The first state bills of the year that would interfere with science education have appeared in Oklahoma. There, both the House and Senate have seen bills that would prevent school officials and administrators from disciplining any teachers who introduce spurious information to science classes.

These bills have a long history, dating back to around the time when teaching intelligent design was determined to be an unconstitutional imposition of religion. A recent study showed that you could take the text of the bills and build an evolutionary tree that traces their modifications over the last decade. The latest two fit the patterns nicely.

The Senate version of the bill is by State Senator Josh Brecheen, a Republican. It is the fifth year in a row he's introduced a science education bill after announcing he wanted "every publicly funded Oklahoma school to teach the debate of creation vs. evolution." This year's version omits any mention of specific areas of science that could be controversial. Instead, it simply prohibits any educational official from blocking a teacher who wanted to discuss the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories.

The one introduced in the Oklahoma House is more traditional. Billed as a "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act" (because freedom!), it spells out a whole host of areas of science its author doesn't like:

The Legislature further finds that the teaching of some scientific concepts including but not limited to premises in the areas of biology, chemistry, meteorology, bioethics, and physics can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on some subjects such as, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

The bill responds to that uncertainty by ensuring educators can just teach whatever they want as long as they think it's science, and nobody can discipline them. Students, meanwhile, cannot be penalized if they "subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories." And the author makes sure to point out that none of this has anything to do with religion, just in case a casual reader ended up confused by its similarity to earlier bills with overtly religious motivations.

Some of said bills have the same author as this one: State Representative Sally Kern, a Republican. This is apparently her fourth try at an academic freedom act; previous attempts have passed the Oklahoma House before dying in the Senate education committee.