By Barbara Forrest

I have posted below the letter that I sent to the Louisiana Senate Education Committee asking members to allow SB 26, Senator Karen Carter Peterson’s bill to repeal the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act, out of committee for a Senate floor vote. Below the letter, I have posted contact information for the committee members. Please take a few minutes to call or e-mail them before Wednesday, May 1, when SB 26 will be heard. Zack Kopplin has worked extremely hard on this effort, and he needs our support.

Dear members of the Senate Education Committee,

I respectfully request that you vote in favor of SB 26 to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act. This bill deserves to be sent to the full Senate for a vote.

Please keep in mind that those of us who support repeal of the LSEA are working people. We are teachers, scientists, lawyers, and parents who do the work of this state every single day. We have jobs that prohibit us from being at the Capitol to lobby in person. Please respect this fact and take our position into consideration despite our being unable to leave work to be at the committee meeting.

Please consider carefully several points about the LSEA:

(1) The LSEA was requested only by the Louisiana Family Forum, a religious organization that has promoted creationism since its founding. Sen. Nevers very forthrightly stated in 2008 that he introduced the LSEA on the LFF’s behalf in order to get creationism into science classrooms: “They [the LFF] believe that scientific data related to creationism should be discussed when dealing with Darwin’s theory.” Hammond Daily Star, April 6, 2008. However, there is no scientific data related to creationism. It is a religious belief and therefore does not belong in a science class.

(2) Not a single public school teacher or public university scientist requested or supported this legislation. In fact, all public school teachers and public university scientists who have testified have opposed this law. This was true in 2008, and it is still the case.

(3) As former LSU Dean of the College of Science Kevin Carman testified to the Senate Education Committee last year, LSU has lost one biology professor and two prospective ones because of this law. Louisiana must protect science education rather than drive away scientists and teachers who would otherwise come here. The state lost a national science convention when the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology decided not to hold its 2011 convention in New Orleans because of the LSEA. SICB lifted its boycott only because the Orleans Parish School Board recently adopted a policy prohibiting the teaching of creationism, which includes intelligent design.

(4) Louisiana was used as a guinea pig by an out-of-state, intelligent design creationist think tank, the Discovery Institute, which wrote the model bill that was the template for the LSEA and partnered with the LFF to promote it in Louisiana. DI has promoted its model bill to states around the country. The only other state that now has one is Tennessee. Gov. Bill Haslam would not even sign the bill, instead allowing it to become law without his signature. In the six states where similar bills have been introduced this year, not a single one has been allowed out of committee.

Zack Kopplin has worked unbelievably hard to get the LSEA repealed, as it should be. He deserves an enormous amount of credit for the work he has done, such as getting 78 Nobel Prize-winning scientists to support repeal. The LSEA serves no purpose other than to make Louisiana look incredibly bad to the rest of the country when we should be trying to do as much as possible to make the state an attractive place for families and professionals.

Zack has been recognized and honored all over the country for his efforts. You could honor him — and all public school students — in our own state and send a strong message to the country by voting to repeal the LSEA.

Please vote the bill out of committee on Wednesday, May 1.

Sincerely, Barbara Forrest

Louisiana Coalition for Science

____________________________________________________________

Contact information for Senate Education Committee:

Senator Conrad Appel, Chair  (866) 946-3133  appelc@legis.la.gov

Senator Eric LaFleur, Vice Chair  (337) 363-5019  lafleure@legis.la.gov

Senator Dan Claitor  (225) 765-0206  claitord@legis.la.gov

Senator Jack Donahue  (985) 727-7949  donahuej@legis.la.gov

Senator Elbert Guillory  (337) 943-2457  guillorye@legis.la.gov

Senator Mike Walsworth  (318) 340-6453  walsworthm@legis.la.gov

Senator Mack “Bodi” White   (225) 272-1324  whitem@legis.la.gov

Senator Page Cortez  (337) 993-7430  cortezp@legis.la.gov
(interim member)

By Barbara Forrest

Everyone has heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” With respect to the creationism bill introduced in Montana this year, that should read, “A video clip is worth a thousand words.” Our readers may enjoy (or not) comparing Rep. Clayton Fiscus’s defense of his HB 183 to “to emphasize critical thinking in instruction related to controversial scientific theories on the origin of life” to Louisiana legislators’ responses to Zack Kopplin’s 2011 and 2012 bills to repeal the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA). It’s a real contest as to whose legislators are sillier. But as you will see, the outcome in Montana was very different than in Louisiana.

On January 25, 2013, Fiscus defended his bill before the Montana House Education Committee. The Discovery Institute (DI) supported HB 183, including it among the “good academic freedom bills” introduced so far this year. Nonetheless, the committee tabled HB 183 on February 5, a move that should surprise no one given Fiscus’s performance (see video below.) But unlike a similar Colorado bill (which also failed in committee), DI didn’t sent anyone to Montana to speak for it. (Their staff attorney Joshua Youngkin personally testified for the Colorado bill.) That’s probably because HB 183 started out as a bill to “[r]equire public schools to teach intelligent design along with evolution.” On November 5, 2012, Rep. Fiscus filed a legislative request to have such a bill drafted. Oh, goodness! The bete noir of every DI strategist — a paper trail!

This prompted the birth of a litter of kittens up in Seattle, judging from DI’s Evolution News & Views November 28 blog post, “On the Prospect of Intelligent Design in Montana Public Schools, Let Us Be Clear” (commentary and bold added):

However well intentioned this draft bill request [read: "For heaven's sake, Fiscus! You'll get us hauled into court out there and we'll get our butts kicked like we did in Dover! Clean this bill up! Make it look as much like the Louisiana bill as you can! Here! We'll help you!], the best place for mulling intelligent design is in the labs and lecture halls that host the scientific community and its activity [oh, yes, indeed, especially since ID has literally revolutionized the scientific world — see "Understanding Science: How Science Really Works"], and in books and journals read by scientists and non-scientists alike [you mean, like the DI-sponsored "journal" BIO-Complexity, whose editorial team is stacked with American and European creationists and whose editor-in-chief is a Finnish young-earth creationist?]  — not in public schools, statehouses or courtrooms, as these tend to turn science into politics [gee, you guys must have forgotten about your Wedge Strategy vow to "pursue possible legal assistance in response to resistance to the integration of design theory into public school science curricula"]. Our priority is to see intelligent design advance as a science, as well as to promote unhindered public discussion on the issue. None of this is to say that we think intelligent design is unconstitutional — hardly. [Oh, really? So why not follow the guidelines that your legal guru, David DeWolf, who helped draw up the LSEA, wrote in your "Legal Guidebook" — i.e.,  that "teachers and school boards who choose to tell students about the evidence and arguments for intelligent design actually fulfill [the Edwards v. Aguillard] Supreme Court mandate” that “teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction”?] Rather, we think that intelligent design should not be pushed into public schools because that would politicize the debate and prevent ID from gaining a fair hearing in the scientific community. [Read: "We know — especially since the Kitzmiller verdict — that we can't legally get away with putting the term 'intelligent design' into legislation for public schools, so now we have to use code language."]

