A bill that has been introduced in the Colorado House of Representatives is an attempt "to miseducate students about evolution, whether by teaching creationism as a scientifically credible alternative or merely by misrepresenting evolution as scientifically controversial," according to the National Center for Science Education.
The bill calls for directing teachers "to create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming, and human cloning."
As NCSE says, the language of the bill is a "typical instance of the 'academic freedom' strategy for undermining the teaching of evolution."
Phil Plait, a Colorado resident who writes the Bad Astronomy blog at Slate, delves further into the "Orwellian-named 'academic freedom'" stance by asking, "If this were really about academic freedom, why is it so specific? Why not include all fields of science, instead of just those three? In fact, why not include all academic fields? I’d be fascinated to see literature, art, and math added to that. Or religious study."
Plait shares a letter he wrote to Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, a member of the House Committees on Education and Appropriations, which is now studying the bill, in which he points out that creationism and global warming are not "scientifically controversial" topics.
"The science has been long established; evolution is real, and global warming is real. Any controversy is manufactured by political and corporate ideology, and not by science," he writes, urging Hullinghorst to kill the "anti-education" bill in committee.