By Barbara Forrest

Most people who have read the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act know that it seeks to undermine not just the teaching of evolution (although that is the primary target), but it also throws in “global warming” as something that teachers should allow students to “critically analyze” (along with the “origins of life” and “human cloning”). And most of our readers also know that Louisiana is still the only state with such a stupid law. Throughout the effort of the Louisiana Coalition for Science (LCFS) to stop this bill as it sped through the legislature, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) provided valuable advice and assistance. NCSE is a — no, it’s the — national clearinghouse for assistance in protecting the teaching of science. (Disclosure: I serve on NCSE’s Board of Directors — proudly). For more than a quarter-century, NCSE has come to the aid of parents, teachers, school administrators, and concerned citizens who needed help in fighting off creationist attacks on the teaching of evolution. Now the NCSE has responded to the growing number of attacks on the teaching of climate science.

NCSE is expanding its scope by launching a new climate change initiative to help protect the teaching of climate science in America’s public schools.

Here are some excerpts from NCSE’s press release:

A new initiative in the struggle for quality science education

Science education is under attack—again.

This time it’s under attack by climate change deniers, who ignore a mountain of evidence gathered over the last fifty years that the planet is warming and that humans are largely responsible. These deniers attempt to sabotage science education with fringe ideas, pseudoscience, and outright lies.

But the National Center for Science Education won’t let ‘em get away with it. . . .

In its initiative to defend climate change education, NCSE will:

* Help parents, teachers, and others fight the introduction of climate change/global warming denial and pseudoscience in the classroom.

* Act as a resource center to connect teachers, scientists, and policymakers with the best information available.

* Provide tools and support to ensure that climate change is properly and effectively taught in public schools.

* Aid those testifying before local and state boards of education, and before local, state, and federal legislative committees.

* Connect local activists with one another, and with scientists and other relevant experts.

To help carry out this new initiative, NCSE has brought in two experts:

* Dr. Peter Gleick, president and co-founder of The Pacific Institute, joins NCSE’s board of directors. Gleick is a noted hydroclimatologist, an internationally recognized water expert, and a MacArthur Fellow. Gleick’s research and writing address the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources.

* Mark McCaffrey, a long-time climate literacy expert, joins NCSE as climate change programs and policy director. Previously at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), McCaffrey helped spearhead a number of climate and energy literacy programs, and the creation of the Climate Literacy & Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN), and testified before Congress about climate and environmental education.

It’s important to be clear about what NCSE will not do under this initiative: it will not address issues of policy or make policy recommendations. That is beyond the scope of this new effort.

What We Won’t Do

Climate change necessarily has consequences for policy on the local, state, national, and even global stages. Should something be done to counteract climate change? If so, what? Is slowing down climate change impossible, and should, therefore, efforts be directed toward mitigating and adapting to its effects? Such questions, although important, are beyond the scope of NCSE, which is primarily a science and science education organization, not a policy institute. Some of our topics may touch upon policy issues, but we will not take positions on, for example, the advantages or disadvantages of a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade policy. There is a broad range of solutions; NCSE’s position is that whatever solutions society decides upon, they should be based on sound science.

NCSE will assist in protecting the integrity of the way climate science is taught in public school science classes, just as it has helped protect the teaching of evolution.

NCSE is here to help! You can help us by informing us of any school, school district, or state policy that compromises the integrity of good science, whether the topic is evolution or climate change. We will do what we can to assist those at the grassroots level too. If you are, or know of, a teacher who is feeling pressure about evolution or climate change from parents, administrators, or members of the community, don’t hesitate to get in touch—we can help.

So, Louisiana citizens, please be alert to any attacks on the teaching of climate science in our public schools. Both the LCFS and the NCSE are here to help.

By Barbara Forrest

Let’s begin 2012 by looking back three years to January 13, 2009. That is when the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) persuaded the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to gut its policy for implementing the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA). The gutted policy was inserted as §2304, “Science Education,” into Bulletin 741 [doc], the Louisiana Handbook for School Administrators, which instructs local school administrators and school boards concerning laws passed by the legislature. How did the LFF accomplish this? Long story short: the LFF showed up at BESE’s January 13, 2009, meeting loaded for bear, bringing their Louisiana College creationist professors — and their attorneys — with them. As a result, BESE stripped from the policy an explicit prohibition against teaching creationism: “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.” The very next day, LFF executive director, Rev. Gene Mills, announced, “Louisiana is open for business.” But there is more to this story that has not yet been told.

The untold part of the story concerns the involvement of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) — a national Religious Right litigation group headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. The ADF describes itself as (1) “a servant organization that provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage  and the family” and (2) “a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.” (That’s a reference to religious Truth in case you’re wondering.) In short, when people such as creationists (in Louisiana, that would be the Louisiana Family Forum) can’t get their religious views incorporated into our public institutions, the ADF sues those institutions on their behalf. In the ADF’s view, keeping public institutions secular and free from sectarian advocacy is actually hostility rather than neutrality. The omission of religion from the functions of public entities — such as public school science classrooms, for example — is considered discrimination.

Based on the information below, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the ADF was threatening the state of Louisiana with a lawsuit if the LFF didn’t get what it wanted: the removal of the prohibition against teaching creationism from BESE’s policy for implementing the LSEA. Please keep reading. We will explain and provide documentation after some brief background and recapping.

Background on the Alliance Defense Fund

People for the American Way (PFAW) offers a useful profile of the ADF. In addition, in the June 2004 issue of Church & State, Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State points out that ADF “was formed [in 1994] by a band of television preachers [including James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association] and radio broadcasters to advance the Religious Right’s perspective in the courts.” ADF “has raised millions of dollars for Religious Right legal cases and been active in federal and state lawsuits that seek to blast holes in the wall of separation between church and state.” Boston also points out a more ominous aspect of ADF (hyperlinks added):

At least one ADF project, the Blackstone Fellowship for law students, has ties to the Christian Recon­structionist movement. Reconstruc­tionists are the most extreme manifestation of the Religious Right in America. They advocate a society anchored in ‘biblical law’ and would literally base U.S. law on the legal code of the Old Testament. In their ideal society, offenses like blasphemy, fornication, ‘witchcraft,’ homosexuality, worshipping ‘false gods’ and incorrigible juvenile delinquency would merit the death penalty. In other words, Reconstructionists long to replace America’s secular democracy with a harsh fundamentalist Christian theocracy.

(NOTE: One interesting little factoid is that some Reconstructionists favor stoning as a form of capital punishment.)

In his April 3, 2007, Wall of Separation post, Boston reveals that ADF is funded by “far-right fat cats writing big checks,” having received $21 million in donations in 2006 alone. Among its major donors are “the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, whose vice president, Erik Prince . . . founded the Blackwater USA military-security firm” (hyperlink added). And ADF wants to keep that money rolling in: “The ADF plays hardball. Its lawyers are not above engaging in wild distortions to raise money and whip fundamentalists into a frenzy.”