DI’s distress no doubt motivated them to frantically get hold of Fiscus, who obligingly sanitized the wording of his bill to their satisfaction. But that didn’t help. Watch this short video clip of Fiscus’s defense, followed by opponents’ testimony (no supporters other than Fiscus showed up), with closing remarks from Fiscus again. As folks down south say, Rep. Fiscus’s performance was “plumb pitiful.” Then watch a couple of clips from the 2011 and 2012 Louisiana Senate Education Committee hearings of Zack Kopplin’s repeal bill. 

Here is former Louisiana senator and Senate Education Committee member Julie “I-Am-An-Attorney” Quinn at the 2011 LSEA repeal hearing, during which she superciliously insulted everyone with a terminal degree — the people with the “little letters behind their names.”  

Finally, here is current Louisiana senator and Senate Education Committee member Mike Walsworth, who, at the 2012 repeal hearing, “embarrassed himself,” to quote Zack, by simply trying to read a set of creationist talking points that someone (from the Louisiana Family Forum?) had handed him.  

We pose the question again: Whose legislators were sillier — Montana’s or Louisiana’s? A repeal bill will no doubt be filed again this year in Louisiana. Would it be too much to ask for the Senate Education Committee to be concerned about how they make our state look to the rest of the world?

By Barbara Forrest

On September 10, 2012, Central Community School System (CCSS) board member Jim Lloyd invoked a 2005 teacher survey in recommending the adoption of CCSS’s stealth creationism policy. He said (mp3, 12:50) that a Louisiana teacher organization, the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana, had “polled its members and learned that a large percentage of them welcomed guidance concerning how to better teach controversial science subjects.” The controversial subject is, of course, evolution.

After sitting on information about this survey for seven years, waiting for a relevant occasion to use it, we now present it to our readers. It is NOT a project with which any respectable teacher organization should have been involved. As Colonel Sherman Potter used to say on MASH, it’s a load of pony pucks. So naturally, the Discovery Institute and the Louisiana Family Forum are involved.

The “A+PEL 2005 Academic Freedom Survey, August 2005″

In 2005, the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana, aka “A+PEL,” teamed up with the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) to conduct a bogus “Academic Freedom” teacher opinion survey, which is posted here [pdf] on the A+PEL website. (The evidence of its bogusness is below.) A+PEL, a non-union organization, calls itself “the premier educators’ organization in Louisiana.” Its home page says that the organization “is committed to advancing teachers as career professionals” so that through “teacher advocacy and excellence in education,” they can “empower Louisiana’s youth for future success.” A+PEL’s description of its mission is at odds with its involvement in undermining public school science education by participating in this utterly worthless “survey,” which is being used publicly to promote creationist laws and policies.

There are undoubtedly some fine teachers in A+PEL’s rank and file membership. But the reality is that this organization partnered with the LFF, a Focus on the Family affiliate that promotes creationism (and some other really ugly stuff; see also here [pdf]), to produce this bogus teacher opinion survey that LFF and the Discovery Institute (DI) have used to promote creationist laws in Louisiana and Tennessee and creationist policies in the Ouachita Parish and CCSS school districts.

For convenience, we will call the survey the “A+PEL/LFF survey,” since the LFF considered it so important that they listed it in their 2005 IRS 990 form (p. 17) [pdf] as one of their signal accomplishments that year. Posted on A+PEL’s website under “Resources,” this survey [pdf] was first used by the Ouachita Parish (OP) School Board to justify the “Academic Freedom Policy” that it adopted on November 29, 2006. DI has also used it to defend creationist “academic freedom” laws in Louisiana and Tennessee, and they will no doubt pull it out again in one of their next forays into state lawmaking. We will discuss the survey itself as soon as we set the background in place.

The First Appearance of A+PEL/LFF Survey: Ouachita Parish, LA

In early 2006, with its credibility shredded after the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover case, DI needed a new ruse for promoting its brand of creationism. In other words, the intelligent design creationists had to re-design intelligent design. So DI reverted to the time-honored creationist tactic of promoting “academic freedom” (do check out this link, and look at it closely). DI’s Winter 2006 newsletter [pdf] announced that “academic freedom” would be its “new front in the debate over intelligent design” (p. 2).

Later the same year, on November 29, 2006, the OP school board adopted its “Ouachita Parish Science Curriculum Policy” [pdf], subtitled “RESOLUTION ON TEACHER ACADEMIC FREEDOM TO TEACH SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE REGARDING CONTROVERSIAL SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS” (caps in original; bold added). Two days later, DI staffer Casey Luskin sang the praises of the OP decision in a post on DI’s Evolution News & Views blog:

We’re very happy to see [the Ouachita Parish School Board] take a stand protecting the academic freedom of teachers to answer student questions and discuss scientific issues in the classroom. . . . There is a disturbing trend of teachers, students and scientists coming under attack for questioning evolution.

In what looks like a veiled reference to the A+PEL/LFF teacher survey (as will be clear shortly), Casey also also stated that “the policy was passed after teachers expressed a desire for clarification of their rights.”

The OP academic freedom policy was the proverbial camel’s nose under the door of the science class, and it laid the foundation for the Louisiana Science Education Act two years later.

The Ouachita Citizen gave this milestone a favorable write-up, highlighting the involvement of LFF “consultant” (and co-founder) Darrell D. White:

Retired Judge Darrell White of Baton Rouge, consultant with Louisiana Family Forum’s Education Resource Council, commended the [OP] school board for setting a precedent he hopes other school systems will follow.

Ouachita Parish is the first school system in the state to adopt such a measure that will give its teachers academic freedom.

‘This has been a long fight,’ White said, but added the fight to implement quality science education guidelines in all schools has just begun….

Although nothing about the A+PEL/LFF survey appeared in newspaper coverage of the OP policy, an attendee at the school board meeting reported to the Louisiana Coalition for Science that an “academic freedom survey” was used as part of the rationale for its adoption. That report signaled the first use of the A+PEL/LFF survey. Shortly thereafter, the survey was posted on A+PEL’s website. White’s involvement was integral to the adoption of the OP policy and, apparently, to the survey, since A+PEL’s URL notably incorporates his initials, “DDW”:

www.apeleducators.org/associations/3635/files/Academic Freedom Survey Aug 2005 DDW .pdf 

Darrell White’s Relationship with A+PEL

The A+PEL/LFF survey is vintage White, as seen in the survey’s introductory paragraph:

The issue of teachers’ freedom to teach controversial subject matter has recently been discussed in the public square. For example, there is debate surrounding the teaching of sex education classes, teaching the Bible as history and literature classes as a part of our national heritage, and in teaching the full range of scientific views regarding Darwin’s evolution model. Some teachers confess that they are fearful of introducing such topics.

