category: Education
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An Anti-Evolution League book sale at the beginning of the 1925 Scopes trial in Tennessee. The state has once again become a science-education battleground.
Tennessee Monkey Bill’ Becomes Law
Author: Helen Thompson
Source: Nature
The governor of Tennessee has allowed the passage of the 'monkey bill', giving public-school teachers licence to teach alternatives to those mainstream scientific theories often attacked by religious and political conservatives.
Nicknamed for the ‘monkey trial’ of 1925, in which Tennessee prosecuted high-school science teacher John Scopes for violating a state law against teaching evolution, the new measure allows public-school teachers to “help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories.” Biological evolution, global warming, the chemical origins of life and human cloning are listed as examples of such theories.
The legislation, which was passed in both houses of the Republican-controlled state legislature with strong margins, was sent to Governor William Haslam, also a Republican, on 29 March. He neither signed nor vetoed the bill, so it automatically became law on 10 April.
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Nature
