In Knox County, Tennessee, a parent named Kurt Zimmermann has complained to the school board about the use of the word “myth” in his son’s honors biology textbook, Asking About Life (Tobin and Dusheck, 2nd ed., 2001), which is being used at Farragut High School. Zimmermann’s complaint is nothing new. It sounds much like many other complaints made to school boards by creationist parents. But this one has a Louisiana connection.

Background

Mr. Zimmermann, a Sunday School teacher, objects that the book’s use of the word “myth” undermines his child’s belief in the truthfulness of the Bible and displays a bias against Christianity. In the complaint form that he filled out, he cites p. 319 of the book, on which there is a reference to “Creationism, the biblical myth that the universe was created by the Judeo-Christian God in 7 days.” At the April 7, 2010, Knox County School Board meeting, Mr. Zimmermann offered some remedies for the situation: “You could pitch the book, you could fix the book, you could come up with an alternative. There’s things you can do.” His friend Steve Cook, also a Sunday school teacher, agrees: “I am at my church teaching that there is a creator and I have students coming to me telling me there isn’t a creator.” (See this video clip of the school board meeting. See also “Ban a Science Book? School Board Delays Action,” at Metropulse, 4/8/2010.)

In order to evaluate the complaint that the word “myth” is offensive to Christians, the school’s review committee consulted Dictionary.com. Mr. Zimmermann used Webster’s Dictionary, where he found a section of the definition reflecting his contention that the word is insulting to Christians: “Describing Christian beliefs, such as Bible stories, as myth is therefore usually considered an attack on those beliefs.” But there is nothing inherently offensive or disrespectful to Christianity about the use of the word “myth.” The most respected dictionary in the English-speaking world, the Oxford English Dictionary, gives this as the first definition of the word:

1. a. A traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces, which embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon.

The OED provides a representative statement in which the word is used with this meaning:

1978 J. D. CRICHTON in C. Jones et al. Study of Liturgy I. 7 The myth was a sacred narrative, whether true or fictional, which gave an account of, or ‘explained’, the origins of human life or of the community.

The word can indeed be used in a way that reflects Mr. Zimmerman’s objection, as in the second definition in the OED:

2. a. A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception; a misrepresentation of the truth. Also: something existing only in myth; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing.

However, the very next definition that follows this one points once again to a perfectly respectable — and respectful — way to use “myth”:

[2.] b. A person or thing held in awe or generally referred to with near reverential admiration on the basis of popularly repeated stories (whether real or fictitious). [emphasis added]

In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the most venerable of all school reference works, the article on “Christian Myth and Legend” opens with a wonderfully sensitive recognition of the importance of the concept of myth to Christianity:

Myths and legends number among the most creative and abundant contributions of Christianity to the history of human culture. They have inspired artists, dramatists, clerics, and others to contemplate the wondrous effects of Christian salvation on the cosmos and its inhabitants. They conjoin diverse cultural horizons and fuse them creatively with the religious histories that exist prior to and alongside the orthodox Christian world. . . .

But Mr. Zimmermann and his son find the word objectionable, so he and three like-minded supporters registered their complaints against Asking About Life (AAL) at the April 7 school board meeting. (Given the volatile nature of the issue, all parties — both complainants and board members — conducted themselves with admirable Southern courtesy, as shown in the school board’s 4/7/10 video of the meeting.)

The school board has a review process for citizen complaints, which Mr. Zimmermann apparently followed correctly. The book unanimously passed inspection by the six-member review committee appointed by the principal of Farragut High School. The committee members’ individual review forms, along with Zimmermann’s complaint, are included in the board’s April 7 agenda [pdf]. Below is the clip of the complaint, which reveals the Louisiana connection. Anyone who has followed the posts at the LA Coalition for Science website for the last two years will see a familiar name (click on image below):

Kurt Zimmermann's Complaint

For readers who are not familiar with what has been going on in Louisiana, here is the connection:

Where the form asks, “What reviews of this material have you read?,” Zimmermann wrote, “19 page Review by Charles H. Voss, Jr. Ph.D. dated August, 2006.” This indicates that Zimmermann is taking as his authority for evaluating Asking About Life none other than Louisiana’s own Charles H. Voss, Jr., a longtime creationist who is well known among creationist-watchers for his mischief-making in our state. In September 2009, working with the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), an affiliate of Focus on the Family, Voss was instrumental in persuading the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to adopt a creationist-friendly procedure for reviewing complaints about the use of creationist supplementary materials in public schools. (See “Procedure Crafted for Handling Evolution-materials Complaints,” Baton Rouge Advocate 9/17/09.) One year earlier, the LFF had engineered the passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act under which the use of such materials is permitted.

Background on Voss

Voss has promoted creationism in Louisiana for years. In 1993, he wrote a pamphlet entitled “Did God Direct Evolution?” [pdf], in which he rejected the mainstream belief in theistic evolution (the religious belief that God used evolution to shape life on Earth), opting instead for full-blown, biblical, young-earth creationism: “Ninety percent of the known indicators of the earth’s age say the earth is young while only ten percent give old ages to the earth.” He contends that scientific evidence and the Bible make it “impossible to merge biblical creation and evolution into a single theory such as theistic evolution.” According to Voss, “God-directed evolution seems plausible on the surface, but it is in conflict with the biblical record. . . . God did not direct evolution!” Among his items of evidence is this: “Human-appearing sandal prints have been found in supposedly 600-million-year old rock — a 600-million year discrepancy.” (This little factoid is documented on websites such as “The Bible UFO Connection.”) In his biosketch in the pamphlet, he informs readers that he “considers creation research and Bible study as avocations and believes that he can show logically that God does exist.”

In 1994, he and his colleagues in the creationist Origins Resource Association attempted (unsuccessfully) to convince the Livingston Parish, LA, School Board to adopt a creationist curriculum guide that was riddled with errors. (See Barbara Forrest, “Combating Creationism in a Louisiana School District,” The Textbook Letter, July-August 1997.) He now partners with the Louisiana Family Forum to promote his “Biology Text Addenda” at TextAddOns.com, among which is the “19 page review” of Asking About Life that Mr. Zimmermann is using in Knox County. (The AAL addendum is included in the Knox Co. School Board agenda packet [pdf].) Voss has written creationist addenda for eleven well-known biology textbooks; he has posted them  in pdf for downloading by teachers, students, and parents. However, he does not have the expertise in biology that would qualify him to critique biology textbooks. His degrees are in electrical engineering, and he is a retired professor of electrical and computer engineering. His credentials are listed along with the names of the creationist reviewers of his addenda on his TextAddOns website [pdf].

By way of contrast, the co-author of Asking About Life, Albert J. Tobin, Ph.D., has distinguished credentials in the biological sciences.