Promoting “the full range of scientific views” about evolution, which is DI’s Santorum Amendment code language for teaching ID, has become one of the signature marks of White’s promotion of creationism in Louisiana. Promoting the Bible as a history textbook for public schools is also one of his pet projects, as evidenced by his membership on the advisory board of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools and aggressive peddling of its propaganda. And he appears to view sex education as a communist conspiracy to destroy families.

White also has a relationship with A+PEL. Somehow, for some reason, someone at A+PEL got the idea that he has expertise that must be communicated to teachers for transmission to children. He has been included among “notable authorities” that A+PEL has invited to give presentations to social studies teachers at A+PEL’s “American Studies Institute”:

With an emphasis on traditional principles and historical accuracy, seminars are offered throughout the year to help classroom teachers and others gain additional information and insight which will strengthen and enhance social studies classes in elementary and secondary schools throughout Louisiana.

A+PEL apparently isn’t bothered by the fact that young-earth creationist White is a lifetime member of Answers in Genesis’s infamous Creation Museum, which by now has mis-educated several hundred thousand children about evolution.

Moreover — and this is relevant to the fact that A+PEL’s American Studies Institute emphasizes “historical accuracy” — White hobnobs with David Barton, the fake historian who helped screw up the Texas social studies standards in 2009. The Southern Poverty Law Center placed Barton on its “30 to Watch” list of people who include “hard-line Islamophobes” and “religious-right anti-gay groups.” Barton’s book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, was pulled from bookstores by his own publisher, Thomas Nelson, with the explanation that “basic truths just were not there.” (Amazingly, that flaw was totally overlooked prior to Nelson’s publication of the book.) Scholarly reviews showed that the book should have been called The Barton Lies.

(Aside: Barton’s most recent offering is a  New Year’s Day (2013) rant on his Wallbuilders Live radio program about the virtue of hate: “So we’ve got to get to the point where tolerance is seen as a sin because we’re tolerating a lot stuff that destroys our families, that destroys our own character and we can’t tolerate that stuff. We have to get back to the point where hate is a virtue, at least certain kinds of hate.” Just lovely. Darrell White really knows how to pick his friends, doesn’t he?)

Now, let’s get back to the particulars of the survey.

Discovery Institute “Discovers” the A+PEL/LFF Survey

Casey Luskin seems to have been referring indirectly to the 2005 A+PEL/LFF survey when he defended an academic freedom bill that was introduced in New Mexico in 2007: “In our present climate, many teachers are intimidated . . . into teaching a biased, incomplete view of the biological evidence about neo-Darwinian evolution.” The survey asked teachers (p. 3), “Do you feel intimidated regarding the teaching of the controversy surrounding origins?”

In April 2012, Casey referred more directly to a “survey of Louisiana teachers” in defending Tennessee HB 368 [pdf], aka the “Tennessee Monkey Bill,” which Gov. Bill Haslam allowed to become law without his signature. DI partnered with the Family Action Council (FAC) of Tennessee to write and promote HB 368, just as it did with the LFF to write and promote the LSEA. The Monkey Bill is merely a slightly tweaked version of SB 561, the “Louisiana Academic Freedom Act,” which was the first bill that Senator Ben Nevers filed on LFF’s behalf in 2008. Like SB 561, it includes the “strengths and weaknesses of evolution” code language. Interested readers who want to take the time can compare the Tennessee Monkey Bill and Louisiana SB 561 side by side. It will be difficult to tell them apart:

• LA SB 561, 2008 [pdf]
• TN HB 368, 2012 [pdf]

Casey stressed that legislation such as the Tennessee Monkey Bill is needed because  . . . gasp! . . . DI has discovered that teachers all over the country are being intimidated:

Working with teachers nationwide, we have long observed a pattern where teachers commonly feel intimidated into silence when covering controversial scientific topics.

He identified not a single case of intimidation, and he didn’t identify the survey of Louisiana teachers that he invoked. Nonetheless, he very prominently cited specific figures  — that just happened to be from the A+PEL/LFF survey — in reference to the LSEA:

Indeed, before Louisiana passed its academic freedom law in 2008, a survey of Louisiana teachers showed:

• 48% of teachers were afraid that ‘teaching controversial material could affect [their] … tenure, salary, promotions, or job security.’
• 50% did not feel free to critique evolution.
• 55% felt ‘intimidated regarding the teaching of the controversy surrounding origins.’

Casey then warned that “just because state science standards officially encourage critical thinking, that doesn’t mean a climate of academic freedom exists where teachers feel free to teach about different scientific views on topics like evolution.”

This really looks bad, doesn’t it? With stats like these, we should be extremely concerned down here about teacher intimidation in Louisiana public schools.

Ah, but now for the critical thinking . . .

When the A+PEL/LFF survey became available on A+PEL’s website, the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) kindly offered to do a formal analysis of it; we have posted that analysis here [pdf]. Since the LFF and DI, especially Casey, profess to be so concerned about critical thinking in public schools, they shouldn’t mind that the AIP did some critical thinking about the survey that Casey has been using to defend DI’s academic freedom bills. AIP’s analysis showed that this “survey” is pure hogwash — or pony pucks, if you’re a Mash fan. And — this is really delicious — Casey didn’t even cite it correctly. But you’ll have to read all the way to the end for that part!

If you have already downloaded the A+PEL/LFF survey, you can very quickly see the flaws. The thing is skewed from the get-go. The questions are written so as to get the answers that the LFF wanted. Look at this one, for example, with the responses included:

2. Which of the following two statements come closest to your own opinion?

A. Biology teachers should teach only Darwin’s model of evolution, and the scientific evidence that supports it.
B. Biology teachers should teach Darwin’s model of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it.
C. Neither
D. Not sure

Blank 8 / 3 [%]
A 21 / 7%
B 173 / 62%
C 49 / 17%
D 32 / 11%

Answer B, which the majority of respondents selected, assumes that there actually is scientific evidence against evolution. For the umpteenth time, there isn’t any such evidence. (See National Center for Science Education Executive Director Eugenie Scott on that point here at 58:31). But including that answer as a choice in the survey makes a subtle appeal to the respondent’s desire to appear fair and impartial. The fact that 62% of the respondents chose answer B is consistent with the results of earlier, similarly biased surveys that DI purchased from Zogby International to support its promotion of ID.

As the AIP’s analysis shows, the A+PEL/LFF survey doesn’t get any better. Here are the first two items from the analysis.

1. Poor response rate. 6,000 surveys were sent out, and only 277 returned. This is a response rate of 5%. How many of the other 95% chose not to answer because of the wording of the questions and the wording of the answer options that were provided?

2. Potentially biased respondents. The data were sent to the 6,000 members of A+PEL. No teachers in Ouachita Parish who are not members of A+PEL were surveyed, and not all teachers in Ouachita are A+PEL members.

