The NCSE is reporting (via an AP article) that an antiscience academic freedom bill has died in Alabama. These bills are a pox on the country, popping up in state legislatures everywhere. They purport to allow teachers freedom to teach controversies, but that's creationist slang that really means violating the First Amendment and teaching religion in schools. The Alabama bill's cause of death is unclear; the article merely says it was because it didn't pass in the House where it was introduced. I'd love to hear that the politicians had epiphanies and realized that passing it would irreparably damage students' ability to learn, but I suspect it's far more likely to have been due to some arcane parliamentary issue. And lest you think this kind of garbage is quarantined to the U.S. south, I heard last night after my talk from some college students in the audience that Michigan is considering just such an unconstitutional bill. You don't get much farther north than that.
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