Louisiana Coalition for Science

By Barbara Forrest

Friends, we at the Louisiana Coalition for Science would like to be able to say that we are pulling your leg. But we’re not. Louisiana is about to enact into law yet another stealth creationism bill in the form of HB 580 — unless the Senate finally decides to put a stop to this foolishness within the next 13 days when the current legislative session (mercifully) comes to an end. HB 580 passed in the House of Representatives on June 8 with a vote [pdf] of 87 yays, 5 nays, and 13 abstentions. (Thank you, Rep. Walt Leger, Rep. Patricia Haynes-Smith, Rep. Regina Barrow, Rep. Barbara Norton, and Rep. Charmaine Marchand Stiaes.) Louisiana is the embodiment of one of the cardinal rules that every pro-science citizen has to learn:  CREATIONISTS NEVER GIVE UP. To which we now add a corollary:  CREATIONISTS WANT IT ALL. Louisiana creationists were given the proverbial inch in the form of the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), and since 2008 they have been industriously grabbing their mile.

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By Barbara Forrest

For the three years since the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) was enacted, the Louisiana Coalition for Science has hammered constantly on the fact that the LSEA is a creationist law. The Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) has consistently denied this. But other people who share the same political and religious views as the LFF seem to have their own ideas concerning what this law is all about. Maybe the LFF’s memo didn’t get sent out widely enough through the prayer network . . . or the divine communication channels broke down . . . or something.

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By Barbara Forrest

Well, yet another 2011 creationist bill has died in committee: Kentucky House Bill 169 is caput. That makes four dead bills counting the one in New Mexico and the two in Oklahoma. Note, readers, that Kentucky is the state in which the young-earth creationist organization, Answers in Genesis, has misinformed upwards of one million people through its notorious “Creation Museum” and will soon expand its misinformation campaign, courtesy of public tax incentives, through its “Ark Encounter” theme park. Here is the HB 169′s obituary at the National Center for Science Education, and notice who got a mention here (our emphasis added) with respect to a bill that was introduced and died in Kentucky last year: Continue Reading »

By Barbara Forrest

UPDATE (March 5, 2011): The National Center for Science Education reports that the second creationist bill in Oklahoma, SB 554, appears to have died in committee.

SB 554, a hybrid of the ‘academic freedom’ antievolution strategy and the flawed Texas state science standards, appears to have died in committee on February 28, 2011, when a deadline for senate bills to be reported from committee passed. SB 554 was introduced by Josh Brecheen (R-District 6), who described it in the Durant Daily Democrat (December 24, 2010) as ‘requiring every publically funded Oklahoma school to teach the debate of creation vs. evolution.’

The Louisiana Coalition for Science again congratulates the find work of Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education and the other committed citizens who worked to protect the education of Oklahoma students! And Oklahoma has given Louisiana even more reason to follow their example and work just as hard to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act.  [end update]

Good news and kudos to Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education (OESE) for their good work in fighting for Oklahoma science education! Oklahoma HB 1551 (rtf) has been defeated in committee. The National Center for Science Education reports that OK Rep. Sally Kern’s bill, “which would, if enacted, encourage teachers to present the ‘scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses’ of ‘controversial’ topics such as evolution,” failed in the House Common Education Committee by a vote of 7-9. (It could be resurrected later in this session or in a future session.) The comments about the bill, however, were interesting.

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By Barbara Forrest

New Mexico’s stealth creationist bill, HB 302, which in many respects closely tracked the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), has been tabled, meaning that it is dead for the current legislative session. The bill’s obituary was posted by the National Center for Science Education , and its demise was confirmed by a dedicated pro-science citizen in New Mexico who helped put it to sleep. This development should serve as an example to Louisiana legislators, who will have an opportunity in the upcoming regular session of the Louisiana legislature to send the LSEA to a similar fate by repealing it outright.

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By Barbara Forrest

Readers who saw the December 2, 2010, post here about Louisiana creationist John Oller no doubt recall the abundant evidence that Oller is a young-earth creationist — or “YEC” in creationist-watching parlance. Serving on the Technical Advisory Board of the Institute for Creation Research and writing creationist articles over a period of thirty years, writing an article for Answers in Genesis (AIG) in which he invokes the biblical Tower of Babel story to explain the diversity of human languages, and attending an AIG conference as a “creation scientist” at the infamous “Creation Museum” (see Ken Ham, “The Definition of ‘Information,’”) — somehow that all just seems to point in the YEC direction. Our December 2 post was the first analysis of Oller’s identity as a creationist. Although he is an integral player in the Louisiana Family Forum’s creationist game plan, Oller has flown under the radar, having been overshadowed in the media coverage by LFF executive director, Rev. Gene Mills, and LFF operative Darrell White.

