Tennessee State Sen. Bo WatsonNASHVILLE – All eight Tennessee members of the National Academy of Sciences, including a Nobel laureate, are criticizing efforts by Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, to revive his bill allowing science teachers to discuss with students the “weaknesses” of theories about evolution, the chemical origins of life and global warming.
Watson’s bill, which triggered a storm of criticism last year, passed the Senate Education Committee last week and is up for a Senate floor vote today.
The eight scientists include Vanderbilt University biochemist Dr. Stanley Cohen, who shared a 1986 Nobel Prize in medicine for his landmark research on cellular growth factors.
All eight signed a statement opposing the legislation.
“These bills misdescribe evolution as scientifically controversial,” the statement says. ” As scientists whose research involves and is based upon evolution, we affirm – along with the nation’s leading scientific organizations … that evolution is a central, unifying, and accepted area of science.