Allan J. Tobin, Ph.D., is Managing Director of MRSSI and Senior Scientific Advisor to the High Q Foundation and to CHDI Inc., organizations dedicated to the development of therapies for Huntington’s disease. He is also Professor Emeritus at UCLA. Tobin received his S.B. (1963) from MIT, in Humanities and Science, and his Ph.D. (1969) from Harvard, in Biophysics. After postdoctoral training at the Weizmann Institute and at MIT, he became Assistant Professor of Biology at Harvard from 1971 to 1975. In 1975, he moved to UCLA, where he later became Professor of Physiological Science and Professor of Neurology. He was a visiting scientist at the Institut Pasteur in 1982 and at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in 2002-2003. At UCLA, he was Chair of the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Progam from 1989-1995, Director of the Brain Research Institute from 1995-2002, cofounder of the NeuroEngineering Training Program, and, from 1996, the Eleanor Leslie Chair in Neuroscience. Tobin’s research laboratory at UCLA used molecular and cellular techniques to study the function, regulation, and degeneration of GABA-producing neurons in the brain and spinal cord, in order to address basic mechanistic questions important for Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and spinal cord injury. He was Scientific Director of the Hereditary Disease Foundation from 1979 to 2002 and is the coauthor of Tobin and Dusheck, Asking About Life, a prize-winning textbook.

Dr. Tobin’s co-author Jennie Dusheck is a professional science writer, currently an author at Cengage Learning, with a B.A. in English and zoology (terrestrial evolutionary biology, animal behavior and ecology) from the University of California-Berkeley. [UPDATE 4/12/10 — Ms. Dusheck has informed me that she is a freelance writer, not a Cengage employee. She wrote and is responsible for the chapters on evolution in AAL. Readers can see the full extent of her credentials here.] She also has an M.A. in zoology from the University of California-Davis (ecology, evolutionary biology, developmental biology, plant-animal interactions, and statistics and experimental design). She earned a Certificate in Science Writing from the University of California-Santa Cruz. Ms. Dusheck is also a member of the National Association of Science Writers, the Northern California Science Writers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Authors Guild.

Back to Knox County

The school board did not vote on Zimmermann’s complaint at its April 7 meeting but decided to table it until a later meeting. Board chair Indya Kincannon noted that the textbook review committee members were not there to speak for themselves, so she moved to defer action for one month in order to allow the committee to be present at the next meeting. Although this move was very considerate on Ms. Kincannon’s part, if past experience in Louisiana is any indication of what is going on in Tennessee, when school boards defer such clear-cut creationist initiatives until a future meeting, the creationists then have extra time to marshal their forces even further, making them more difficult to deal with. Backed up by the review committee’s unanimous recommendation to retain the book, the board should have made an unequivocal decision to deny Mr. Zimmermann’s request. To their credit, the majority of board members, in a 6-3 vote, did reject an effort by board member Karen Carson to work out a compromise that would have permitted the use of Voss’s addendum:

Karen Carson, of the West Knox County 5th District, tried to find middle ground with an amendment that would have upheld the school committee’s recommendation but also offered to biology teachers a critical analysis of the textbook submitted by Zimmermann and written by Charles Voss. (Voss, a professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Louisiana State University, is a longtime activist for the cause of creationism and vice president of an outfit called the Origins Resource Association.) But Carson’s amendment satisfied no one, especially after she revised it to make it subject to review by school system science staff, and it failed on a 3-6 vote. [Metropulse, 4/8/2010; emphasis added] [See the Origins Resource Association here. See also the ORA's Facebook page.]

Note carefully that the addendum is referred to as a “critical analysis.” The LA Science Education Act is designed to promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” (emphasis added). Voss includes “critical thinking” exercises in his addenda, and the LA Family Forum promotes them on a “Critical Thinking in the Classroom” page on its website.

The August 2006 addendum that Zimmermann used and that Ms. Carson wanted to offer to Knox Co. biology teachers is interesting in another respect: this addendum is a sanitized version of an earlier one that was dated “October 2003.” The 2003 version is saturated with creationist language and young-earth creationist source citations. In 2006 — after the verdict in Kitzmiller v. Dover — Voss tried to cleanse the creationist language from his 2003 addendum; in fact, he “updated” all eleven of the addenda on the Textaddons.com website. (Each addendum is simply a variation on the same basic document, adjusted for a specific biology textbook.) In the October 2003 version of the AAL addendum, Voss’s first three table of contents entries are direct references to items on the page that Zimmermann cites in his complaint:

1. Creation is a Myth – p. 319
2. Creation is Not Science – p. 319
3. Each Species is Created – p. 319

Voss responded this way in the 2003 addendum to the use of the word “myth” that Zimmermann finds objectionable:

The statement ‘… and creationism, the biblical myth that the universe was created by the “Judeo-Christian God in 7 days”‘ has not been proven. Such a statement is not science but an opinion of the textbook authors and reveals a decided bias. Such statements do not belong in a science textbook. [p. 1]

(To the complaint form question, “What do you believe is the main idea of this material?,” Zimmermann wrote, “A clear bias by the authors towards Christianity.” To the question, “What would you like your school to do about this material?,” he wrote, “Immediately remove the book.”)

To the statement in AAL that “creation ‘science’ is not science” (p. 319), Voss responded in unequivocal creationist language in the 2003 addendum:

The statement ‘But creation “science” is not science’ is very misleading in that by context it implies that evolution is science. . . . Any definition of science that can label the term ‘evolution’ as commonly used as science will also include creationism as science. [p. 1; emphasis added]

To the AAL statement, “In that book [The Origin of Species] Darwin rejected the idea that each species had been specially created,” Voss responded:

The statement ‘In that book, Darwin rejected the idea that each species had been specially created’ may have been accepted in Darwin’s time but it is not accepted today by creationists. Today’s thinking is that, in general, the ‘Biblical kind’ is equivalent to the family level and in a few instances a genus. [p.1; emphasis added] ["Biblical kind" is a traditional creationist term that refers to the "kinds" of living things as God created them in the Book of Genesis.]

Voss’s sources in the 2003 version of the addendum include Creation Research Quarterly and Creation Ex Nihilo (now Creation Magazine), both young-earth creationist journals. He included numerous citations of articles by “John Woodmorappe,” which is the false name under which creationist Jan Peczkis writes. He even cited the intelligent design (ID) creationist supplementary textbook, Of Pandas and People, as a source. (Pandas was thoroughly exposed in my testimony and expert witness report [pdf] in Kitzmiller v. Dover in 2005.) Voss cited the seminal ID creationist book, The Mystery of Life’s Origin (1984), co-authored by Discovery Institute fellows Charles Thaxton and Walter Bradley (with Roger Olsen). He also cited Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), which helped bring about ID proponent Phillip Johnson’s creationist epiphany in 1987.

By August 2006, after the decisive verdict in the Kitzmiller case that teaching ID is unconstitutional, Voss had sanitized his addenda, just as Pandas had to be sanitized after the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard ruling that teaching “creation science” is unconstitutional. (The “creation science” language in Pandas was replaced with “intelligent design” language.) Most noticeably, he completely sidestepped AAL‘s statement about creationism and myth that Zimmermann finds objectionable, substituting instead an objection to the definition of evolution on p. 320. Here are his new TOC entries in the August 2006 addendum that Mr. Zimmermann is using:

1. What is Evolution? – p. 320
2. The Fossil Record Tells a Story of evolution – p. 327
3. Extinct Living Fossils – p. 328

Responding to AAL’s statements on p. 320 that Darwin’s theory of evolution includes the ideas of the common descent and natural selection, Voss voices his disagreement in terms of the traditional creationist objection to “macroevolution” but conspicuously avoids the word “creationism”:

Darwin observed the ability of organisms to adapt (micro-evolution) and assumed that on this basis macro-evolution was true. Macro-evolution could be said to occur if a dog became a cat or a dinosaur became a bird. It occurs at the genus or higher level and implies that all life on Earth descended from a few types of cells that somehow came into being in the past. Many scientists do not agree with this hypothesis. [p. 1]

The rest of the addendum is similarly sanitized — but only of the overtly creationist terminology, not the substantive creationist content. Nor did Voss cleanse out all the creationist citations. He retained Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and The Mystery of Life’s Origin. He also retained a citation of an article about Haeckel’s embryos that ID creationist and Discovery Institute fellow Jonathan Wells slipped past the gatekeepers at American Biology Teacher in 1999. In this article, Wells recites his now-signature complaints against using Ernst Haeckel’s 19th-century drawings of embryos as evidence for evolution. This horse has been dead for years, and Wells’s complaints have been addressed many times, including in a later issue of American Biology Teacher. Yet the citation remains in both the 2003 and 2006 versions of Voss’s AAL addendum. [Update 4/12/10: Ms. Dusheck also pointed out that no edition of AAL contains the Haeckel mistake about which Wells complains in his article. I would add that Voss's one-size-fits-all addendum is not an accurate critique of any of the books that he has targeted.]

