The state legislatures are wild: Utah bill attempts to cast doubt on evolution

Utah state senator Chris Buttars failed in his attempt to pass a bill which would have required students to be told that Darwinian theory is not "empirically proven."

The bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars, had said it was time to rein in teachers who were teaching that man descended from apes and rattling the faith of students. The Senate earlier passed the measure 16-12.

But the bill failed in the House on a 28-46 vote Monday. The bill would have required teachers to tell students that evolution is not a fact and the state doesn't endorse the theory.

Rep. Scott Wyatt, a Republican, said he feared passing the bill would force the state to then address hundreds of other scientific theories -- "from Quantum physics to Freud" -- in the same manner.

"I don't believe that anybody in there really wants their kids to be taught that their great-grandfather was an ape," Buttars said.

I dunno, one of my great-grandfathers did have a rather heavy brow, but I was told his laugh was more like a donkey than an actual ape....