There is a great deal more in the AIP analysis for perusal at your leisure. So let’s go back to the survey itself. Look at question #6. Since this is the specific source of support for Casey’s claim that Louisiana teachers are “intimidated into silence when covering controversial scientific topics,” readers will understand its importance to his defense of DI’s academic freedom laws. This survey question includes a cute pie chart, so we have used a clip that includes the graphic:

A+PEL/LFF 2005 Academic Freedom Survey, Question #6

Do you notice anything odd? . . .  No? . . . Ok, go back and look at Casey’s figures from the unidentified “survey of Louisiana teachers” — the part where he claims that the survey reveals a disturbing level of intimidation “regarding the teaching of the controversy surrounding origins.” Or you can go to Casey’s original citation at DI’s Evolution News & Views blog. We’ll give you a few seconds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OK. Now, compare the figures in Casey’s citation with the figures and the graphic above. There, do you see it? (Hint: look at Casey’s third bullet.)

Concerning the actual number of teachers who say they feel intimidated, Casey didn’t even cite the correct figure from the A+PEL/LFF survey. When asked whether they felt intimidated “regarding the teaching of the controversy surrounding origins,” only 35% — 96 teachers in real numbers — answered “yes.” The number Casey cites — 55%, or 174 in real numbers — represents the teachers who answered “No.” (Since this is a brand new year, we’re going to be charitable and interpret this as an unintentional slip-up on Casey’s part. But please note, readers, that Casey’s “mistake” conveniently favors his own argument.) So the majority of the tiny minority of the A+PEL teachers who responded to the survey don’t actually feel intimidated at all. And 29 teachers didn’t even bother to answer the question.

Here is the summary point of all this:  Casey Luskin, a DI staffer who — as his DI bio informs us — is also “an attorney with graduate degrees in both science and law,” has incorrectly cited misleading statistics from a seven-year-old, bogus teacher opinion survey to support the need for the creationist academic freedom laws that DI is peddling around the country.

The 277 respondents to the A+PEL/LFF survey comprise roughly 5% of the 6,000 A+PEL teachers to whom the survey form was mailed. Putting this in an even broader context, the 277 teachers who responded represent about one-half of one percent (.0058) of the roughly 48,000 public school teachers in Louisiana. The 96 teachers who claimed to feel intimidated represent less than 2% (.016) of the 6,000 polled and only .2% (yes, that’s point two percent. i.e., .002, two-tenths of one percent) of the public school teachers in the entire state. No wonder Casey didn’t cite his source. Either (a) he and his friends at the Louisiana Family Forum are not as gung-ho on critical thinking as they want everyone to believe, or (b) their own critical thinking skills need some work.

Another point to remember is that the recently adopted CCSS policy — which will now influence the science instruction of public school students in the Central school district — is based on this farce of a “survey.” What is even worse is that board member Jim Lloyd, despite invoking the survey in recommending that the CCSS adopt Darrell White’s creationist academic freedom policy, has probably never even seen it, much less analyzed it on his own. As we showed in our previous post, judging from the available evidence, Lloyd’s comments about the survey were simply the talking points that White had handed him.

So to readers in states where academic freedom bills crop up next time (and in Montana, the next time has already arrived):  Store this information in your memory banks, and feel free to distribute both the A+PEL/LFF survey and the AIP analysis far and wide. If Casey tries to use this teacher “survey” to convince your legislators (or governor) that teachers are intimidated and need an “academic freedom” law in order to teach your kids to think critically about evolution, you have a nice example of critical thinking to show them.

By Barbara Forrest 

In Part One of this account of the Louisiana Family Forum’s (LFF’s) extension of its “academic freedom” agenda into the Central Community School System (CCSS), we provided background information about the resolution and policy that the CCSS school board adopted on September 10, 2012. In short, the CCSS resolution and policy [pdf] are the same stealth creationist resolution and policy [pdf] that the LFF failed to get the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to adopt in August 2008. The resolution and policy were written by LFF creationist Darrell White. Here is what happened:

Having failed to get Darrell White’s resolution and policy adopted by BESE in 2008, the LFF just put it in cold storage and used it in Central in 2012, meaning that there was active collaboration between the LFF and the CCSS school board. While there is nothing earthshaking in this news, it does show that the LFF continues its active promotion of creationism in the public schools of Louisiana.

However, Part One gave only the background of the creationist conniving in the Central Community School System. In Part Two, we provide “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say. This part is fairly long, but it offers detailed evidence of what really happened in Central.

Mistakes and Mendacity

LFF’s recycling of an old resolution and policy intended for adoption by BESE is not surprising. Creationists recycle all the time. After each federal court defeat, they mothball their discredited terminology and strategies until people forget about them. Then, after reinventing themselves and regrouping for their next initiative, they pull them out again to use with school boards and legislative committees. The LFF and their buddies at the Discovery Institute (DI) follow this playbook.

But public school boards should be above such deceptions, as should the media on which citizens depend for news about their children’s schools. This is not the case in Central, where the school board and the Central City News (CCN) violated their civic and professional responsibilities by being complicit in the LFF’s scheme to promote a stealth creationism policy. This is the most important — and disgraceful — part of what happened in Central.

The analysis of the CCSS resolution and policy [pdf] provided in Part One reveals not only the mistakes but the downright mendacity that characterize the CCSS school board’s action on September 10, 2012. Ignorance and dishonesty are routine for the LFF. However, any self-respecting school board should be ashamed of having adopted such a piece of work. The sloppiness and dishonesty of the CCSS resolution clearly show that not a single person in that school system — including Supt. Michael Faulk and the board — even bothered to proofread the document. They adopted it exactly as the LFF handed it to them, mistakes and all.

We will focus on Supt. Faulk, board member Jim Lloyd, and the Central City News (CCN), who appear to have been the pivotal players. We will also encounter Darrell White again, as well as ghosts of creationist connivings past, i.e., the Ouachita Parish School Board and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF, now “Alliance Defending Freedom“).

Superintendent Michael Faulk

The CCSS school board meeting opened with a prayer thanking God for “your son Jesus Christ” (audio here, iTunes mp3). After routine business, Supt. Faulk, saying that “some of the board members reviewed the proposed policy,” announced that “based on that, I’ve prepared for the board a resolution.” He explained that adopting the academic freedom resolution meant also adopting the policy, which had been presented for a first reading on August 27. He then proceeded to read aloud the resolution that Darrell White had actually written for BESE. (Readers can listen here, 6:58-11:11). Faulk himself prepared nothing — unless by “prepared” he meant that he made the photocopy he was reading. 

Not only did Faulk not prepare the resolution, he clearly didn’t even proofread it. The evidence for this comes from the Louisiana Department of Education’s (LDOE’s) 1997 Louisiana Science Framework (LSF), to which White’s BESE — and now the CCSS — resolution refers. Faulk read this reference in the resolution exactly the way White wrote it [pdf] (10:18):

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Science Framework at page 12 indicates that science should be presented as a . . . continuing process for extending understanding of the ultimate, unalterable truth . . . 