Voss has simply followed a page out of the Discovery Institute code language playbook by revising his addenda to make them appear superficially to be about evolution rather than creationism, just as the Discovery Institute did with its newest ID textbook, the deceptively titled Explore Evolution.

So what does all this analysis boil down to with respect to the Zimmerman complaint?

Here’s the central point: Mr. Zimmermann cited Voss’s creationist textbook addendum as his sole review material for a textbook in which he ostensibly objects to the use of one word, “myth,” which he says offends Christians. Zimmermann’s complaint about AAL zeroes in on exactly the item in the book that is the first item in Voss’s 2003 addendum, making exactly the same point: that calling creationism a myth betrays the bias of the authors and does not belong in a textbook.

There is nothing new in this type of complaint, just as there is nothing inherently offensive about the book’s use of the word “myth.” But there seems to be more to the story, which Zimmermann voiced through the national megaphone of Fox News. (Despite commenting at the April 7 school board meeting on the unwelcome attention “that I have received, and my family — socially, at work, in the media — nationally, incidentally,” he has appeared on Fox News at least twice, on April 7 and again on April 8. In fact, his April 7 appearance was on the morning of April 7, before the evening school board meeting.) Zimmermann has said that he lodged the complaint about the book after his son and some other students complained about the word. But in the April 7 Fox News interview, he elaborated on this basic account:

Since I brought that issue up, there’s been a host of other parents that have come forward, and there are other things in that book that are pretty, uh, technically inaccurate and things of that nature. So it’s more than just the statement that I was concerned about. So it’s kind of grown a little bit.

So now there are other things in AAL that he is complaining about. (Mark Littleton, a supporter of Zimmermann’s who spoke at the April 7 board meeting, read a list of “historical and scientific inaccuracies” in the book — which he compiled after having looked at it for the first time only a couple of days before the meeting.) There is more “technically inaccurate” material in the book, says Zimmermann, who professed during the April 7 Fox News interview that “It was really the kids who identified it ['myth']. I’m not smart enough to pick that stuff up. They are.”

This comment raises the question of who identified the other, “technically inaccurate” aspects of the book. Who is advising Zimmermann? The kids? That is very unlikely if the Knox County case, like so many other past creationism episodes around the U.S., runs true to form. Even if Mr. Zimmermann has not been working in tandem with a creationist organization so far, some group will now likely beat a path to his door. And if the Louisiana Family Forum runs true to form, they may very well contact Zimmermann since he is using one of their preferred “supplementary materials” as advertised on the LFF website. Indeed, Voss himself may already be directly involved. In response to a statement about the addendum that board member Karen Carson made during the meeting, Zimmermann said, “You’re talking about the addendum that was provided by Dr. Voss?” (emphasis added) Zimmermann’s statement sounds as though Voss actually gave him the addendum. (There is a precedent among LFF creationists for their involving themselves in such issues. LFF operative Darrell White inserted himself [pdf] into the Texas textbook selection controversy on behalf of the Discovery Institute in 2003.)

Here is the Fox News interview, followed by a closing message from the Louisiana Coalition for Science to the Knox County School Board:

To the ladies and gentlemen of the Knox County School Board: Please don’t give in to these creationist demands. When you compromise good science education with creationism, you don’t solve your problem — you exacerbate and prolong it. Sometimes you just have to say no. Stand your ground, as the Louisiana legislature and the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education refused to do when we were faced here with an effort to inject creationism into science education — an effort in which Dr. Voss was integrally involved. Set a different precedent — one that says to your local constituents and to the rest of America that the integrity of authentic science education will be protected at every level in the state of Tennessee. The rest of the country will admire you for it. The scientific community will appreciate your courage. And the supporters of good science education who in 2008-2009 tried and failed to stop Voss and his creationist colleagues in Louisiana will cheer you on.

As the new decade begins in 2010, “Top Ten” lists  are a popular way to commemorate the events of 2009, and science is well-represented in the list-making. Wired Science lists the “Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2009.” The Examiner lists the “Top 10 Science Stories of 2009.” Scientific American has posted a slideshow of “The Top 10 Science Stories of 2009.” ScienceNOW, a website by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for publishing breaking science news , has listed “The Top 10 ScienceNOWs of 2009.” National Geographic News lists the “Top Ten Videos of 2009: Nat Geo News’s Most Watched.” And Religion Dispatches lists its “Top Ten Religion & Science Stories.” Louisiana closes out 2009 by being on two “Top Ten” lists, but these are lists on which the citizens of Louisiana should be embarrassed to be included. Virtually all of the above lists include stories that highlight important discoveries related to evolution. Louisiana, however, made it onto these two lists for its attack on the teaching of evolution.

• The National Center for Science Education has posted its “Top Ten Evolution/Creationism Stories of the Year.” Louisiana is NCSE’s story #5, which highlights (using hyperlinks) the Louisiana Family Forum‘s commandeering of both the policy and the complaint process related to implementation of the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act:

5. Louisiana faces “academic freedom” In 2008, the Louisiana Science Education Act was signed into law, which opened the door to teaching creationism in public school science classes. Since then, the state board of education has ignored the recommendations of its own science education professionals, turning instead to the Louisiana Family Forum for guidance. Under the board’s guidelines, supplementary classroom materials can’t be rejected just because they include creationism. And challenging the materials triggers a convoluted hearing process that the Louisiana Coalition for Science calls “seriously flawed.”

“A mixed result in Louisiana”

“More bad news from Louisiana”

Louisiana coverage

(See LCFS articles about this here and here.) (NOTE: Readers who value good science education can begin 2010 by joining NCSE, which is the only organization devoted solely to protecting the teaching of evolution from creationist attacks. Disclosure: I serve on the NCSE Board of Directors.)

• Lauri Lebo, a journalist who provided excellent coverage of the trial in the case of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005) and who published a book about the trial, has included Louisiana as #3 in the list she compiled for Religion Dispatches.

3. Just Say No . . . To Louisiana The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), one of the nation’s leading scientific societies, took the unusual step in February to boycott Louisiana due to the state’s new anti-science law. In 2008, lawmakers voted to pass the Science Education Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal. The law, based largely on wording from the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute’s sample academic freedom bill, explicitly says that teachers are permitted to use supplemental materials to teach critiques of evolution and opens the door to teaching creationism and intelligent design. In response, SICB chose to hold its annual conference in Utah, whose state Board of Education recently passed a resolution recognizing that “the Theory of Evolution is a major unifying concept in science.”