The organization has increased its annual total revenue despite the most severe recession since the Great Depression. Its 2008 IRS 990 form [pdf] shows a total revenue of more than $31 million, which increased to $34,702,917 million by 2010. (See the 2009 and 2010 990s [pdfs].) And get this:  ADF president and CEO Alan Sears is a one-percenter. His base pay — without benefits — ballooned from $300,271 in 2008, to $311,864 in 2009, to a whopping $354,016 in 2010. (His subordinates aren’t doing too badly either, according to the 990s.) Trying to turn the United States into a theocracy is clearly more lucrative than defending science education.

Closer to home, PFAW reports that ADF is behind Louisiana College’s planned establishment of the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law in Shreveport:

The right-wing Alliance Defense Fund is helping Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution, start the Paul Pressler School of Law, which will join Liberty University [established by Jerry Falwell], Regent University [established by Pat Robertson] and others in providing politicized training to the next generation of Religious Right lawyers.

We’ll get to the ADF’s involvement in the BESE policy in a moment. First, let’s recall a little more of the January 13, 2009, BESE meeting.

A Brief Recap

Between December 2008 and January 13, 2009, the LFF had already succeeded in getting one statement eliminated from the December 2008 initial draft of BESE’s LSEA policy [pdf, p. 7]: “Religious beliefs shall not be advanced under the guise of encouraging critical thinking.” That statement, which the Louisiana Department of Education (LDoE) staff had included on the advice of the LSEA Advisory Committee [pdf, p. 14] was deleted after Rev. Mills paid the staff a visit. He told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser (1/8/09) that he had discussed the draft with them: “Mills said he’s been discussing the policy language with state education officials and the bill’s legislative sponsors to come up with possible changes.” He expressed to the Advocate (1/9/09) his optimism about getting the draft changed: “Mills said he is cautiously optimistic that talks among department officials, the state board and lawmakers involved in the issue will be productive.”

But getting one statement deleted wasn’t enough for Rev. Mills. He wanted a second statement stripped from the policy —  the first sentence in section D.4.d in the January 2009 revised draft [pdf, p. 3]: “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.” To get that second statement deleted, Mills had to go to BESE directly. (The LFF wanted BESE to retain the following sentence in D.4.d, which followed the one that Mills wanted deleted: “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 sentence would have benefited the LFF by allowing the adoption of supplementary materials written by creationist authors. BESE ultimately decided to delete D.4.d in its entirety. The LFF understandably didn’t quibble about this.)

Mills’ getting legislators and BESE members involved in the discussions with LDoE strongly suggests that the LDoE staff were subjected to political pressure. Moreover, the fact that the LFF lawyered up for the January 13, 2009, BESE meeting in order to get the second statement deleted suggests further that the LDoE staff refused to do this, reflecting the professionalism for which the Louisiana Coalition for Science (LCFS) has applauded them.

Geologist Al Melillo, LCFS member Patsye Peebles, and LSU biologist Eric Achberger — all members of the LSEA Advisory Committee that had provided LDoE with guidelines [pdf, pp. 8-13] for the December 2008 draft — testified at the January 13 meeting that D.4.d should remain in the January 2009 revised draft, as did Kevin Carman, Dean of the College of Science at LSU. But their testimony didn’t faze the board. The only people whom BESE members heeded were the creationists, and their heeding took the form of stripping the prohibition against teaching creationism out of the policy, just as Rev. Mills wanted.

The LFF’s lawyering up consisted partly of having attorney John B. Wells and Southern University law professor Michelle R. Ghetti testify at the meeting. Both wanted the D.4.d prohibition removed from the policy. Both are also affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). This is the part of the story that has not been told. The January 13, 2009, BESE meeting showed just how far the LFF would go to get what it wanted.

The ADF Connection

Both Wells and Ghetti proudly advertise their ADF affiliation. Wells, whose background is military law, not constitutional law, describes on his website the part of his practice relevant to the ADF:

Dedicated to reversing the persecution of Christians by the ACLU and other anti-American organizations, Mr. Wells has allied himself with the Alliance Defense Fund. He has pledged to dedicate hundreds of hours per year to defending religious freedom at no cost to the client. . . . He is prepared to assist in the following:
• Legal attacks on the rights of students and school employees . . . • Violations of the First Amendment rights by the ACLU and other organizations dedicated to religious persecution

(An aside: In a matter unrelated to the LSEA, John Oller, who has been the subject of LCFS posts here, here, and here, is being represented by the ADF, with Wells as his attorney, in Oller’s lawsuit against his employer, the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. The lawsuit concerns personnel issues and has no bearing on the merits [or lack thereof] of creationism, including intelligent design.)

Ghetti, who lists “Legislative Consultant, Louisiana Family Forum” and includes the ADF as a “Professional Membership”on her professional resumé, also includes her ADF affiliation on her (public) university faculty page:

Professor Ghetti is an avid advocate for freedom to practice one’s religion and wrote Louisiana’s Preservation of Religious Freedom Act in 2010. She is an active ally of the Alliance Defense Fund. . . .

Ghetti’s faculty page at the Southern University Law Center lists “Law and Religion” as one of her teaching areas. Her biography page on her personal website says that she “specialize[s] in constitutional law, particularly in the criminal and religion areas.” However, on her resumé she lists no publications — either professional or otherwise — in constitutional law as it pertains to religion (she lists only an unpublished article about the Louisiana Preservation of Religious Freedom Act that is “About to Be Circulated for Publication”), nor do any show up in Lexis-Nexis (an academic database for legal publications). Yet both Ghetti and Wells inserted themselves into the BESE policy issue as experts.

In his testimony before BESE on January 13, 2009, Wells stressed not only his own ADF affiliation, but the ADF’s interest in the content of the draft policy (transcript from audiotape by Barbara Forrest; “uh” deleted; bold added). It’s not hard to figure out what he was getting at:

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is John Wells. I’m an attorney here in Louisiana. I’m also an allied attorney with Alliance Defense Fund. The Alliance Defense Fund is an organization of constitutional lawyers who do a lot of the type of litigation cases that are potentially being talked about here today. I should tell you that the Alliance Defense Fund is monitoring the situation. We are of the belief that paragraph 4.d, as it is written, actually probably would not pass constitutional muster because the situation’s actually dampening free expression. That the regulations without paragraph 4.d would be fine. . . .

The rules as they appear without 4.d , this first sentence before 4.d appear to give adequate guidance and pass constitutional muster. Now, the Alliance Defense Fund, of course, you know, does provide pro bono services in the event of litigation. So, for example, in some cases, where entities are sued over religious issues, we would provide a defense. . . .

[W]e feel that . . . the first sentence of 4.d would not pass constitutional muster. We would urge you to delete it. . . .

The second issue, probably just as important, is that, as I think the chairman mentioned, Senator Nevers here passed an, an act [the LSEA] that grants certain powers to this organization. [A]s an attorney, I’m familiar with what’s called the ‘delegation doctrine.’ The legislature passes the laws, OK? And an administrative body such as yourself enforce and implement those laws. And if you have a situation where you are putting in a regulation that is not authorized by the law, that in itself could lead to litigation. And that in itself could make the regulations illegal, as well as potentially unconstitutional. . . .

