Louisiana Coalition for Science

LFF hasn’t endorsed any supplemental materials, but Mills says when a Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) proposed a policy on the new act that stated creationist and intelligent design information weren’t permissible, LFF persuaded BESE to remove the prohibition. He says what happens to the law is up to the teachers.

—David Winkler-Schmit, “Monkey Business: The Louisiana Science Education Act,” Best of New Orleans, March 9, 2009 [emphasis added]

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By Barbara Forrest

“Louisiana Open for Business — Creationists Welcome”

That is the message that Louisiana public officials are sending to the rest of the country since the creationist LA Science Education Act (LSEA) was enacted into law in 2008. They are taking their instructions from, among others, the creationist Rev. Gene Mills, the executive director of the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), the Focus on the Family affiliate that engineered passage of the bill in the Louisiana legislature. Rev. Mills, whose own children are homeschooled and attend private Christian schools, actually made his victory announcement using those exact words: “Louisiana is open for business. . . . And academic freedom and inquiry are welcomed here in the state of Louisiana.” Of course, in referring to “academic freedom and inquiry” he was speaking in the well-documented creationist code language in which his friends at the Discovery Institute, an intelligent design creationist think tank, have coached him. Last year —2008— was a good year for creationists in Louisiana. So far in 2009, they are still batting a thousand. Continue Reading »

• See Barbara Forrest, “Why Texans Shouldn’t Let Creationists Mess with Texas Science Education,” Southern Methodist University, November 11, 2008  — Video —  MP3

By Barbara Forrest

November 27, 2008

Texas science education is currently in the crosshairs of the Discovery Institute (DI), the conservative Seattle think tank that serves as the headquarters of the intelligent design (ID) creationist movement. DI’s supporters in the Lone Star state are using the same code-language strategy that its Louisiana supporters used earlier this year, in spring 2008, when DI targeted the science education of Louisiana children. Working through the Louisiana Family Forum, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, DI helped to promote the “academic freedom” bill that the legislature passed and Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law on June 25 as the “Louisiana Science Education Act” (LSEA). Long-time DI fellow David K. DeWolf admitted helping to shape the legislation, which is designed to permit the use of creationist supplementary materials such as DI’s intelligent design textbook, the deceptively titled Explore Evolution, in public school science classes. When Gov. Jindal signed the LSEA into law on June 25, the Discovery Institute declared victory. Now, in fall 2008, DI has targeted Texas. Continue Reading »

By Barbara Forrest

September 27, 2008

Scientist and writer John Timmer has reviewed the Discovery Institute’s stealth creationist textbook, Explore Evolution, in Ars Technica. Three of EE’s authors are well-known intelligent design (ID) creationists. Stephen C. Meyer is the director of the Discovery Institute’s ID creationist wing, the Center for Science and Culture (CSC). Two of his co-authors are his CSC associates Paul Nelson (a young-earth creationist) and Scott Minnich (a witness for the defense in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District). The other two, Jonathan Moneymaker and Ralph Seelke, are lesser-known ID supporters. Continue Reading »