Looking at the bright side, Louisiana is blessed with dedicated public school science teachers and accomplished scientists. Readers around the state should (1) let your science teachers know that you support teaching evolution and thank them for their efforts to teach good science, and (2) inform your school board members that you will be watching them to make sure that they do not allow creationist materials into our public school science classes. As always, if you learn that such materials are being used, please contact the Louisiana Coalition for Science.

LFF director Rev. Gene Mills, whose own children do not attend public schools, attended the meeting but did not speak. Among the creationists testifying was University of Louisiana-Lafayette professor John W. Oller, Jr., who is a member of the “Technical Advisory Board” of the young-earth creationist Institute for Creation Research in Dallas, Texas. He wrote anti-evolution articles for ICR’s magazine, Impact, for almost twenty years. [UPDATE 9/29/09: It gets worse. Further research has revealed that Oller is also involved with Answers in Genesis, the young-earth creationist outfit that operates the infamous "Creation Museum" in Kentucky. He was one of "eleven creation scientists" who attended a meeting there in 2006 and is shown in a photograph at the museum (left rear, in bright blue shirt). This museum has mis-educated thousands of children. See critiques of this facility here and here, along with a statement of concern by scientists (real ones).] Oller’s field is linguistics; he has no credentials in either biology or science education. In December 2002, he participated in the LFF’s effort to have evolution disclaimers inserted into state-approved biology textbooks (Advocate, 12/11/2002), a move that BESE at that time fortunately defeated by a 7-3 vote.

Also testifying at the September 16 meeting was Charles Voss, vice-president of the creationist Origins Resource Association, who attempted in 1994 to persuade the Livingston Parish School Board to adopt a creationist curriculum guide. LFF “consultant” Darrell White, who was also involved in the 2002 disclaimer effort and who promotes creationism on his website, testified, as did Wade Warren, a creationist at Louisiana College who works cooperatively with the Discovery Institute (DI), the creationist think tank in Seattle, WA, that helped write the LSEA. (See DI’s interview with Warren.)

Lenni Ditoro, who testified last year in favor of the LSEA before the Senate Education Committee, also spoke in favor of the changes to the DOE proposal. Ditoro is the former head of the LFF’s “Education Resource Council.” Oklahoma creationist Donald Ewert was brought in from out of state to testify. Ewert is a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism“; his name appears on a list of “Intellectual Doubters of Darwinism” at the creationist IDEA Center website. In Oklahoma, Ewert promoted “academic freedom” legislation similar to the LSEA (SSPS audiotape, 9/16/09). He was involved in the creationist effort to influence state science standards in Texas in March 2009 (see below).

In its recommendation to the SSPS Committee, DOE proposed that, when a complaint about supplementary materials is filed, “the DOE will select three reviewers” who “should be experts” capable of determining whether the contested materials meet the necessary criteria for use in public school science classes. A meeting would be held in which both the complainant and the LEA (Local Education Agency, i.e., the school district) and their chosen representatives would present their positions and answer reviewers’ questions. Then, according to the DOE’s proposal, “the DOE will consider the report of the reviewers and make recommendations to BESE.” Further, the proposal specified that “the DOE may elect to support, reject or modify the recommendations of the reviewers or may substitute its own recommendation” to BESE. In short, DOE professionals, exercising their professional judgment, would do their jobs properly and preserve the integrity of Louisiana’s science curriculum.

However, on September 16 the LFF sought and obtained from BESE’s SSPS Committee a substantial change in the complaint procedure that diminishes the influence of DOE’s professional staff. As the revised draft of the complaint procedure now reads, “The DOE shall have the opportunity to appoint two reviewers of the materials. The challenger, the LEA, and the publisher (if any) shall each have the opportunity to appoint one reviewer of the materials.” Furthermore, rather than allowing DOE to consider the reviewers’ reports and then make its recommendation to BESE, the revised draft now requires that “the DOE will forward the reports of the reviewers to BESE,” even though “the DOE may elect to make its own recommendation.”

Consequently, the prerogative of DOE professionals to handle the review process and make a recommendation to BESE has been seriously undermined. There is no guarantee that the three non-DOE reviewers, especially the school district’s and the publisher’s appointees, will have the requisite expertise to evaluate contested materials. A school district that permits the use of creationist materials is likely to choose a creationist reviewer. The publisher of creationist materials is virtually certain to choose a creationist. Moreover, the involvement of the LFF in the response to such complaints is a certainty. Charles Voss has “published” on the Internet creationist supplementary materials that he calls “Textbook Addenda“, which the LFF promotes on its website as among the “many practical alternatives available today to the uncritical teaching of evolutionism.”

BESE’s amended complaint procedure guarantees that a creationist such as Voss himself or his supporters will be allowed to review their own materials. In fact, at the September 16 meeting, John Oller actually spoke in favor of a process that “provides the opportunity for people to produce supplementary materials along the lines that Dr. Voss has done” (audiotape of SSPS Committee meeting, 9/16/09). The same holds for reviewers appointed by publishers of materials such as the Discovery Institute’s stealth creationist textbook, Explore Evolution, and its creationist DVDs, which LFF also promotes on its website. Such reviewers would be manifestly unqualified to render judgments concerning materials for use in Louisiana’s public schools. In short, as BESE’s complaint procedure is now drafted, DOE’s expert reviewers will be in the minority, and DOE staff will not be allowed to independently assess the reviewers’ reports but must instead transfer the reports directly to BESE for evaluation.

Judging from BESE members’ consistent concessions to LFF creationists concerning the implementation of the LSEA, their evaluations will be unlikely to favor scientific expertise and professionalism. On the contrary, BESE’s actions since the passage of the LSEA indicate that the board will rubber-stamp anything that Bayard and the LFF recommend. The approved procedure will enable creationists and their allies to turn every complaint about creationist materials into a dog and pony show that they can manipulate and exploit. There are precedents for this tactic in other states.

In Kansas in 2005, creationists bogged down the revision of state science standards that were sent out for external review by the creationist-dominated Kansas Board of Education. They then staged a “kangaroo court” composed of creationists who testified about the standards before members of the state board. Earlier this year, creationists on the Texas Board of Education appointed their own “experts” (i.e., creationists) to the review panel charged with evaluating the draft of state science standards. At a hearing in March, Ewert presented pro-creationist testimony before the Texas Board of Education, just as he did at the SSPS Committee hearing on September 16 (SSPS Committee audiotape, 9/16/09). His Texas testimony is referenced on the Discovery Institute website by DI staffer Casey Luskin, who traveled to Louisiana to attend the May 21, 2008, House Education Committee hearing on the LSEA. Wade Warren also testified [pdf] before the Texas Board of Education. As a result of these efforts in Texas, creationist code language is now embedded in the standards and will remain for an entire decade until the next revision.

The LFF is using a similar tactic in order to control the policy implementing the LSEA, which they authored with assistance and legal advice from the Discovery Institute. The September 16 concession is the second time that BESE has allowed the LFF to dictate public school science education policy. On January 13, 2009, BESE voted 10-0 to delete vital safeguards against the teaching of creationism from the policy governing Louisiana school administrators in their implementation of the LSEA. In that case, too, the expert recommendations of the DOE were ignored. The very next day, on January 14, Mills told a religious news service that “Louisiana is open for business.”