Did you get that, folks? Wells told BESE members that if they left the prohibition against teaching creationism in the draft, they could be sued. Now, let’s stop and think for a moment about what Wells’ comments imply. Who would be interested in suing a state board of education for issuing a prohibition against teaching creationism — a completely legitimate prohibition that is mandated by a host of federal court decisions, including two U.S. Supreme Court rulings? (See here and here.)  You got it — the Alliance Defense Fund.

Wells was telling board members, in his oh-so-deferential-to-BESE way, two things: (1) If they left D.4.d in, the policy could be considered unconstitutional and they could be sued for “dampening” someone’s free expression. Whose free expression would supposedly be “dampened” if the prohibition against teaching creationism stayed in the draft? That’s right — teachers who want to express themselves by teaching creationism in public schools. So, by leaving D.4.d in the policy draft, not only could (make that would) BESE be sued, but the ADF would do the suing. (2) If, on the other hand, BESE took D.4.d. out as the LFF wanted and someone else sued BESE (apparently under the assumption that pro-science people would sue), the ADF would then consider providing pro bono legal defense to BESE. Wells’ comments were not made off-the-cuff. He had clearly entered the meeting prepared with what can reasonably be considered the threat of a lawsuit against the state of Louisiana.

Ghetti also testified at the January 13 meeting, citing to BESE members her supposed expertise in constitutional law concerning religion. She, too, brought up the ADF, as well as a new name: Mike Johnson (J. Michael Johnson), the Shreveport attorney who has been named founding dean of the Pressler Law School (if Louisiana College can ever get it off the ground). (Aside: Among members of Pressler’s “National Board of Reference” are . . . wait for it . . . ADF CEO Alan Sears, faux historian David Barton, Left Behind co-author Tim LaHaye, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, LFF operative Darrell White, and other such luminaries.) Prior to accepting this position, Johnson was “Senior Legal Counsel and a national media spokesman” for the ADF (see Johnson’s Pressler Law School bio [pdf]). Here is the relevant excerpt of Ghetti’s BESE testimony (Forrest transcript; “uh” deleted; bold added; probable wording in red):

My name is Michelle Ghetti, and I am a law professor at Southern University, where I’ve been now for, for nineteen years. . . . I am also an attorney, a litigator. I’m also a member of the Louisiana Law Institute and an expert on both ethics and constitutional law and religion. I’ve taught constitutional law courses now for nineteen years and have recently in the last few years taught the law and religion course. I think, to my knowledge, I was the only legal expert that testified before the legislature on this particular act. . . .

One thing I wanted to mention [indecipherable] so I don’t forget . . . Mike Johnson, who is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund and has represented governmental committees as well as individuals throughout this state and the Fifth Circuit [Court of Appeals] on issues such as this, has given a legal [opinion] on this particular bill, and he asked that I and . . . Mr. Wells, who’s with the ADF, to give you a copy of that to [make part of the record].

If you’ve hung in this far, persistent readers, you will now be rewarded with a copy of Johnson’s legal opinion, which was communicated in a letter [pdf] that Wells handed out to state board members — written on ADF letterhead and signed “ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND, J. Michael Johnson, Senior Legal Counsel.” Note that Johnson refers to possible litigation in the very first paragraph:

This correspondence is being submitted to you by the Alliance Defense Fund (‘ADF’) to express our concerns over the legality of the proposed regulations that have been promulgated in accordance with  . . . the ‘Louisiana Science Education Act.’ The proposed regulations, ‘Science Education, §2304,’ contain some problematic language that could subject the state to unnecessary First Amendment litigation.

So there we have it: in the opening paragraph, Johnson hits BESE with the prospect of litigation that only the ADF, representing creationists, would have any interest in initiating. ADF’s message is that BESE could be sued for prohibiting something that the federal courts have already — unambiguously — declared unconstitutional, i.e., the teaching of creationism. By this time, you are surely curious as to what kind of contorted, Alice-through-the-looking-glass reasoning that Johnson and the ADF are using here. So here it is:

ADF’s “chief concern” with D.4.d is “the undue emphasis” that the prohibition against teaching creationism “places upon particular viewpoints that may be regarded as ‘religious’.” (Note the scare quotes around “religious.” Sounds like an attempt to deny that creationism is a religious viewpoint, doesn’t it?) Their rationale is that by explicitly prohibiting the teaching of creationism, BESE would be “improperly expand[ing] the lawful intent” of the LSEA. (Sounds like an attempt to deny that the LSEA is a creationist law, doesn’t it?) Leaving D.4.d in the policy would “likely subject the Board to a costly legal challenge” (read: a costly challenge if ADF sues BESE). Here is a clarification of what Johnson and the ADF were saying: “We don’t want a statement about creationism in this policy because the LSEA is not a creationist law!”

Someone should have sent that memo to LSEA sponsor Senator Ben Nevers before he explained the reason for the LSEA to a reporter when he introduced it in 2008 (emphasis added): “They [the Louisiana Family Forum] believe that scientific data related to creationism should be discussed when dealing with Darwin’s theory. This [bill] would allow the discussion of scientific facts.” Nevers also testified at the January 13 meeting — staying on script this time (Forrest transcript):

I think that by inserting this language [into the policy], I think you circumvent the intent of the legislation, and I think it should be removed. If you notice, the legislation never mentions creationism or intelligent design, that it simply states that we want science taught in our classrooms and that we want our students to be able to critically think, observe, and ask questions about science-related items.

But let’s get back to the Johnson/ADF letter. Immediately after trying to deny the religious intent of the LSEA, Johnson, citing several U.S. Supreme Court rulings, warns board members about hostility towards religion (who said this was about religion?):

Establishment Clause jurisprudence requires neutrality and forbids hostility towards religion, even in the public school context. As the Supreme Court has often explained, the Establishment Clause ‘requires the state to be neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary.’ . . . (Establishment Clause forbids government action with an effect that ‘inhibits religion’). . . . (government is not permitted to show ‘hostility toward religion’). . . .

So, to clarify: ADF was telling BESE (when you threaten litigation, you’re telling, not asking) to remove the prohibition against teaching creationism from its LSEA implementation policy because (1) the LSEA is not about religion and (2) if it stayed in, the LSEA policy prohibiting the teaching of creationism would be hostile to religion. (In Logic 101 — which usually includes critical thinking skills — that is known as a contradiction.)

Having begun with a stick, Johnson closed with a carrot. Note the finely nuanced understatement in the first sentence (emphasis added):

ADF is keenly interested in the Louisiana Science Education Act and its goal of promoting critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories. If regulations are adopted that are more consistent with the intent of the Legislature as set forth in [the] Act, and as articulated in the testimony of its authors and supporters during the debates on the House and Senate floors [NOTE: there were no debates on the House and Senate floors], ADF would consider offering its pro bono assistance in defense of the law should it face any legal challenge.