Wait . . . what? The LSF says that science is a process for understanding “ultimate, unalterable truth“? Are the LDoE staff so appallingly ignorant about the nature of science? Or have they insidiously been requiring teachers, who must follow the LSF, to mislead unsuspecting children? Let’s do something really creative — let’s consult the original source!

According to the Louisiana representatives of the Council of State Science Supervisors, both of whom are LDoE professionals, “The original science standards document, Louisiana Science Framework was published in 1997 and contained the standards and benchmarks for Louisiana science content. In 2004, Grade-Level Expectations [GLEs] were added to the standards.” That 1997 document is still available from LDoE here [pdf]. On p. 12, the LSF says this (emphasis added):

Science is presented as a human enterprise and a continuing process for extending understanding, instead of the ultimate, unalterable truth.

Well, one tiny little comma and one tiny little word — “, instead” — certainly make a big difference, don’t they? The LSF correctly specifies that science is a “human enterprise” and clearly indicates that it should NOT be presented as “ultimate, unalterable truth.” Let’s check the November 2005 document [pdf] that includes the GLEs. Maybe that’s where the LDoE staff made their mistake. On p. 4, we find this (emphasis added):

Science is presented as a human enterprise and a continuing process for extending understanding, instead of the ultimate, unalterable truth.

So, the LDoE professionals got it right! We won’t speculate about whether White — a former judge — was (a) dishonest or (b) careless in quoting the LSF (he clearly ignored a basic rule in English 101: “Proofread your work”). However, Faulk himself either didn’t know or didn’t care that he was presenting misinformation about the nature of science — which directly contradicts Louisiana’s mandatory science education guidelines — for inclusion in district instructional policy. Depending on whether he was merely ignorant or willfully deceptive, he should be either embarrassed or ashamed, as should the school board. And doesn’t the CCSS have curriculum and instruction staff who are supposed to check on such things?

Faulk  — who is also the 2012 president of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents — appears to have a habit of not doing his homework. In April 2012, as reported by WAFB (video) in Baton Rouge, the CCSS board voted unanimously, on Faulk’s recommendation, to hire Al Chapman of Cannelton, Indiana, as principal of Central Middle School. However, only a few days later, they learned that Chapman had been suspended from his job as Cannelton school superintendent for “alleged incompetence and neglect of duty.” Cannelton school board members claimed that “Chapman failed to pay vendors, misapplied proceeds and got the district behind more than a half million dollars in state and local taxes, costing them penalties, interest and attorney fees.”

WAFB reported that Faulk said that “he should have done a better job of checking references.” That realization came a bit late. A Google search that takes all of five seconds turns up news coverage revealing that Chapman had been suspended in November 2011 and was fired in December 2011. Oops!

That episode clearly was not instructive for Supt. Faulk. If he didn’t spend five seconds googling the man to whom he wanted to entrust the administration of a school, he certainly wasn’t going to spend time checking on whether Darrell White’s creationist resolution was accurate. (As the analysis in Part One [pdf] shows, the misinformation runs from beginning to end.) But given the fact that the board meeting opened with an explicitly Christian prayer, we can safely assume that Faulk wouldn’t have cared anyway. Let’s move on to board member Jim Lloyd.

CCSS Board Member Jim Lloyd

Prior to the board’s vote on the resolution, Jim Lloyd responded (11:38-14:27) to the president’s call for comments. But before we examine Lloyd’s comments, readers should know a few things.

First, Lloyd’s campaign website announces that he is a Louisiana Family Forum supporter. That fact needs no elaboration.

Second, despite having once lived in St. Tammany Parish and admitting that “like Central’s new schools, St. Tammany Public schools were some of the best in the state,” he does not send his own children to public schools. He says that he and his wife home-school their children in order to “teach them our biblical worldview.” His campaign website also states, “Fortunately, having children enrolled in Central schools is not a requirement for serving on the board.” Like LFF executive director Gene Mills, he doesn’t want his own children in public schools, but he has made it his business to influence what other people’s children will be taught in them. He says that being “President o[f] the Board for Christian Home Educators Fellowship of Baton Rouge” gives him “a background in education.” (He is actually in the commercial flooring business.)

Third, explaining “MY ROLE AS A CENTRAL SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER,” Lloyd lists items in the CCSS school board pledge. The following are relevant here:

• . . . I will read the materials sent to board members and ask for additional clarification if I think that I do not have adequate information to make an informed decision. . . .
• I will participate with an open mind and an objective perspective in the consideration of issues before the board.
• When carrying out my roles and responsibilities as a board member, I will put aside my parent role (or any other role I may have in relation to the school system) and my personal agendas and pledge to actively work only toward those decisions and solutions that are in the school system’s best interests.

He added a “personal challenge” for himself:  “Ask the hard questions.” Lloyd’s comments show that he did not ask any hard questions about the resolution — or about real science. He did not start out well:

The definition of a theory is something that’s not risen to the state of evidence appropriate to be deemed law. Students should learn why theories have not risen to the level of evidence deemed appropriate to become a law. . . .

Ok, we can stop right here. Lloyd’s very first statements prove that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Point: Scientific theories cannot become laws. The University of California-Berkeley’s Understanding Science website explains this basic concept (emphasis added):

Misconception: If evidence supports a hypothesis, it is upgraded to a theory. If the theory then garners even more support, it may be upgraded to a law.

Correction: Hypotheses cannot become theories and theories cannot become laws. Hypotheses, theories, and laws are all scientific explanations but they differ in breadth, not in level of support. Theories apply to a broader range of phenomena than do hypotheses. . . .

To justify adopting the resolution, Lloyd then invoked President Obama: “Well, America’s president, in his State of the Union address, said that our quality of science education lags behind that of many nations. Foremost among this board’s intentions is to offer Central Community students a premier science education.” (Aside: On his “About” page, Lloyd displays a picture of himself at what looks like a Tea Party rally against the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.” The picture suggests that he doesn’t think much of the president whom he used to support a creationist resolution.)

Lloyd next read language from DI’s Santorum Amendment, which, as noted in Part One, White included in the resolution. By now, readers may be wondering whether White actually wrote Lloyd’s meeting comments as well. We could safely bet the ranch on this. As Lloyd continued speaking, the evidence that he was reading talking points handed to him by someone else steadily increased.

As additional support for the Central resolution, Lloyd cited a 2005 teacher survey by the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana, aka “A+PEL,” which is posted here [pdf]. Supposedly, it revealed that A+PEL’s members wanted guidance about teaching “controversial science subjects.” We will have a great deal to say about this in an upcoming post. Until then, suffice it to say that the “survey,” which was engineered by the LFF, is utter hogwash.