This creationist-friendly policy is now in effect in Bulletin 741, the Louisiana Handbook for School Administrators. (See Bulletin 741, [doc] August 2009, p. 45). The September 16 draft of the complaint procedure will expand this policy. The passage of the LSEA — and BESE’s subsequent adoption of whatever policies the creationists at the LFF dictate — have damaged Louisiana’s already tarnished image in the rest of the country. In fact, these actions have done tangible harm to the state. In February 2009, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) notified Gov. Jindal that the SICB will hold its 2011 convention in Utah rather than in New Orleans because of his signing the LSEA. SICB will boycott Louisiana as long as the LSEA remains on the books. In August 2008, the president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which met in New Orleans in April 2009, had already called for scientists to protest such decisions “with our feet and wallets”:

I think we need to see to it that no future meeting of our society will take place in Louisiana as long as that law stands, nor should we hold it in any other state (are you listening, Michigan and Texas?) that passes a similar law. And I call upon the presidents of the American Chemical Society, the American Association of Immunologists, the Society for Neuroscience, and all the other scientific societies around the U.S. and the world, to join me in this action and make clear to the state legislators in Louisiana, the governor of the state, and the mayor and business bureau of New Orleans that this will be the consequence.  (ASBMB Today [pdf], August 2008)

In June, concerned citizens and scientists from across Louisiana sent dozens of letters to BESE asking board members to restore the integrity of the policy that had been gutted in January. Their requests were ignored. Rather than restoring the protections against teaching creationism that the DOE had initially written into the policy, BESE published the policy in Bulletin 741 without the necessary safeguards. With the SSPS Committee’s approval of the pro-creationist complaint procedure on September 16, BESE has once again allowed the LFF to dictate policy governing science education in Louisiana.

Louisiana Coalition for Science is a grassroots group working to protect the teaching of science in Louisiana. On the web at http://lasciencecoalition.org. **Download press release here [pdf].

To parents, public school teachers, principals, curriculum supervisors, school boards, and district superintendents of Louisiana:

Thank you for all you do to support Louisiana’s public schools. The public school system is a lifeline for our state’s young people, who count on you to make sure that their education prepares them for the 21st-century world. A good education is essential to their ability to live decent lives as productive citizens.

As the 2009-2010 school year begins, please remember that Louisiana now has a creationist law: the Louisiana Science Education Act [pdf] of 2008. For an analysis of the LSEA, see this document [pdf]. This law was promoted by the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), a religious group whose director, Rev. Gene Mills, does not send his children to public schools (Gene Mills’ Christmas Letter 2008). In drafting the LSEA and influencing the BESE policy that implements it, the LFF partnered with an out-of-state creationist think tank, the Center for Science and Culture (CSC). The CSC is part of the Discovery Institute (DI) in Seattle, WA, the national headquarters of the intelligent design (ID) creationist movement. To learn more about the ID movement, see “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals” here [pdf].

You should be on guard against the creationist “supplemental materials” that this law permits under the guise of “critical thinking,” “logical analysis,” and “objective discussion.” Teaching creationism in public school science classes was declared unconstitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard 1987, which originated in our own state of Louisiana. Since “intelligent design” has been exposed as nothing more than creationism, the Edwards ruling applies to ID as well. Below are materials that should NOT be used in Louisiana’s public school science classes, along with tips that will help you recognize such materials. Our list may not include everything that could show up in our public schools. If you have questions about any materials, please contact the Louisiana Coalition for Science. We work directly with the National Center for Science Education.

*Note: This list will be updated as additional materials are identified, so please visit periodically.

Creationist Books and Other Print Material

• Creationist textbook addendums at Textaddons.com —  These addendums were written by Charles Voss, a long-time Louisiana creationist. In 1994, he participated in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the Livingston Parish School Board to adopt a creationist curriculum guide. He now partners with the Louisiana Family Forum to promote these addendums, which he has written to be used with state-approved biology textbooks. LFF operative Darrell White promotes the addenda on his creationist “Origins Science” web page.
• Explore Evolution —  This is the Discovery Institute’s new stealth creationism textbook. It is intended for use as a supplement to approved classroom materials. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) offers an extensive critique of this book. Biologist John Timmer of Ars Technica also reviewed it. See also our LCFS post about this book. In 2008, CSC associate director John West told an Opelousas newspaper that the Discovery Institute hopes that Louisiana schools will use this book.
• Icons of Evolution —  This stealth creationist book was written by Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute. NCSE offers links to an extensive list of critiques of Icons, along with NCSE director Eugenie Scott’s review of the book for Science. In 2008, when LFF operative Darrell White (see above) was interviewed on WRKF’s Jim Engster Show in Baton Rouge, LA, during the legislative session in which the LSEA was passed, White identified Icons as the book that he thought should be used in Louisiana public schools. See White’s article, “A Tale of Two Flies,” at the creationist Answers in Genesis website, where he references the “false ‘icons’ of evolution.” In the February 13, 2009, story by National Public Radio featuring Danny Pennington, former biology teacher at West Monroe (LA) High School, a copy of Icons is visible on Pennington’s desk. Pennington helped promote Ouachita Parish’s creationist “Science Curriculum Policy” [pdf], which was adopted on November 29, 2006.
• The Theory of Intelligent Design: A Briefing Packet for Educators [pdf](at http://www.discovery.org/a/4299)  —  DI produced this booklet for teachers in response to Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, the PBS NOVA Peabody Award-winning documentary about the first intelligent design legal case, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005).

• For a complete catalog of ID creationist books to help you identify a questionable book, consult the website of Access Research Network. ARN is a de facto arm of the Discovery Institute that serves as a clearinghouse for ID creationist materials.

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Creationist Videos/DVDs

(*Intelligent design creationist videos are slickly produced with professional-looking graphics, etc. People who are unfamiliar with mainstream science can easily be deceived into thinking that they are legitimate science documentaries.)

• Unlocking the Mystery of Life —  This is a Discovery Institute video that DI has promoted aggressively for use in public schools. A critique of the video is available at NCSE, along with analyses by scientists. This video is heavily promoted by fundamentalist Christian organizations and young-earth creationist organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research. Focus on the Family, a national religious ministry (the LFF is the Louisiana affiliate), partners with Christianbook.com to promote this video packaged with Icons of Evolution (see below).
• The Privileged Planet —  This DVD is based on the book with the same title written by two Discovery Institute creationists. The authors have written a study guide [pdf] for teachers and students to use with the book and DVD in which they say that these materials “can be used as a supplement for an introductory astronomy or general science course.” A critique of the book by Prof. Hector Avalos of Iowa State University is available at Talkreason.org, which is an excellent source of articles that critique intelligent design.
• Icons of Evolution —  This video is based on Jonathan Wells’s book of the same title above. There is also a study guide that DI describes as a”curricular supplement for use in conjunction with any high school biology textbook.” Access Research Network features an Icons of Evolution Video Study Kit. The above critiques of the book would apply to the video as well.
• Investigating Evolution —  This Discovery Institute DVD contains teaching modules that were adapted from the Icons of Evolution video. The LA Family Forum is promoting this DVD from its “Critical Thinking” web page.