The game plan here is pretty clear:  having sanitized the language of the LSEA itself — thereby implementing the Discovery Institute’s post-Kitzmiller strategy, the LFF — and, needless to say, the Discovery Institute — did not want BESE screwing things up by adopting a policy that bluntly exposed the LSEA as the creationist law that it is. If the LSEA implementation policy contained a prohibition against creationism, the policy would indict the law. Couldn’t let that happen, now could they? So the best way to prevent that was to let BESE know that the ADF was ready to sue if the LFF didn’t get what it wanted. And if board members cooperated by removing D.4.d, — which, as it turned out, they unanimously did — ADF might, just might, represent the state in court for free if it got sued by angry science defenders. Or, if ADF just didn’t feel like showing up in court, the taxpayers could pick up the tab.

Having hung in this far, persistent readers, here again — for your information and edification — is the link to the Johnson/ADF letter. You can savor it at your leisure, now knowing— as the late Paul Harvey used to say — “the rest of the story” of how the LFF managed to get the LSEA policy gutted. Happy New Year.

By  Barbara Forrest

The year 2011 is about to end, and this gives the Louisiana Coalition for Science (LCFS) a chance to highlight two cool things:  (1) a new article by LCFS member Dr. Ian Binns entitled “Battle over Science in Louisiana” published in (2) Reports of the National Center for Science Education (RNCSE, pronounced “rensee”), which is now freely available online. (The Binns article is here [pdf].) Until recently, Dr. Binns was a science educator at Louisiana State University; he is now at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Throughout 2010-2011, he was an integral participant in LCFS’s successful effort to protect the selection of state-approved biology textbooks, and he took the lead in our successful effort to block the passage of HB 580, which would have undermined state oversight of school districts’ purchase of science materials. In the November-December 2011 issue of RNCSE, Dr. Binns has chronicled the attack on science education that took place after the passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA).

Dr. Binns’s involvement with LCFS’s efforts to protect science education in Louisiana has enabled him to provide a firsthand account of what happened in the wake of the attempt by the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) to undermine public school science education (see here, here, here, and here), an effort in which the LFF has benefited from its close alliance with Bobby Jindal:

[T]his article will focus on several events that started in September 2010 and ended in June 2011 and use those events as evidence for the continued attempts by the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), the state affiliate of the religious right organization Focus on the Family, and others to redefine science in order to serve their narrow agenda.

Among other things, Binns focuses on the LFF’s attack on the textbook selection process, an attack that was centered around the LFF’s effort to change the definition of science: “Since this process was open to public comments, it provided another opportunity for opponents to attempt to redefine science.” If the LFF had got its way, science would have been redefined to include the supernatural. LFF operatives also used the same tactic of trying to disguise their creationism that they used in promoting the LSEA in 2008:

The main players [who submitted public comments on the textbooks that were recommended by the Textbook Review Committee], led by Darrell White, never mentioned anything about creationism or intelligent design’. Instead, they focused on what they called the ‘weaknesses of evolution’. [hyperlink added]

The LFF failed to stop the approval of the books at the level of the Textbook Review Committee, so they next focused on the Textbook/Media/Library Advisory Council, which also decided to review the books despite not having met in almost a decade. Binns also focuses on the LFF’s attempt to derail the selection process at the council’s November 12, 2010, meeting:

From this meeting, I was mostly interested in the documents that were distributed by Lennie Ditoro, a supporter of the LFF, during her testimony. Lennie Ditoro worked with the LFF during the previous science textbook adoption in 2002 and has introduced herself as a representative of the LFF Education Resource Council on at least one occasion. [hyperlinks added]

Ditoro distributed a document that misquoted the 1997 Louisiana Science Framework (LSF) [pdf]. In a subtle distortion of the original wording of the LSF, her handout defined science as a “continuing process for extending understanding of the ultimate, unalterable truth,” a definition that reflects Ditoro’s ignorance of the way science actually works (it does not deal with “ultimate, unalterable truth”).

Binns also discusses Ditoro’s involvement in the 2011 effort that Zack Kopplin led to repeal the LSEA. Continuing her emphasis on redefining science, she testified at the Senate Education Committee hearing for Senator Karen Carter Peterson’s SB 70, which would have repealed the LSEA in its entirety if the committee had not deferred action, in effect killing the bill.

Dr. Binns’s article [pdf] is well worth a read. Louisiana citizens should begin the new year with an understanding of the tactics of the state’s leading anti-science organization. The LFF will surely launch future efforts to undermine public school science education. The 2012 legislative session [pdf] is less than three months away. Jindal will be in office for four more years, and he and the LFF are joined at the hip.

 By Barbara Forrest

It’s almost Kitzmas time again, which means that it’s almost the sixth anniversary of the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover [pdf] that was handed down on December 20, 2005. Although the Kitzmiller ruling applies only in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, it has served as a powerful legal statement that intelligent design (ID) is merely warmed-over creationism, the teaching of which is unconstitutional in public school science classes. But in Louisiana we have something else to celebrate:  December 7, 2011, marked the first anniversary of the Louisiana Coalition for Science’s successful effort to persuade the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to approve new biology textbooks for public school biology classes.

It is important to recall this event because it marked the first — and so far only — victory that defenders of science have had in Louisiana, a state in which — where public officials are concerned — standing up for science is a liability rather than a cause for commendation. (UPDATE: An alert LCFS member noted my omission of the fact that LCFS successfully fended off HB 580 during the 2011 legislative session. This stealth creationist bill would have undercut the oversight of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education over school districts’ purchase of supplementary materials and would have written the professional staff of the Department of Education out of its role in reviewing textbooks, etc. That victory came in spring of this year, so we will have another anniversary to celebrate next June!)

The people who have attacked the teaching of science in Louisiana are still around. One of them is young-earth creationist (YEC) Charles Voss, who for years has partnered with the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) in its effort to undermine the teaching of evolution. Voss is vice-president of the YEC Origins Resource Association (see the ORA Facebook page). ORA’s president is YEC chemist Edward Boudreaux (do follow this link), who was involved in the passage of the 1981 “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act,” which was declared unconstitutional in 1987 by the United States Supreme Court. (See Boudreaux’s Facebook page.) Note that the ORA was founded in 1980 as “Louisiana Citizens for Academic Freedom in Origins.” (Ring any bells?) Let’s take a look at what Voss has been doing since the approval of the textbooks last year.

In 2002, the LFF had tried to block the approval of new biology textbooks, as they attempted to do again in 2010. They failed then, as they failed last year. But in 2003, after that first failure, Voss created his “Textaddons.com” website, on which he posted creationist addenda for almost a dozen well-known biology textbooks. To say that the addenda — all of which were variations on the same basic document — were incompetently done would be an understatement. They were heavily dependent on young-earth creationist sources, which were referenced throughout the addenda. When ID creationism edged out young-earth creationism as the chief threat to the teaching of evolution, Voss duly added ID references to the addenda.

