Thanks - I wasn't as specific as I should have been because this was originally written as a "letter to the editor" for a couple newspapers, so I tried to keep

Thanks - I wasn't as specific as I should have been because this was originally written as a "letter to the editor" for a couple newspapers, so I tried to keep things short. I'll make some edits accordingly. For me, what's troubling is the language in the bill that "the teaching of some subjects, including... biological evolution... can cause controversy." The bill's authors aren't referring to any real subtle controversy about the fine details of evolution, they're referring to some controversy about the fundamental validity of evolution, a controversy that just doesn't exist. Teaching students critical thinking is of course hugely important, and that's what makes this bill so threatening. In the guise of "encouraging critical thinking" the bill allows teachers to teach creationism, or flat-earth-ism, or whatever other unsupported pseudoscience they like. There are plenty of real debates in the scientific community that make excellent examples for teaching critical thinking - there's no need to invent fake debates.