• For the complete catalog of ID creationist videos, consult the website of Access Research Network.

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Tips for Identifying Creationist Materials  —  And What to Do Next

1. Be alert to the code language that creationists are using in their effort to disguise their intentions.

• “Critical thinking,” “logical analysis,” and “open and objective discussion” as applied to “evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” (these are the code terms and subjects enumerated in the LA Science Education Act).  —  These are the code words of choice in the LA Science Education Act. For the background on these code terms as used in the LSEA, see “Analysis of SB 733: ‘LA Science Education Act‘” on our website. See specifically the “Updated June 5″ pdf document linked at the bottom of that page. For a more comprehensive discussion of the code language being used by the ID movement, see “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals,” pp. 19-22, here [pdf].
• “Academic freedom” —  This is the code language under which the LA Science Education Act was initially introduced as SB 561. Since 2007, the Discovery Institute has been promoting its deceptively named “Model Academic Freedom Statute on Evolution” in state legislatures. None of these code terms are new. Creationists have used them for decades, as, for example, young-earth creationist Henry Morris used “academic freedom” in 1975.
• “Strengths and weaknesses of evolution,” “arguments for and against evolution,” and “evidence against evolution” —  ID creationists are using these code phrases to fool people into accepting the false premise that there actually is evidence that weakens or undermines evolution. The fact is that ALL the scientific evidence that has been amassed since Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859 confirms the fact of evolution. There is no evidence against evolution. The use of these terms in material that is being taught in a public school science class is a red flag. Here is an example of ID creationist Jonathan Wells arguing for teaching the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. The New York Times published an article about this strategy. The book Explore Evolution uses the “arguments for and against” tactic: “This book is one of the first textbooks ever to use the inquiry-based approach to teach modern evolutionary theory. It does so by examining the current evidence and arguments for and against the key ideas of modern Darwinian theory.” The Discovery Institute commissions flawed polls based on these false premises in order to support their contention that most Americans support teaching “evidence against” evolution.
• “Teach the controversy” —  The Discovery Institute uses this sound bite to promote the false idea that the mainstream scientific community considers the theory of evolution to be controversial. The only controversy about the status of evolutionary theory is the cultural controversy stirred up by the Discovery Institute and their supporters.
• “Naturalism” —  Creationists reject the naturalistic methodology of modern science, which is nothing more than the “scientific method” about which we learned as children in elementary school. Phillip Johnson, the central strategist of the ID movement, has made the rejection of scientific naturalism the centerpiece of the movement’s attack on the teaching of evolution. A very good discussion of the ID movement’s rejection of naturalism is available at Talkdesign.org. Complaints about the teaching of “naturalistic” evolution are one of the warning signs that evolution is being attacked.

2. Find out what materials your children are using in their science classes and read them carefully.

3. If you encounter literature or hear proposals to school boards that use any of the above the terms, you should be suspicious. Attend your parish and local school board meetings and take notes. Please be cordial and respectful to everyone with whom you interact, including teachers, school board members, etc. The National Center for Science Education has a list of helpful tips for citizens who want to get involved in protecting science education.

4. If you find out that your child’s school or your parish school board is using creationist supplementary material, REPORT IT to the LA 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]

“LFF hasn’t endorsed any supplemental materials” — this is what Rev. Gene Mills, executive director of the Louisiana Family Forum, apparently said when he was being interviewed for this Best of New Orleans article. LFF is supposedly not endorsing any supplemental materials despite the fact that, according to the “Critical Thinking in the Classroom” page on its website, the LFF “drafted and promoted the Louisiana Science Education Act through the Legislature and State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.” According to Rev. Mills, whether or not creationist materials are used in the state’s public school science classes supposedly depends on what Louisiana’s teachers decide on their own to do. This is supposedly true despite the fact that, according to the LFF’s website, “LFF has long worked to promote critical thinking [read: 'creationism'] in the classroom.”

Let’s look at the facts as the LFF gives them to us on its “Critical Thinking in the Classroom” page.

1. The Louisiana Family Forum is promoting “biology textbook addenda” on this “critical thinking” page. What are these addenda? They are creationist textbook supplements written by Charles Voss, a long-time creationist who has had them posted for years at his “Textaddons.com” website. (Voss is vice-president of the young-earth creationist “Origins Resource Association.”) They are precisely the kind of “supplementary materials” that the LFF intends for use in public school science classes under the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA). Voss has posted an addendum for each of the eleven state-approved biology textbooks listed on the page. All of his addenda are actually variations of the same basic document, and all are designed to undermine the teaching of evolution. One is adapted for use with the popular textbook Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller and Joe Levine (Prentice Hall). Among the references that Voss cites in this addendum are (1) The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (Philosophical Library 1984), co-authored by Discovery Institute creationists Charles Thaxton and Walter Bradley, along with Roger Olsen; and (2) Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by Michael Denton (Adler & Adler 1986). In 1998, William Dembski, one of the founders of the intelligent design creationist movement in the U. S., wrote that “The Intelligent Design movement begins with the publication of The Mystery of Life’s Origin . . .  and Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton . . . . These two books presented a powerful scientific critique of evolutionary theory.”
2. The LFF is also promoting “DVD teaching modules” on its “critical thinking” page. What are these modules? The link goes to a page at “Coldwater Media” on which a DVD entitled Investigating Evolution is available for purchase. IE is a DVD produced for the Discovery Institute that, according to DI’s online store, is “designed as a supplementary resource for general biology courses.” This DVD was one of the freebies given to attendees of a 2007 Discovery Institute symposium at Biola University (formerly the “Bible Institute of Los Angeles,” hence its current name). This symposium, according to evolutionary biologist Dr. Louise Mead, an employee of the National Center for Science Education who attended, “opened with an evening prayer to ‘Our Lord, Jesus Christ’.” The event was held in order to coach high school teachers in the use of the stealth creationist textbook, Explore Evolution, which the Discovery Institute hopes will be used in Louisiana under the LSEA. (See the LCFS 9/27/08 post about Explore Evolution here.) According to Dr. Mead, “As the symposium proceeded, the climate became overtly hostile toward people who accept evolution.” (See Dr. Mead’s article about the symposium here.)
3. The LFF concludes its “critical thinking” page by recommending, as a “practical first step for citizen-activists,” that these activists urge their local school boards to imitate Ouachita Parish by adopting “academic freedom resolutions.” In November 2006, the Ouachita Parish School Board adopted a “Science Curriculum Policy,” which is a “RESOLUTION ON TEACHER ACADEMIC FREEDOM TO TEACH SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE REGARDING CONTROVERSIAL SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.” This is a stealth creationism policy that laid the groundwork for the introduction and passage of the LSEA. It was written by LFF operative Darrell White, who has posted the template on his creationist “Origins Science” web page. (See “Board Gives Teachers Academic Freedom,” Ouachita Citizen, November 29, 2006.)

So these are the facts, as we have them from Rev. Mills’ own organization. Has the LFF endorsed any “supplemental materials”? Is what happens next under the Louisiana Science Education Act to be laid exclusively on the backs of the state’s science teachers?

The Louisiana Coalition for Science has laid out the facts. You decide.

“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.