In the wake of the LFF’s failure to block the approval of biology textbooks in 2010, Voss has now continued his earlier precedent by “updating” his Textaddons.com website. Given the attacks on the teaching of evolution in Louisiana which Voss has been involved, dating all the way back to 1994, a renewed warning to teachers against using his materials is in order. But Voss’s stuff is so pathetic that it’s just not worth a three-bell alarm (or a two-bell alarm, or even a one-bell alarm). Maybe a slight ting-a-ling, but nothing more. Only the most incompetent (or unprofessional) teacher would use this stuff.

Let’s just take a short tour through the site. A few representative samples will do. But pay attention, alert readers, because the Louisiana Coalition for Science will soon sponsor a contest for the first person to correctly identify the dumbest, most incompetent statement in a section of the website that will be identified later. Those of you who have read this far may want to compete!

Main Page of “Textaddons.com”

On the main page, Voss announces, “It is generally known that today’s Biology Textbooks mislead the reader into believing that evolution has no negative aspects.” In addition to the capitalization error, there is a substantive error here: Voss’s statement is based on the false premise that there are “negative aspects” of evolution. He probably means that that the textbooks do not include what creationists call — in their shopworn code language — “evidence against evolution.” While some aspects of evolution are not as well understood as others, there is no evidence against evolution. All available scientific evidence — all 152 years of it — supports evolution.

He also includes a weird, unclear disclaimer: “It should be noted that additional information is not presented for the subjects of Fossil Formation, the Fossil Record, Geological Column, Relative Dating, Radio-metric Dating and Intelligent Design. These exclusions are deliberate because of a possible interpretation that reflects on the age of the earth and therefore might be classified as an attempt to advance a particular religion and cause litigation.” Whatever he means concerning “a possible interpretation that reflects on the age of the earth” (Voss is a YEC, and ID is a form of old-earth creationism), he claims to have excluded information about ID. As an inspection of the addenda shows, that is false. Although Voss has sanitized the current versions under the pretense of trying to avoid legal issues, he has relied on ID sources.

Let’s look at just one addendum [pdf]: Biology: The Dynamics of Life (Biggs et al., Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2004). (Note that all of the books for which Voss provides addenda are outdated; there are no updated addenda for the new textbooks approved last year.) This addendum is copyrighted for both 2006 and 2007, although an earlier version dates back to July 2004. One of Voss’s sources in this addendum (on p. 11 and elsewhere) is “Thaxton, Bradley, & Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, New York: Philosophical Library, (1984).” This is the first college-level ID creationist textbook and one of the founding books of the ID movement. (See the website, where the entire book can be downloaded in pdf for free.)

Another source in this addendum (p. 14) is “Wells, Jonathan, Icons of Evolution. 2000, pp. 146,149.” Wells is a founding fellow of the Discovery Institute’s creationist wing, the Center for Science and Culture (formerly the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture). Icons is an ID creationist book in which Wells accuses scientists of fraud (pp. 234-235). (See this critique of Icons at Talkorigins.org.)

Yet another source is “Denton, Michael, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1986″ (p. 15), which is also a founding ID text. (See a review by Mark Vuletic at Talkorigins.org.) Denton still hangs out with ID people from the Discovery Institute and is an apologist for ID creationism (see this video interview).

The original 2004 version [pdf] of Voss’s addendum for Biology: The Dynamics of Life contained both young-earth and ID creationist sources in the footnotes (see p. 10, for example). Here is the list of sources for just one section, “Life in the Mesozoic” (with relevant hyperlinks added here).

1. Sarfati, J. D., Refuting Evolution. Master Books, 1999, <www.masterbooks.net>, pp.57-68 and
Refuting Evolution 2, 2002, pp.130-132.
2. Wells, Jonathan, Icons of Evolution. Regency Publishing, 2000, pp. 111-135.
3. Davis, Kenyon & Thaxton, Of Pandas and People. Haughton Publishing Co., 1993, pp. 104-107.  [Note: This is the ID creationist book that I debunked in court in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005).]
4.Wieland, Carl, Bird Evolution Flies Out the Window. Creation Ex Nilo, Vol. 16, No. 4, (Sept. 1994), pp. 16-19.
5. Sarfati, Jonathan, Dino-Bird Evolution Falls Flat. Creation Ex Nilo, Vol. 20, No. 2 (March 1998), p 41.

In the current version of the addendum for Biology: The Dynamics of Life, Voss has left the content of “Life in the Mesozoic” exactly as in the 2004 version — except that he has deleted all of his blatantly creationist footnotes (p. 6).

Voss’s “Addendum Reviewers”

One important item on Voss’s main page is his list of addendum reviewers, which is most enlightening. The list is included along with Voss’s own bio here [Word doc]. His reviewers include Edward Boudreaux (see Boudreaux’s creationist credentials here) and — surprise! — John Oller, who should be well known to our readers. Twenty-four years after the Edwards decision, Boudreaux continues to mislead people by preaching creationism. In this video posted less than a year ago by the Rocky Mountain Creation Fellowship, Boudreaux boasts (2:47) of having once challenged the (unnamed) chair of the Tulane University biology department during a joint interview in which the chair was “talking all this biology, and you know, I’m not a biologist, OK?” But he asserts that he is comfortable debating such people “because I know the truth.”

He advises his audience (3:16) to “never hesitate” to confront such people: “Any opportunity you get, if you know the truth, you don’t have to be an expert in science or in a certain area. If you know enough about it, just get right on in and let the Holy Spirit do the work with you, OK?” Well, OK! That’ll save creationists a lot of work!

Another of Voss’s reviewers is “Dr.” Don Patton, whose organization, the “Metroplex Institute of Origin Science” (MIOS), makes the following declaration:

Evidences supporting Intelligent Design often go hand in hand with the discoveries made within Creation Science. It must be formally noted, Creation Science involves scientific evidences and should in no wise be conveyed by the media as only a Biblical explanation of creation or any other religious belief. Creation Science is scientific evidences, not religious doctrine.

There is a reason that Patton’s doctoral status is highlighted in quotes here. Voss lists Patton’s qualifying credential as a Ph.D. in “Education (Geology).” If Voss had done just a little bit of googling, he would have found out that information on Patton’s purported degrees had been published in 1989 in the Reports of the National Center for Science Education. Here is the relevant information as compiled by Glenn Kuban, who wrote the RNCSE article (emphasis and editorial clarifications added):

[T]he printed abstracts of the 1989 Bible-Science conference in Dayton, Tennessee (where Patton gave two talks) stated that he was a Ph.D. candidacy in geology, and implied that he has at least four degrees from three separate schools. When I asked Patton for clarification on this during the conference, he stated that he had no degrees, but was about to receive a Ph.D. degree in geology, pending accreditation of QCU [Queensland Christian University, Australia], which he assured me was ‘three days away.’ Many days have since passed, and Patton still has no valid degree in geology. Nor is the accreditation of QCU imminent. Australian researcher Ian Plimer reported, ‘PCI [Pacific College Incorporated], QPU, PCT, and PCGS [other purported 'educational' institutions] have no formal curriculum, no classes, no research facilities, no calendar, no campus, and no academic staff. . . . Any Ph.D. or Ph.D. candidacy at QPU by Patton is fraudulent.’