Next, Lloyd invoked the 2006 Ouachita Parish (OP) academic freedom policy [pdf], which, he said, “passed constitutional scrutiny by the [OP] board’s legal counsel.” (See background here.) He added that “we do have a letter here tonight from our Ouachita school system, where over twenty-plus teachers have expressed appreciation for the academic freedom that it afforded them by this resolution.”

According to the CCSS central office, the only letter submitted that night was a 2006 letter [pdf] from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF, now Alliance Defending Freedom) to OP Supt. Robert Webber from “J. Michael Johnson, Senior [ADF] Legal Counsel.” Johnson promised Webber “our assistance, free of charge, in defending the [OP] policy if it is adopted and later challenged on its face in a lawsuit.” The ADF’s offer was subject to “first review and approv[al] of the final draft of the policy before it is voted upon by the School Board.” The submission of the OP letter to the CCSS School Board undoubtedly was intended to convey the same message.

Readers may recall that ADF was involved in the LFF’s gutting of BESE’s LSEA implementation policy in January 2009. As we explained in a January 2012 post, “ADF was ready to sue [BESE] if the LFF didn’t get what it wanted. And if board members cooperated . . . , ADF might . . . represent the state in court for free if it got sued by angry science defenders.” LFF got what it wanted, as we know.

Lloyd closed out his comments by reading a much-quote-mined creationist talking point that takes Charles Darwin’s words out of context (see DI’s use of the same Darwin quote here), sounding suspiciously similar to a letter that Darrell White wrote to a Louisiana newspaper. Indeed, Lloyd’s entire presentation literally reeked of White’s influence.

Lloyd violated all of the above points from the CCSS pledge. He did not adequately “read the materials sent to board members and ask for additional clarification” but accepted the resolution and policy as the LFF presented them, and he did not obtain “adequate information to make an informed decision.” He could easily have found the National Center for Science Education on the Internet and asked for their input. He could have contacted the Louisiana Coalition for Science or the Louisiana Science Teachers Association if he had been truly interested in providing the children of Central with “a premier science education.”

The truth is that a premier science education is the last thing Lloyd was concerned to provide. Being an LFF supporter and reading creationist talking points shows that he did not maintain “an open mind and an objective perspective in the consideration of issues before the board.” He clearly did not “put aside [his] parent role (or any other role [he] may have in relation to the school system) and [his] personal agendas.” Just as he undoubtedly teaches creationism to his own children as part of his “biblical worldview,” he used his position to enable CCSS teachers to promote creationism in the instruction of other people’s children.

Central City News

In Part One, we informed readers that the Central City News (CCN) provided local coverage [pdf] of the September 10, 2012, CCSS School Board meeting. CCN’s reporting mirrors the mendacity of the CCSS resolution and policy. The very first sentence in the article is false:

The Central Community School Board adopted a new Science Policy Monday night designed to provide science teachers greater academic freedom, according to school board member Jim Lloyd, who authored the policy.

The policy wasn’t new, and Jim Lloyd didn’t write it, as we have established. CCN was correct about one thing, however: “The policy takes advantage of the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008, which was passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jindal.” Indeed, it does. In fact, taking advantage is what the CCSS policy, like the OP policy, is all about: the LSEA is the LFF’s attempt to give legal cover to teachers who want to teach creationism and to school boards that encourage them by adopting “academic freedom” policies.

The CCN article is just as dishonest as Faulk’s and Lloyd’s presentations in another respect:  it must have been based on pre-written comments provided to the newspaper because Lloyd didn’t actually say much of what CCN directly attributes to him. Readers can compare Lloyd’s spoken comments (mp3, 11:38-14:27) to the paper’s quotations of him [pdf]. CCN’s article does, however, include DI talking points, which White uses frequently. Here is an illustrative excerpt from the CCN article (with our hyperlinks to DI sources):

A ‘Teach-the-Controversy’ approach helps both advocates and critics of evolutionary theory to have a better understanding of the claims of evolution and its supporting evidence. Teaching this and all subjects objectively means presenting both the scientific evidence for and against each theory.

‘The debate is really about Science vs. Science,’ [Lloyd] said. [Note: Lloyd did not actually make these statements, either.]

White’s good friends at the young-earth creationist organization, Answers in Genesis (he is a lifetime member of AIG’s Creation Museum), obviously drawing heavily from the CCN article, repeated virtually all of the misinformation it contained. This brings us back around full circle to White, who was, by every indication, the chief presence (whether in body or only in spirit is irrelevant) at the CCSS board meeting.

Darrell White

After the CCSS School Board adopted his recycled BESE resolution, White inevitably started crowing. In the September 18, 2012, issue of LFF’s Family Facts newsletter, he announced, “At its Monday evening school board meeting, the Central Community Board of Education took a bold move by unanimously adopting a policy pertaining to the teaching of evolution.” (Although the LSEA also targets global warming and human cloning, its backers’ comments almost always focus only on evolution.) Readers could “Click here for the full article,” which White entitled “Academic Freedom in Central” [pdf].

This document continues the mistakes and mendacity of the CCSS resolution and the CCN article. Like CCN, White attributes to Lloyd verbatim comments that he never said at the meeting.

According to Lloyd, ‘Indoctrinating students on one view, misses a key opportunity to solve some of the most pressing problems facing science today.’ . . .

He believes that Darwin’s theory is full of ‘gaps and raises more questions than it answers.’

One gap mentioned by Lloyd is the lack of transitional fossils in the fossil record. . . .

Lloyd observed at the school board meeting that the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have both agreed that ‘Any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught.’

Lloyd didn’t say any of these things (what he did say was bad enough). However, White says stuff like this all the time, a fact that provides more evidence that his was actually the most influential presence at the school board meeting, even if perhaps only by proxy (he doesn’t say whether he actually attended).

Furthermore, “Academic Freedom in Central” is chock full of intelligent design creationist nonsense, such as DI fellow Michael Behe’s concept of “irreducible complexity” (IC). White ignores the fact that IC, which is actually an old creationist concept that Behe himself recycled, has been thoroughly debunked. But this is what he and the LFF promote for Louisiana schoolchildren. In fact, White asserts that under Central’s policy, “students will be challenged to learn more about science and improve their scientific literacy and critical thinking skills” and that “this new policy can only lead to good for the children of our community.”

By now, Louisiana citizens who support teaching good science are familiar with the way the LFF operates. We expect nothing better from them. They have shamelessly prevaricated and politicked in order to undermine the teaching of evolution in Louisiana. But the really unforgivable part of all this is that public officials from the highest levels of Louisiana government all the way down to two local school districts, Ouachita Parish and now the Central Community School System — people who are supposed to protect the integrity of what children are taught in public schools — helped them do it.

By Barbara Forrest

The Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) just did something that neither Bobby Jindal nor the Louisiana legislature has had the integrity to do. On December 18, 2012, the board voted unanimously  to prohibit the use of any textbooks that include revisionist history (as in Texas) or creationism, including intelligent design (ID). They also voted to prohibit teachers from teaching creationism, including ID, in Orleans Parish public schools. This is a gratifying development in light of the fact that the Louisiana Senate Education Committee has twice refused to move Zack Kopplin’s bill to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act [LSEA] out of committee.