In spring 2008, the Louisiana legislature voted to approve the “LA Science Education Act,” SB 733, by a vote of 35-0 in the Senate and a vote of 94-3 in the House of Representatives. On June 25, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed the LSEA into law as Act 473 despite widespread requests, including from prestigious national scientific societies and his former Brown University biology professor Dr. Arthur Landy, that he veto it.  On January 13, 2009, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) adopted the policy by which it will administer Act 473.

The policy is a revised version of the initial one that the LA Dept. of Education had recommended at the December 2, 2008, meeting of BESE’s Student/School Performance Support Committee (S/SPS). This committee is a subset of three BESE members: committee chair Dale Bayard, who is the LA Family Forum’s point man on the state board; John Bennett; and Chas Roemer. However, the committee deferred action on the policy in order, as is now clear from Rev. Mills’s statements to the media, to give the LA Family Forum time to exert pressure for changes at the LA Dept. of Education. Shortly before the January 13 meeting, Mills was confident that the pressure would secure the results he wanted:

Mills said he is cautiously optimistic that talks among department officials [LA Dept. of Education], the state board and lawmakers involved in the issue will be productive.

(Baton Rouge Advocate, January 9, 2009)

The initial version [pdf] of the policy contained two crucial statements that would have prohibited school districts from doing what the legislative sponsors and creationist authors of the LA Science Education Act designed the law to allow them to do: (1) “Religious beliefs shall not be advanced under the guise of encouraging critical thinking”; and (2) “Materials that teach creationism or intelligent design or that advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind shall be prohibited for use in science classes.”

Mills referred to these statements as expressing “religious hostility” and “a cheap shot.” In doing so, he revealed his true intent concerning both the LSEA and the BESE policy: to promote and protect the religious agenda of the LA Family Forum and its Discovery Institute accomplices. If, as Mills keeps insisting, the LSEA were only intended to promote good science education and not to promote creationism, there would be no reason for him to object to the initial policy’s prohibition against teaching “creationism or intelligent design or that advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind.”

In the revised policy [pdf] introduced at the S/SPS Committee meeting on January 13, 2009, the first statement had been deleted prior to the meeting. To the second statement, another had been added: “Evaluations of supplementary materials shall be made without regard to the religious or non-religious beliefs and affiliations of the authors of supplementary materials.” This new sentence was clearly added to prohibit any supplemental material from being challenged based on its having been authored by creationists. A prime example is the Discovery Institute’s new textbook, Explore Evolution, which was written by intelligent design creationists at the Discovery Institute, one of whom (Paul Nelson) is actually a young-earth creationist. (Most ID proponents at the Discovery Institute are “old-earth” creationists. See “The Creation-Evolution Continuum” by Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education.)

In addition, the sentence bears all the marks of Discovery Institute craftsmanship. First, John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute’s creationist Center for Science and Culture, told a Louisiana newspaper last year that DI hopes to see Explore Evolution adopted as a supplement in Louisiana school districts as the result of the LSEA’s passage:

John West, the Discovery Institute’s vice president of public policy and legal affairs, said the group has supported the bill and hopes passage of the bill would allow supplemental materials such as Discover [Explore] Evolution, a book written by Discovery Institute staff that disputes some Darwinian findings. (Opelousas [LA] Daily World, June 16 2008; *Note: the story misreported the book’s title.) (*See LCFS post on Explore Evolution.)

Second, the Discovery Institute whines and complains on a regular basis about its operatives’ creationist beliefs and religious motivations being spotlighted by their critics. In fact, in a September 8, 2008, column entitled “Any larger philosophical implications of intelligent design, or any religious motives, beliefs, and affiliations of ID proponents, do not disqualify ID from having scientific merit,” DI staffer Casey Luskin, who attended the May 21, 2008, Louisiana House Education Committee hearing on the LSEA, used language that is virtually identical to the sentence added to the January 13 version of the BESE policy:

Many critics of intelligent design (ID) have argued that ID is not science due to the alleged religious motives, beliefs, and affiliations of its proponents. Critics may trot out quotes from ID proponents discussing their own personal religious beliefs, motives, and affiliations, or discussing the larger philosophical implications they draw from ID, to allege that ID is not science, but religion. These common attacks against ID are both logically fallacious and highly hypocritical. (emphasis added)

(Here, once again, for comparison with Luskin’s words above, is the statement that had been added to the policy prior to the January 13 meeting: “Evaluations of supplementary materials shall be made without regard to the religious or non-religious beliefs and affiliations of the authors of supplementary materials.” The added statement’s likeness with Luskin’s Discovery Institute language was no coincidence.)

The final item that the LA Family Forum and its supporters wanted stricken from the policy was the prohibition against teaching creationism. In order to get that sentence removed, they had to give up the Discovery Institute-friendly statement that had been added. But they were happy to do that in order to have the two statements referring to religion and creationism, respectively, removed. And removed they were, by a state board of education that caved in completely to their demands.

As the Louisiana legislature and Bobby Jindal did in spring 2008, the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education listened only to creationists rather than to the scientists and teachers who actually do the work of conducting scientific research and teaching science to children in the universities and public schools of Louisiana.

Two letters to BESE members from Barbara Forrest, co-founder of the LA Coalition for Science and veteran Louisiana educator, requesting that they (1) adopt the initial policy [pdf] as written by the LA Dept. of Education and (2) reject the changes [pdf] made by creationists in the revised January 13 policy, produced no responses from any of the board members.

Ten of the eleven members were present at the January 13, 2009, committee meeting, and all ten voted for the revised policy, which, as Mills indicated, had been refashioned to the satisfaction of the LA Family Forum (and, by extension, of the Discovery Institute) during negotiations with state officials prior to the January 13 meeting. Rev. Mills expressed his happiness with the policy to OneNewsNow.com, a Religious Right website, announcing that “The BESE board . . . is to be commended, and Louisiana is open for business. . . . And academic freedom and inquiry are welcomed here in the state of Louisiana.” The Discovery Institute, which colluded in crafting the language of the LSEA and is providing legal advice to the LFF, applauded BESE’s adoption of the policy: “Louisiana Passes Rules Implementing Historic Academic Freedom Act.”

According to Discovery Institute education policy analyst Casey Luskin, “This is another victory for Louisiana students and teachers to have a climate of academic freedom to learn about scientific controversies over evolution and other topics in the curriculum.”

The Discovery Institute, signing off this column by reminding readers to “Stay tuned to Evolution News & Views for more as the story develops,” will remain actively involved in manipulating science education policy in Louisiana, which has the dubious distinction of being the first and —so far— the only state to adopt a version of the Discovery Institute’s model creationist legislation. If Louisiana public officials were looking for a category in which they can finally lead the rest of the country, they may have picked a winner with the creationist LA Science Education Act.

The lead editorial, “Creationists Show Clout” in the Sunday, January 18, 2009, Baton Rouge Advocate was blunt:

BESE joins the ranks of the wimps who have rolled over on the issue of creationism. It’s a sad thing. Not because faith is a bad thing in its proper place. Not because the Family Forum doesn’t have a right to its views. But because the state is siding with the backward against not only science but the rule of law in this country.  (emphasis added)

State officials who facilitated this handoff of public school science education policy to creationists had better hope that potential economic investors and families with school-age children who are thinking of moving to Louisiana haven’t been paying attention.  Because according to Rev. Mills, “LOUISIANA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS.” And for creationists, the business climate in Louisiana could not be better.

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.