Isn’t that interesting? Patton’s website now says that he received a Ph.D. in education in 1993, but it does not include the school that granted the degree. Wonder why?

“Added Info” Page

On a page entitled “Additional Information from Other Sources,” Voss has posted links to various YEC and ID websites. He also offers to provide free copies of “The Icons of Evolution Curriculum Modules,” consisting of DVDs based on Wells’ book, Icons of Evolution. (He cautions readers: “I want to know the school you are associated with and your home address. I will mail only to a home address.”) These curriculum modules, according to which “most of the traditional evidence presented for evolution in high school textbooks is wrong,” are distributed through Access Research Network, a clearinghouse for ID “educational” materials and de facto arm of the Discovery Institute.

There is much more that could be said about Voss’s newly revised website, but these samples suffice to make the point that no self-respecting teacher should use any of this stuff in her classroom. It’s the same old junk as Voss offered in 2003, when he first posted the site — except that it has only gotten more pathetic.

But stay tuned, readers — LCFS will soon sponsor a contest in which readers will be asked to identify the stupidest thing that we can find on Voss’s website. We will announce the details soon. The winner will receive a gift card for books — a prize that we think the LCFS audience will appreciate. 

By Barbara Forrest

Many teachers and administrators in Louisiana public schools — and probably some students and parents, too — may be wondering what science teachers are required to do under the terms of the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), which became law with Bobby Jindal’s signature in June 2008.  The law and the implementation policy adopted by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) allow teachers to bring creationist materials into their classrooms and use them until they get caught doing it. We know that the law permits this because (a) Sen. Ben Nevers, the bill’s sponsor, said so, and (b) the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) successfully lobbied BESE to delete the prohibitions against teaching creationism from the policy that implements the law. So evolution, the “origins of life,” global warming, and human cloning are all fair game in science classrooms. So now, with the law on the books, what do teachers have to do as a result? Here, after three years, is the definitive answer:

NOTHING.

NOT A SINGLE, ITTY BITTY THING.

The bill permits using creationist supplements, but it does not require teachers to do anything. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Zip.

Teachers do not have to do a single thing differently than they were doing before this ridiculous law was passed. Before the LSEA was passed, teachers were required to teach science according to the Louisiana Content Standards (pdf) and Grade Level Expectations. That’s what they are required to do today. Just teach science properly, and let the creationists stew in their own juices. And please contact the Louisiana Science Coalition if there are any problems. We’re here to help.

Please pass it on.

A new school year is now well under way, and public schools in Louisiana fortunately have a nice selection of new biology textbooks from which to choose for classroom use. In December 2010, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) heeded the voice of reason from concerned citizens and did the right thing by approving the books, despite the fact that the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) and its supporters did their best to cloud the issue with misinformation.

One of the most frequent charges that LFF creationists made in their attack on the process of selecting biology textbooks last fall was that the books had not actually been updated since 2002. Those of us who testified at the December 7 BESE meeting heard creationists say this repeatedly. John Oller, for example, made this charge:

John Oller, a professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who appeared with [Rev. Gene] Mills [of the Louisiana Family Forum], said the books are 30 to 60 years out of date. ‘They have been dumbed down, they are really weak books,’ Oller told the state panel. — Baton Rouge Advocate, December 7, 2010 (emphasis added)

Having personally inspected all of the proposed new books myself (see update below), I decided to check with one of the authors who also happens to be a good friend, Kenneth Miller, a cell biologist at Brown University. The high school textbook, Biology, which Ken co-authored with scientist Joe Levine, is one of the most widely used textbooks in the United States. (See “Meet the Authors” at Pearson Publishing.) Ken gave me permission to share with readers a document that he has made available to teachers in several states, explaining all the changes from the 2002 “Dragonfly” version of the textbook to the 2010 “Macaw” version. Needless to say, Oller’s charge does not hold up.

Oller made the charge again in the January 3, 2011, puff piece that the Acadiana Gazette wrote about him: “The last textbook review was 10 years ago and [Oller] claims the science in the textbooks hasn’t been updated, merely copied, and that the textbook critique he wrote was exclusively about scientific data.” Rev. Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum also slammed the books in an interview with OneNewsNow (American Family News Network):

‘It presents the material as though it were factual and doctrinaire; it presents errors that have been known to be disproven; and [it] continues to repeat things that have been pointed out in other states to the same publishers,’ he explains. In addition, according to Mills, it ‘dumbs down’ the material for the state of Louisiana.

Curious about what one of the textbook authors would have to say about the charges that Oller and Mills were making, I decided to ask Ken directly. Here is his response in an e-mail to me:

You’ve got to be kidding. Joe and I worked for more than a year revising and rewriting, and the suggestion that our new book is unchanged is laughable. We rewrote everything, included a slew of new scientific developments, and completely changed our classification scheme. The new book blows the old one out of the water, and school districts around the country are adopting it with great enthusiasm (and with excellent test results, as well).

Ken also provided me with a pdf document of the information that  he has made available to teachers in several states about the 2010 edition, nicknamed “the Macaw book” because of its beautiful cover illustration (the 2002 version is called “Dragonfly”). Here is the Pearson website for the book, Biology.com, which includes a preview, support materials for teachers, and information (including video clips) about the authors. (See this page for all video clips of Ken.) Here is the clip in which Ken explains how the new book has been updated:

Miller on New Biology Book (opens in new browser window)

In the video below, Ken explains that evolution is not scientifically controversial and that personal religious faith is compatible with understanding evolution. Ken includes a comment about the authors’ position: “The authors of Biology fully respect the religious beliefs of our students and of our students’ parents. We have our own religious understandings.”

Miller on Evolution in Biology (opens in new browser window)

Now, compare this to the drivel that young-earth creationist Charles Voss, who also testified at the December 7 BESE meeting, wrote in an addendum to Miller and Levine’s 2002 book.  The addendum to Ken’s book is available (pdf) on Voss’s “Textaddons” website, where Voss (who, like Oller, has no credentials in biology) has posted creationist addendums for a host of biology textbooks. On pp. 12-13 of the addendum for Miller’s 2002 book, Voss cites as a source the first intelligent design book written for college students, which just happens also to be the book that began the intelligent design creationism movement: Thaxton, Bradley, & Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, New York: Philosophical Library, (1984). You can download the entire book here (direct link to pdf). (On page 7 of the addendum, Voss also cites Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), another of ID’s founding texts. See a review of the book here.)

Now, almost a year after the selection process, a review of the Macaw book by a teacher who is actually using the book has been published in Evolution: Education and Outreach, a leading science education journal (subscription required). Celeste Cookie Barker, who was the National Association of Biology Teachers’ 1999 Outstanding Biology Teacher, teaches biology and chemistry at Schroon Lake Central School in Schroon Lake, New York.