The Louisiana Coalition for Science thanks the OPSB for this most encouraging initiative. We also thank our own Zack Kopplin for working with the OPSB on this. Most specifically, we should thank outgoing board member Thomas Robichaux, who placed the proposals on the agenda. So . . .

THANK YOU, MR. ROBICHAUX!

Now, let’s get the details. 

Historical background

Before we look at the school board’s action, readers should know that this decision has an ironic historical context. In 1981, the Louisiana legislature passed the “Balanced Treatment For Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act,” which required teaching creationism whenever evolution was taught in a public school.

In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in its Edwards v. Aguillard ruling. The relevant part of that history here is that the OPSB was one of the defendants in that case! Yes, the OPSB, along with the St. Tammany Parish School board, was sued by the plaintiffs in what became a landmark ruling that outlawed creationism in public schools.

The Geological Society of America has posted the initial 1981 complaint, Aguillard v. Louisiana, which lists the plaintiffs and defendants. Here are the defendants:

Aguillard v. Louisiana Defendants, 1981

The 1981 complaint does not specify why the OPSB was included but points out that “the Orleans and St. Tammany Parish School Boards are each political subdivisions of the State of Louisiana and corporate bodies with the power to sue and be sued.” Foreshadowing the December 18, 2012, OPSB decision, the complaint requests that the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana grant

an injunction prohibiting Defendants and their agents, successors, and employees from taking any steps to implement the Creationism Act, including the promulgation of any rules or regulations incident thereto, or the approval, selection, purchase or use of any ‘creationism’ textbooks or materials.

New Orleans public officials have now taken steps to get out from under this historical black cloud. On May 5, 2011, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to support repeal of the LSEA. On December 18, 2012, the OPSB got on the right side of the creationism issue by thumbing its nose at the creationist 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act. Robichaux said that the board’s action was a direct response to the LSEA: “The law is a direct attack on our children’s future. This is a way to take a small step to protect our children’s future.”

Back to the OPSB decision

The OPSB decision amends sections I801 and I806 of the board’s current policy manual [pdf]. Thomas Robichaux had already announced his intention to offer these amendments, as reported in the November 20 Times-Picayune:

At Robichaux’s behest, the board has taken up policy changes that would specifically bar district teachers from injecting ‘any aspect of religious faith’ into science courses. The new language even bans the use of textbooks that have been adjusted ‘in accordance with the state of Texas revisionist guidelines,’ which highlight the role of Christianity in the country’s history.

The December 18 OPSB meeting packet, which we provide here [pdf] with only the relevant pages, highlights the changes in red. But for your convenience, here are the amended policies:

Source: Orleans Parish School Board Policy Manual

Why is this significant?

Readers may wonder why these policy amendments are significant. After all, the OPSB directly controls only six public schools. The rest have been chartered and vouchered. Here is the significance:

The members of the Orleans Parish School Board, like the New Orleans City Council, know that their city’s ox got gored in June 2008 when Bobby Jindal signed the LSEA. As a result, New Orleans lost a national science convention when the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology decided to boycott the city. That boycott will continue as long as the LSEA is on the books. Other scientific organizations may well follow suit if the legislature continues to resist calls to repeal the LSEA.

The OPSB also knows that Louisiana citizens must be prepared for the jobs that “BioDistrict New Orleans” (the Greater New Orleans Biosciences Economic Development District) will bring to the city. For that to happen, our children must learn real science, not Louisiana-Family-Forum-inspired bunk. (See the North Carolina Biotechnology Center for an example of how important science and education are to economic development.)

Senator Karen Carter Peterson, who has agreed to sponsor an LSEA repeal bill every year, is a native New Orleanian who will still be working for the area’s well-being long after Bobby Jindal takes off in search of the greener national pastures that everyone knows he really wants. Peterson has put her money where her mouth is in promoting the teaching of real science, which is essential to economic development.

And it is worth pointing out that not a single economic development official in the state of Louisiana — from Department of Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret, to the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce, to Greater New Orleans, Inc., to the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau — has said one public word in opposition to the creationist LSEA and in support of teaching good science to children. Not a single one. Neither has Superintendent of Education John White, even when he was handed an opportunity to comment on the OPSB decision.

Sen. Peterson, the New Orleans City Council, and the OPSB are showing other politicians and public officials how to do this. According to Robichaux, the response has been extremely positive:

The day after the Orleans Parish School Board voted to forbid science teachers to teach creationism and banned approval of any science textbook ‘which presents creationism or intelligent design as science or scientific theories,’ board President Thomas Robichaux said he received more than 300 faxes and emails applauding them for their effort.

‘That’s more positive feedback on this proposal than anything else we’ve proposed in the past four years,’ Robichaux said.

The OPSB’s unanimous action is a sign that there are smart people in Louisiana who are not scared of either the governor or the legislature. The school board has demonstrated that politicians can have backbone and integrity, both of which are in awfully short supply down here. Now, readers, please enjoy watching Mr. Robichaux himself explain why he took this courageous step.

By  Barbara Forrest

On September 10, 2012, the Central Community School System (CCSS) in Central, Louisiana, adopted (1) “A Resolution on Teacher Academic Freedom to Teach Scientific Evidence Regarding Controversial Scientific Subjects” and (2) a policy on “Teacher Academic Freedom in Science Education When Covering Controversial Scientific Subjects.” These long-winded titles are a sure sign that stealth creationism is still alive and well in Louisiana. And the fingerprints of the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) are all over this. In fact, the CCSS resolution and policy are the same resolution and policy that the LFF tried to foist off on the state through the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) after the Louisiana Science Education Act was adopted in June 2008. In fact, they are exactly the same — right down to the mistakes and the mendacity.

Since there is quite a bit to this story, our explanation of the creationist conniving in the Central Community School System will be presented in two parts. Here is Part One.

What Happened in Central

On August 27, 2012, the CCSS School Board took up agenda item #12 [pdf] as presented by Superintendent Michael Faulk, “To consider a first reading relative to a Proposed District Science Curriculum Policy. (Mr. Faulk).” On September 10, the board took up the item [pdf] again for final approval: “To consider a Resolution and second reading relative to a Proposed District Science Curriculum Policy. (Mr. Faulk).” The resolution passed unanimously, and the CCSS adopted both the resolution and policy. The policy had been and is still posted [pdf] on the CCSS website.

The Baton Rouge Advocate carried the story the next day: “The Central Community School Board approved a policy Monday that supports its science teachers if they decide to wade into scientific controversies, including teaching students about alternatives to the theory of evolution.” Board member Jim Lloyd, who made the motion to approve the policy, said that “this resolution will give teachers the academic freedom they deserve to teach the controversy where appropriate.” Here we go again: this is all about academic freedom.

