEI’s Gender and Social Equity Program. Kartha served as a Coordinating Lead Author in the preparation of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

•    Lawrence Krauss, chair, Bulletin Board of Sponsors; director, Origins Project at Arizona State University; and Foundation Professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department, Arizona State University.

•    Robert Rosner, chair, Bulletin Science and Security Board; William E. Wrather Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics at the University of Chicago.

•    Sharon SquassoniBulletin Science and Security Board; Research Professor of Practice at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University.

Explore our Timeline of the Clock’s past changes, and test your knowledge of the Clock by visiting “Doomsday Clockwork,” our special FAQ on the purpose and history of Martyl Langsdorf’s 1947 creation. You can see all this and more atthebulletin.org.

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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

2017: For the last two years, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock stayed set at three minutes before the hour, the closest it had been to midnight since the early 1980s. In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: “The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent. It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.

1947 issue of “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” when they debuted the Doomsday Clock.
[J.B. Spector/Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago]
Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and new technologies emerging in other domains.

 

For 70 years, the Bulletin has bridged the technology divide between scientific research, foreign policy and public engagement. See more at: http://thebulletin.org