Her review, “The Macaw Biology Program: Outstanding Content, Inspired Students” — about which Ken knew nothing until I told him — confirms Ken’s comments. And it directly refutes Oller’s ridiculous charge that the science is out of date (a charge that he applied to all of the books, not just Ken’s). Here is a relevant excerpt from Ms. Barker’s review (with emphasis added in bold italics):

It has been one and a half years since our students have been interacting with the revised Miller and Levine Biology program, and we are reaping the benefits. In our science classroom, the students are taking more responsibility for their own learning. The number of students using technology outside the classroom to study biology has increased. And 100% of our students passed the required state exam in biology.

The quality of the biology content is outstanding. It is current and well researched. Their treatment of gene regulation is such an example. . . . Using the online resources, rich with interactive study tools, videos, lesson overviews, and assessments, differentiated instruction is only a mouse click away. . . .

Ultimately, I chose this textbook because I felt the science was sound and the presentation was student friendly. . . . Thank you Ken Miller and Joe Levine for putting your time and effort into creating such a high-quality biology program. . . .

What else is there to say? Please get this information out to your teacher friends and school administrators around Louisiana.

UPDATE: I looked at all of the biology books that the Louisiana Department of Education put out for review. The Holt McDougal and McGraw-Hill books are also quite good. Louisiana students would be well served by these books.

 By Barbara Forrest

Readers may remember this quote in which Rev. Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) described the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA).

This bill is not about teaching creationism or religion. If one reads the language of his bill, it is clear that it simply permits teachers ‘to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught.’   [emphasis added]

Mills wrote this in an April 11, 2008, letter to the Hammond Daily Star, in which he had to do some very quick damage control after Senator Ben Nevers, who sponsored the bill for him, forgot to follow the script in his remarks in the April 6, 2008, Daily Star, in which he explained why he was sponsoring the LSEA on behalf of the LFF:

‘They [the LFF]  believe that scientific data related to creationism should be discussed when dealing with Darwin’s theory. This would allow the discussion of scientific facts,’ Nevers said. ‘I feel the students should know there are weaknesses and strengths in both scientific arguments.’  [emphasis added]

You could just about hear the kittens over at the LFF headquarters in Baton Rouge.

And that was just the first screw-up. In December 2009, Mills attributed the LFF’s success in getting the LSEA enacted into law to Jesus Christ:

Because of Him, LFF’s accomplishments are many in 2009:

. . . Advanced classroom-ready Louisiana Science Education Rules through the perilous State Board of Education process!

And then there was the LFF’s concerted — and successful — effort to have the prohibition against teaching creationism deleted from the Board of Elementary and Secondary’s LSEA implementation policy. The LFF must have forgotten their talking point that the LSEA is really about teaching good science. Since the LFF has repeatedly affirmed that the LSEA is not about teaching creationism, they should have had no objection to the policy’s inclusion of that prohibition. But it seems they just keep forgetting to follow the script.

The most recent slip-up was in Gene Mills’s April 29 End of Week newsletter, in which he addressed the filing of SB 70, Senator Karen Carter Peterson’s bill to repeal the LSEA. See if you can spot it in this clip:

Rev. Gene Mills' End of Week Newsletter, April 29, 2011

Did you find it? If not, here’s your hint:  everyone knows that when you’re looking on the Internet for a picture related to a law that was passed strictly and solely in order to enhance the teaching of science by promoting “critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories,” you want it to include certain things. Microscope? Check. Bible? Check. Oh, wait a second. A Bible? If Rev. Mills is not preparing this newsletter himself, perhaps he should speak to whoever is doing it. The newsletter writer surely must not have realized that the LSEA is only about teaching good science and protecting “academic freedom.”

Actually, there is a perfectly rational explanation for these recurring slips of the tongue — or, in the above case, slips of the webmaster. The “mistakes” are completely intentional. The LFF’s support base comprises people who actually want their religious views taught in public schools. If LFF were to scrub the script too clean — that is, if they were to sound like they really support teaching evolution — they might lose the donors to whom Mills sends out his frantic appeals for money. (See Lamar White’s excellent piece on the LFF’s financial dealings.)

They have to keep the dollars coming in, so they have to signal their donors that they are still keeping the faith. They periodically have to actually tell the truth about the true purpose of the LSEA. It’s as simple as that.

So this is not a memory problem. It’s an honesty problem.

By Barbara Forrest      

OK, readers, who knows what these two pictures have in common?

Give up? OK, here’s the answer:  Both of these pictures are symbols of the screwed-up priorities of the state of Louisiana. On the left, we have a frame from the July 10, 2011, Doonesbury comic strip, which quite rightly ridicules the fact that (a) the state of Louisiana passed the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act in 2008 and (b) the state of Louisiana refused to repeal this law in 2011. In fact, the Senate Education Committee refused to allow SB 70, Sen. Karen Carter Peterson’s repeal bill, out of committee. Rather than voting against it outright, they just voted 5-1 to defer action on the bill, effectively killing it. Only Senator Yvonne Dorsey voted to send the bill to the Senate floor (thank you, Sen. Dorsey).

Now, to the picture on the right. This is the widely respected Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. World-class scientists at PBRC are doing world-class research, especially on diabetes and obesity. Any scientists in the world could be proud to work here, especially in the new, four-story clinical research building that was just completed, that is, if they could be proud to work here if they could count on having some important stuff — like, say, furniture. On the same day that the Doonesbury cartoon appeared in the Baton Rouge Advocate, the paper also ran this story, “Cuts Hit Pennington,” on the front page.

Construction is ongoing for Pennington’s state-funded, $12 million imaging center building, but there is no timetable to equip or utilize the facility once it is finished in February.

The nutrition and chronic disease center currently finds itself in a state of limbo after going through a decade of growth and improving state support, only to be undercut by two years of state budget cuts that sliced its operating budget dollars by nearly 20 percent.

Only the first two of the four floors of this new facility are currently occupied, with the top two floors sitting empty for the foreseeable future. And PBRC scientists are now viewed outside the state as poachable. In fact, one scientist, Steven Smith, left last year because of the uncertainty surrounding PBRC’s future. And where do you think he went?

One of those top ‘poached’ scientists, Steven Smith left Pennington last year as the clinical research building was being completed to take over as the scientific director of the Burnham Medical Research Institute’s Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes in Florida. He said the financial uncertainty and ‘state of limbo; were key factors in his decision to leave.

[See this article about Dr. Smith's hiring. See his Burnham web page.]

Florida, you say? Yes, Florida. Think about it this way. If you are going to be worried about hurricanes, you can just as well worry in a state that has invested $600 million to support your cutting-edge research. And if you’re a scientist at Pennington, you won’t even have to spend any time actually looking for another job. The poachers will come to you! That sounds like a terrific economic development strategy — for Florida.

Timothy Church, director of Pennington’s Preventive Medicine Laboratory, is understandably worried. He said that Pennington’s competitors don’t even have to hire “headhunters,” which can get expensive. If other scientific research centers need top talent, says Church, “You just go to the Pennington directory.” Hey, what a deal! That leaves the poacher-states with even more money to invest in scientific research! Church adds, in what surely has to be a competitor for understatement of the year, “When you’re not opening up new buildings, it’s not optimal.” (Sigh. Repeat sigh.)