After the December 2 post was published, Oller did not respond to attempts by Independent Weekly journalist Walter Pierce to contact him for Pierce’s own December 8 article. (See “Devolve,” Independent Weekly, Lafayette, LA, December 8, 2010.) The IW is published in Lafayette, LA, where Oller lives and works. According to Pierce, “The Ind reached out to Professor Oller for comment on his views on these topics via phone and email. He didn’t respond to our overtures.” According to a January 3, 2011, article in the Acadiana Gazette (about which there is more below), Oller “didn’t return their calls because it was finals week and he felt that his students had to come first.” It is interesting that final exams [pdf] at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette did not keep him from spending the entire day of December 7 (the second day of ULL exams) in Baton Rouge at the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) meeting, where he testified against the adoption of new biology textbooks for other teachers’ students.

Oller’s pre-BESE-meeting unresponsiveness to the Independent Weekly was understandable. He had to try to preserve his façade of scientific authenticity for his testimony against the textbooks; no other “scientists” showed up on the Louisiana Family Forum’s behalf at that meeting. And after getting the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) passed in 2008 and then getting control of BESE policies implementing the LSEA in 2009, the LFF’s winning streak was at stake. But, as they say, that was then, and this is now. After the LFF lost its December 7 battle against the textbooks, Oller fessed up only three days later.

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By Barbara Forrest

It’s Kitzmastime! Today, December 20, marks the fifth anniversary of the victory for science education and the Constitution in the case of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005). As a result of the ruling [pdf] in favor of the plaintiffs delivered by Judge John E. Jones III, we now have a landmark legal opinion that will serve as the resource of first resort for the judge in the next case stirred up either by the creationists at the Discovery Institute or their foot soldiers in Whereverville, USA. This notable pre-Christmas holiday comes on the heels of a victory for science education in Louisiana: the decision by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to approve new high school biology textbooks for public schools. To celebrate both this local victory and the Kitzmastide anniversary, the Louisiana Coalition for Science has an inspirational Kitzmas present for you. Continue Reading »

“I have no regrets about anything that has happened other than what has happened to the children or what hasn’t happened for them as a consequence of the controversy. I would like to think that I would follow exactly the same course even knowing what the consequences were, if presented with the same challenges again.” — Andrew Wakefield, in “Dr. Andrew Wakefield on the Autism Vaccine Controversy,” Daily Bell, May 30, 2010

“The main deficiencies in the books are in taking a doctrinaire, everything-is-solved attitude, toward just about every problem addressed. . . . They should all be sent back to the publishers as unacceptable.” — John W. Oller, Jr., letter of November 8, 2010, to Louisiana Textbook/Media/Library Advisory Council urging that proposed biology textbooks be rejected

By Barbara Forrest

**Note:  Since this post is longer than usual in order to cover the topic adequately, readers may wish to print it. This post has been updated; see below.

On February 2, 2010, The Lancet, one of the world’s premier medical journals, retracted [pdf] a 1998 article [pdf] in which British physician Andrew Wakefield was lead author (with twelve co-authors).

Following the judgment of the [United Kingdom] General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect. . . . In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were ‘consecutively referred’ and that investigations were ‘approved’ by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.

Wakefield is the now-notorious physician who, by means of this 1998 article, promoted the idea that the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine causes autism. Readers will surely wonder what this has to do with creationism in Louisiana. Please keep reading. There is a connection that highlights once again the error of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) in handing over to creationists the policies implementing the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA). On Tuesday, December 7, BESE must decide whether to approve the biology textbooks that have been proposed for adoption by the state. We can only hope that, at that meeting, board members will call a halt to the influence that they have allowed the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) to have over science education policy during the last two years.

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By Barbara Forrest

In keeping with the November 20 post highlighting Louisiana citizens who have stepped forward to protect science education in our public schools, this post will give a voice to a member of one of Louisiana’s most dedicated groups of citizens: public school science teachers. Our state is blessed with dedicated science teachers, one of whom has stepped forward as a voice of reason with a message to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on behalf of Louisiana students.

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Request to Louisiana readers: If you like the posts on this website, please consider sharing them with as many people as possible, including your elected officials, science teacher friends, school administrators, school board members, media contacts, etc. Please don’t spam; be considerate and send them only to people whom you think will benefit from them. But we need people right now to contact their representatives on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and ask them (nicely!) to do the right thing and vote to accept the ALREADY APPROVED biology textbooks on December 7, 2010.

By Barbara Forrest

So much bad publicity spins out of Louisiana about so many things that we don’t often get a chance to shine a spotlight on the competent, dedicated people who are the real reason that this state works at all. And since Thanksgiving is almost here, it is a good time to tell the world that Louisiana has intelligent, accomplished, dedicated citizens, teachers, scientists — and students! — who are trying to stop the damage that the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) and their allies are doing to Louisiana science education. Several of Louisiana’s finest testified on November 12, 2010, in favor of accepting the biology textbooks that had already been approved by the Louisiana Textbook Review Committee. Continue Reading »