DI operatives are working through Texas Board of Education chair Don McLeroy, a self-described creationist, and other supporters on the board. ID-friendly board members nominated Stephen C. Meyer, director of DI’s creationist Center for Science and Culture, and two other ID supporters to serve on the six-member expert review panel that recently reviewed the draft of the Texas state science standards. The ID proponents’ goal is to have the “strengths and limitations” of evolution — code for ID creationist criticisms of evolution — included in the science standards. They are serving along with three nationally recognized Texas professors — David Hillis, Gerald Skoog, and Ronald Wetherington — who are legitimate experts in science and science education.

“Strengths and limitations” is the most recent evolution of  ID creationist code language. Until a few weeks ago, the code phrase used in the standards was “strengths and weaknesses,” which had been inserted by creationists two decades ago. Thanks to well-organized efforts by pro-science groups such as the Texas Freedom Network, “strengths and weaknesses” was exposed as merely a shopworn creationist code term, as can be seen, for example, in a 1983 Institute for Creation Research article:

Scientific creationists . . . think that evolution should be taught, but only when the strengths and weaknesses are discussed in comparison with the scientific merits of creation.  — Richard Bliss, 1983

As a result of the exposure of “strengths and weaknesses,” the code language has evolved yet again, this time to “strengths and limitations.” (See the letter to McLeroy and Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott from Americans United for Separation of Church and State.)

In 2003, during the textbook selection process in Texas, DI operatives attempted to pressure the Texas Board of Education to include the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution in state-approved biology textbooks. They failed when the board resisted pressure from DI to alter the textbooks. In the best interests of the schoolchildren of Texas, the slim majority of moderates on the Texas Board of Education should see to it that the Discovery Institute fails in its current effort as well.

• At Southern Methodist University on November 11, 2008, Barbara Forrest explained DI’s evolving strategy in a public lecture, “Why Texans Shouldn’t Let Creationists Mess with Texas Science Education.” The video of Forrest’s lecture is available here. The mp3 audio file is available here.

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.

In “A Biologist Reviews an Evolution Textbook from the ID Camp,” Timmer refers several times to the prospect that this book may be used in Louisiana science classrooms as a “supplement” of the kind intended by the “LA Science Education Act” (LSEA) [pdf], which was approved by the Louisiana legislature and signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal during the 2008 legislative session. Indeed, according to one Louisiana newspaper, Meyer’s colleague, CSC associate director John West, indicated that the Discovery Institute hopes to see EE adopted in Louisiana science classes as one of the supplements that the LSEA will permit teachers to use (Opelousas [LA] Daily World, 6/16/08). Contrary to its misleading title, Explore Evolution is a sustained, error-ridden attack on evolutionary theory. It also contains a section on Michael Behe’s concept of “irreducible complexity.” Both aspects of EE make it very much an intelligent design creationist textbook.

Timmer’s review comprises four web pages. Page 1, “The Politics of Exploration,” contains a reference to Louisiana:

In June, Louisiana became the first state to enact a law specifically enabling the use of supplemental materials for the critical evaluation of evolution; similar legislation has been introduced in several other states. EE appears to have been intelligently designed to be the sort of supplemental text that’s appropriate under the Louisiana legislation, and so it’s likely to be making an appearance in classrooms there. . . .

On page 2, “Shaking and Breaking the Tree of Life,” Timmer points out the scientific errors and underhanded tactics that permeate EE. With respect to the latter, he highlights the old creationist trick of finding “someone with a Ph.D. who’s willing to say anything.” He is referring to the EE authors’ citation of the work of Christian Schwabe, whose kooky views are far outside the scientific maintream:

Another PhD the authors found is Christian Schwabe, who apparently has established a career studying a protein called reflexin, along with its relatives. But every couple of years he publishes a paper in which he argues in favor of his belief that the genomes of all modern and extinct species originated during the formation of life billions of years ago. According to Schwabe, those genomes have continued to exist, hidden underground as stem cell-like entities. Whenever these cells sense a favorable environment above ground, they head for the surface and self-organize into a fully formed, multicellular animal. No, I am not making this up.

This isn’t simply evidence-free (although it is); it’s borderline deranged. And yet, in the hands of Discovery’s authors, it becomes a serious scientific controversy about the existence of the tree of life. . . .

On page 3, “Spurious Arguments and Logical Flaws,” Timmer exposes a tactic that mirrors Discovery Institute creationists’ dishonest attempts to win unearned legitimacy by getting themselves onto high-profile, public platforms with legitimate, mainstream scientists and scholars. In EE, the authors have placed a reference to Schwabe’s work in the same footnote with a reference to the work of Carl Woese. Woese is a “serious and significant scientist who has made contributions to our understanding of the history of life on earth,” which, Timmer points out, Schwabe is most certainly not. However, says Timmer, “By lumping them together in a single footnote, the authors attempt to illegitimately transfer some of Woese’s credibility to the evidence-free inanity that Schwabe publishes.” This kind of tactic is standard operating procedure for ID creationists at the Discovery Institute.

On page 4, “Not Fit for the Classroom,” Timmer points out that “The text of EE assiduously avoids any mention of intelligent design or creationism, but anyone familiar with the literature of these movements will recognize that their ideas pervade EE.” The scrubbing of the overt use of the term “intelligent design” in EE is clear evidence of the Discovery Institute’s recognition that using overtly creationist language — even their own brand name, “intelligent design” — is a legal liability. Their effort to sanitize their terminology began even before the Kitzmiller trial.

The Discovery Institute’s sanitizing of their terminology in EE repeats the tactic ID proponents used in an earlier creationist textbook, Of Pandas and People, the first high school textbook that the ID movement produced. Pandas was written while Louisiana’s first creationism law, the 1981 “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act,”  was being litigated. When the U. S. Supreme Court declared this law unconstitutional in 1987,  the creationist terminology was hastily scrubbed from Pandas and replaced with the terminology of “intelligent design” prior to its initial publication in 1989. Continuing the creationist strategy of shifting their terminology in the wake of defeats in federal court, EE is the sanitized product of ID creationism’s resounding defeat in the Kitzmiller trial, a fact that Timmer clearly recognizes:

If it never mentions creationism or intelligent design, the decision to avoid doing so appears to be strategic, rather than intellectual. Presumably, it’s done for the same reason that many of the Discovery Fellows have chosen to downplay their personal beliefs about the identity of the designer: it would only get them in trouble when they try to get the book into the school system.

Timmer closes his review with a parting reference to Louisiana. Recalling the statement by Kevin Padian, a scientist and expert witness for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller trial, that intelligent design “makes people stupid . . . essentially makes them ignorant,” Timmer concludes on a note that should resonate strongly with all Louisiana citizens who value our public schools and want our children to be decently educated:

Sadly, thanks to the actions of the Louisiana state government, that state’s students are much more likely to be exposed to this sort of stupidity.

But the book doesn’t only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book, but its authors are expecting that legislators and the courts will be too stupid to notice that, or to remember that the Supreme Court has declared teaching creationism an unconstitutional imposition of religion. As laws similar to Louisiana’s resurface in other states next year, we can only hope that legislators choose not to live down to the low expectations of EE’s authors.

Down here in Louisiana, we can only say “AMEN TO THAT.”

Anyone with knowledge that Explore Evolution or any other creationist material is being used in Louisiana public school science classes should contact the National Center for Science Education or the LA Coalition for Science.