Louisiana Coalition for Science

Kenneth Miller, prominent defender of good science education, will be a guest on the Colbert Report on Monday, June 16, 2008 (10:30 p.m. CT). Professor Miller, an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the first legal case involving intelligent design (ID) creationism, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005), is the author of Finding Darwin’s God (HarperCollins 1999) and a new book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul (Viking 2008). As Ira Flatow’s guest on NPR’s Science Friday on June 13, he explained the new stealth strategy that is being executed by intelligent design creationists at the Discovery Institute, a creationist think tank in Seattle. The strategy is to disguise legislation to permit the teaching of ID by using code language. e.g., “critical analysis” of evolution, teaching the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, and, as in SB 733, the “LA Science Education Act” (pdf), enabling science teachers to use creationist supplementary material to supposedly teach “critical thinking skills [and] logical analysis” by conducting “open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” The Discovery Institute is working through the LA Family Forum, the LA affiliate of Focus on the Family, to target Louisiana public school science classes. Listen to Dr. Miller’s Science Friday interview to get a better understanding of what the Discovery Institute and the LA Family Forum have in store for our state of Louisiana.