So this is where we are in Louisiana, friends. We can’t furnish and staff the top two floors of the new Pennington clinical research building, but we still have a creationist law on the books. And we would have had yet another one if Senator Karen Carter Peterson had not stepped up to the plate to help us stop HB 580, which would have allowed local school boards to spend taxpayer dollars to buy as much supplemental creationist “educational” material as they wanted with little state oversight.

But look on the bright side. The Louisiana legislature passed another bill, which Gov. Jindal signed into law as Act 174, that lets us put television screens in the front seats of our cars. (Don’t worry — we can’t watch while the car is moving.)

By Barbara Forrest

The Louisiana Coalition for Science (LCFS) is pleased to announce the demise of HB 580, which is official with the adjournment of the Louisiana legislature today, June 23, 2011, at 6:00 p.m. This legislation was, by every indication, nothing more than an attempt to reverse the Louisiana Family Forum’s defeat in its effort to block the approval of new biology textbooks for Louisiana public schools in fall 2010. However, even though HB 580 was another stealth creationism bill, no subject of instruction in public schools would have been safe from its effects.

HB 580, sponsored by Rep. Frank Hoffmann (West Monroe) was moving along under the radar, eclipsed by the publicity surrounding the effort to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), until Dr. Ian Binns, our LCFS colleague, alerted us to it. If the bill had passed, the purview of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) would have been diluted from being able to “prescribe and adopt” a list of state-approved textbooks to being able merely to “recommend” them. Local school boards would have been given carte blanche to purchase textbooks and other materials that were not even on the list of “recommended” textbooks, and they could have used an unlimited amount of taxpayer dollars to buy them. Moreover, the professional staff of the Department of Education (DoE) would have been written out of their role under current law as participants in the process of reviewing textbooks, overseeing textbook adoption committees, etc. (See the LCFS press release [pdf] and analysis of HB 580 [pdf].)

That prospect has fortunately been averted — for now.

LCFS would like to thank the people who played a role in this outcome. Our greatest gratitude must go to Senator Karen Carter Peterson (New Orleans) and her staff. Working with Zack Kopplin, she sponsored the unsuccessful SB 70, which would have repealed the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act. But she then went above and beyond the call of duty by spearheading the opposition to HB 580 — marshaling “nay” votes from other senators through not one but two Senate votes. So, Senator Peterson, please accept our most sincere thanks. You were wonderful.

The other senators who joined Senator Peterson in voting to protect public school science education by opposing HB 580 also deserve our thanks (in alphabetical order):

• Sen. Norby Chabert, Houma
• Sen. Joel T. Chaisson, Destrehan
• Sen. Dan Claitor, Baton Rouge
• Sen. Yvonne Dorsey, Baton Rouge
• Sen. D. A. “Butch” Gautreaux, Morgan City
• Sen. David Heitmeier, New Orleans
• Sen. Lydia Jackson, Shreveport
• Sen. Joe McPherson, Woodworth
• Sen. Edwin R. Murray, New Orleans
• Sen. Cynthia Willard-Lewis, New Orleans

In addition, LCFS owes much to one of our own members, Dr. Ian Binns, who not only alerted us to the HB 580 but testified against it — twice — on behalf of LCFS before both the House and Senate Education Committees. Dr. Binns has offered a statement about the successful defeat of the bill:

This is a great moment for science education and education in general for the state of Louisiana. Rep. Hoffmann’s bill would have been another step in the wrong direction for science education in Louisiana. I am thankful for the work of Senator Peterson and the other senators who were brave enough to stand up to Rep. Hoffmann and the Louisiana Family Forum. These senators did the right thing in protecting science education. I hope that this is also the beginning of the end for the Louisiana Science Education Act. I am happy to have played a part in the defeat of HB 580.

We also thank Zack Kopplin — yet again — for being at the Capitol and helping Sen. Peterson and her staff. After doing yeoman’s work, working with Sen. Peterson, to repeal the LSEA, Zack also stepped up to the plate to help defeat HB 580. We offer a statement from Zack as well:

Special thanks to all the legislators who prevented this bill from passing not once, but twice. This has been a good year for our state. We’ve gotten new biology books approved, despite creationists attempts to block them. We’ve stopped an attempt to pass another stealth creationism law. Lastly, we made substantial progress in our attempt to repeal Louisiana’s ‘job-killing’ creationism law and we’ll come back with an even stronger repeal next session.

Last, we thank the local media for paying attention to this bill and informing the public. The Baton Rouge Advocate provided thorough coverage and a powerful editorial in opposition to HB 580. James Gill at the Times-Picayune outdid himself yet again, awarding the legislature an “F in science.” The Daily Comet and Houma Today ran articles, as did Gambit. Walter Pierce at the Independent Weekly in Lafayette also provided coverage, helpfully getting the word out by linking to the LCFS analysis of the bill.

We conclude by pointing out that the Louisiana Coalition for Science has gone 2 for 3 against the LFF’s creationist agenda in the last 6 months. Although we failed to repeal the LSEA (don’t worry — Zack vows to try again next year), we successfully persuaded BESE to do the right thing and approve new biology textbooks for our public school students. And now we have prevented Hoffmann’s and the LFF’s end run around that decision. And we did it without paid lobbyists and deep-pocketed donors.

Just knowing that we helped to protect the education of Louisiana children is reward enough for us.

By Barbara Forrest

The Baton Rouge Advocate has a great editorial today about Rep. Frank Hoffman’s HB 580, about which the LCFS sent out a press release [pdf] and a detailed analysis [pdf] on June 13. (See LCFS post, June 10, 2011.) The Advocate has it right: this bill does an end run around the established textbook review and adoption process that the Louisiana Family Forum has been trying unsuccessfully to thwart since 2002.

For readers who need some background, here is the Advocate’s June 17, 2011, article. Here is one in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on June 16. Gambit also has a June 17 article.

We quote here a brief excerpt from the Advocate editorial with the recommendation that readers go to the website and read “Our Views: An End Run on Textbooks.” It is the newspaper’s lead editorial today.

Hell hath no fury like a legislator humiliated by a high school student. . . .  [Note: "Legislator" = Rep. Frank Hoffman. "High school student" = Zack Kopplin.]

He [Hoffman] filed House Bill 580 that tinkers — extensively — with BESE’s long-accepted powers over textbook selection. The tangled language of the bill, already passed by the House, appears to give local school boards the option of adopting different texts.

Given Hoffmann’s record promoting creationist nostrums, this is an invitation to boards to reject standard texts in favor of others. . . .

We urge the Senate to reject the Hoffmann bill and leave well enough alone. Louisiana’s education challenges aren’t made any easier by turning school texts into propaganda tracts from narrow-minded interest groups.

We refer readers again to the LCFS analysis of HB 580 [pdf]. We will not say “enjoy.”