The teaching of evolution has been under attack for decades, but few are aware of the extent of the campaign. Each year, at least a half-dozen states seem to introduce legislation intended to undermine science education standards by allowing or requiring nonscientific ideas to be taught alongside a standard biology curriculum. In recent years, these have taken the form of the so-called "academic freedom" bills, which allow teachers to bring in outside materials that undercut standard science textbooks. Many of these bills are now placing climate change beside evolution as a target for special criticism, and there are signs that climatology may become an independent target for state legislators.

We're only partway through February, and the National Center for Science Education has already been tracking two bills related to education in the biological sciences. The first, from Mississippi, would "require that the lesson have equal instruction from educational materials that present arguments from both protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution." It died in committee earlier this month.

But it was quickly joined by a bill in Kentucky that would allow teachers to bring in materials that were not approved by the state in order to critique the science that has previously been discussed; in this sense, it's structured much like the legislation that passed in Louisiana. The law targets scientific theories "including but not limited to the study of evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning," which is a direct copy of the Louisiana law.

There are two ways of interpreting this recent tendency to lump biology and geoscience education into a single piece of legislation. The first is that hyperskepticism of evolution and climate change have generally been associated with the conservative end of the political spectrum in recent years, meaning that the people behind the bills object to both topics. The alternative is that the people behind the bills know that there are many people who mistrust either one or the other, and the bill can attract wider support by including both.

But there are now signs that, at the state level, climate change may be ready to branch out on its own. Last week, the Utah House approved legislation that urges the Environmental Protection Agency to put any plans for regulating carbon dioxide emissions on hold, "until climate data and global warming science are substantiated."

Although the determination that the EPA would act on greenhouse gas emissions was based on scientific findings, the actual policy that results would be a political decision, and one that it's perfectly reasonable for the Utah legislature to weigh in on. Instead, the Utah legislation attacks the science, in inflammatory and confused terms.

The initial text of the legislation accused scientists of being on a "gravy train" of federal funding and engaging in a conspiracy to promote flawed findings. Those statements have been toned down in the version that passed, but it still contains many misunderstandings and distortions, including a positively bizarre aside that appears to blame chlorofluorocarbons—like freon—for the recent trajectory of temperatures.

Bills such as these highlight what appears to be a disturbing trend, one that is also apparent in a Maine legislator's recent attempts to place health warnings on cell phones. The US public has had difficulty distinguishing between credible scientific information and the various forms of misinformation available on the Internet. It's no surprise that state lawmakers, drawn from and representing that same population, have similar difficulties.

Being elected should, however, place a larger burden of responsibility on legislators, one that would seem to require at least a minimal attempt to work with the best available information. In fact, many scientific organizations, such as the National Academies of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have staff devoted to providing policymakers with answers to scientific questions. There's little excuse for legislators to be badly misinformed on these issues.

Unfortunately, it's very unlikely that a public that's equally confused on scientific matters will hold these elected officials responsible for not taking their job seriously. Which means that various pieces of climate-focused legislation may be appearing with the same regularity that evolution-focused bills now do.