This sounds like another case of the usual creationist shenanigans in Louisiana. However, there is a bit more to this episode than the Advocate reporter was aware of at the time.

What Really Happened in Central

Although the only document posted on the CCSS website is the academic freedom policy, the board also approved an academic freedom resolution (annotated versions below). The fingerprints of LFF “consultant” Darrell White are all over both documents, as will be shown shortly. First, however, some background about the local newspaper coverage in Central is interesting. It explains the distorted coverage that we will later point out in Part Two.

The Central City News

The CCSS board’s adoption of the resolution and policy were extensively covered [pdf] in the Central City News (CCN), which also has a Facebook page. This newspaper is significant for two reasons.

First, it is distinctly friendly to the LFF. CCN also covered the LFF’s 2012 Legislative Awards Banquet, a now-annual event. According to LFF director Rev. Gene Mills, the newspaper “was given an exclusive on the story along with photos of the evening!” In other words, CCN was given the exclusive right to photograph Mills’ presentation of awards to legislators who kow-towed to the LFF’s legislative agenda this year. (Readers should check to see whether their respective legislators attended.)

Second, the CCN editor/publisher is Louis “Woody” Jenkins, a longtime Baton Rouge political operative who served in the Louisiana legislature when the 1981 Balanced Treatment of Evolution-Science and Creation-Science in Public School Instruction Act became law. Jenkins supported the law, which the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in its 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard ruling. Jenkins’ views are therefore totally in line with the LFF’s concerning the teaching of creationism in public schools.

[Aside: Jenkins moves in a political circle that includes not only the LFF but also its co-founder Tony Perkins, who now runs the Family Research Council (FRC). The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the FRC a hate group because of its anti-gay propaganda. (The LFF shares the FRC's antipathy toward the LGBT community. [See also here (pdf).] As Right Wing Watch points out, “In 1998, Perkins founded the Louisiana Family Forum due to his concern for ‘increasing influence of the homosexual community on public policy issues.’”) That’s not the only sleaze flowing through this clique. In 1996, Perkins and Jenkins got into trouble after Perkins paid David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list when Perkins managed Jenkins’ unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign against Mary Landrieu. Jenkins was also an early chair of the infamous American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the first director of the right-wing Council for National Policy founded by fundamentalist preacher Tim LaHaye.]

We will revisit CCN’s coverage of the CCSS resolution and policy in Part Two. For now, let’s return to the main story.

Back to What Really Happened in Central

In 2008, after passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), the LFF wanted to solidify its control over how the law would be implemented in local school districts. For that, they had to go to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), where their point man was then-BESE member Dale Bayard, who was defeated in the 2011 election. The LFF succeeded in gutting the draft of the policy that BESE eventually adopted in January 2009. But before that, in August 2008 — barely two months after the June 2008 passage of the LSEA — Bayard had introduced an earlier resolution and a policy that Darrell White himself wrote.

The evidence for White’s authorship is the fact that he had posted the template for the proposed 2008 BESE resolution on an “Origins Science” page on his now-defunct website, Judgewhite.com. The resolution template [pdf], entitled “Proposed School Board Policy Science Education,” was on the website in 2005 and is still available at the Internet Archive. The BESE version closely tracked White’s template but bore the title, “Resolution on Teacher Academic Freedom to Teach Scientific Evidence Regarding Controversial Scientific Subjects.” In addition, the resolution was accompanied by a policy statement, “Teacher Academic Freedom in Science Education When Covering Controversial Scientific Subjects,” and a copy of the LSEA. (See below.)

Have you connected the dots yet, readers? The titles of the BESE resolution and policy are the precise titles of the CCSS resolution and policy. White’s template is therefore the common ancestor of both documents! Except for adjustments made to refer to the respective bodies to which they were introduced, the CCSS resolution and policy are virtually identical to those that the LFF intended for adoption by BESE — as we pointed out earlier, right down to the mistakes and mendacity in the original BESE versions. For your information, we provide pdfs of both documents:

• 2008 BESE Academic Freedom Resolution and Policy [pdf], annotated, with an analysis detailing the flaws in the content. The document is from BESE’s official August 21, 2008, minutes. The resolution was introduced on Bayard’s motion and seconded by fellow BESE member (and now board president) Chas Roemer.
• 2012 CCSS Academic Freedom Resolution and Policy [pdf], annotated. Since this resolution and policy are virtually identical to the BESE ones, the analysis included in the BESE document above also applies to this one.

Just to give you a quick idea of the “evolutionary” development of White’s template from his website version, through the BESE version, to the Central version, we present clips from White’s template, the BESE document, and the CCSS document. The line of descent is crystal clear.

Darrell White’s 2005 Template

2008 BESE Academic Freedom Resolution

2012 CCSS Resolution

For the sake of brevity, since more information will follow in Part Two, let’s look at just one item that is common to all the versions in the clips above. The second “Whereas” supposedly refers to a congressional declaration stipulating that when “topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution),” the public school science curriculum “should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist.” The truth is that Congress “declared” no such thing.

White took this language in his resolution from the infamous (among creationist-watchers) “Santorum Amendment.” This was a “sense of the Senate” resolution that intelligent design (ID) creationism supporter Senator Rick Santorum — as a favor to the Discovery Institute (DI) — slipped into the No Child Left Behind Act just before the Senate voted on it in 2001. (See the coverage by the National Center for Science Education.) Except for Santorum, the senators who voted had no idea that the language was really a Discovery Institute Trojan horse for promoting ID.

The resolution carried no legal force but was designed to create the appearance of congressional approval of DI’s pro-ID agenda. After vociferous objections from the scientific and educational communities, the congressional conference committee stripped the language out of NCLB and placed into the legislative history of the bill. It is not part of the law. Nonetheless, White has rolled out this Trojan horse at every opportunity, such as the 2006 Ouachita Parish “academic freedom” policy [pdf] (see also here), his BESE resolution and policy — and now the CCSS resolution and policy.

The Simple Truth About the CCSS Policy and Resolution

What happened here is pretty obvious: Having failed to get Darrell White’s resolution and policy adopted by BESE in 2008, the LFF just put it in cold storage and used it in Central in 2012, meaning that there was active collaboration between the LFF and the CCSS school board. While there is nothing earthshaking in this news, it does show that the LFF continues its active promotion of creationism in the public schools of Louisiana.

In the upcoming Part Two, we will provide additional analysis of the resolution and policy, as well as of the newspaper coverage by the Central City News. The mistakes and mendacity of the CCSS policy and resolution will then come into even sharper focus.

By Barbara Forrest

Louisiana residents who support teaching good science — which includes evolution — will find it hard to see Bobby Jindal’s comments in his November 13 Politico interview as anything except an opportunistic pivot for the sake of his national ambitions.

It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that. . . . It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.

Really, governor? If that’s the case, then your constituents can count on your public support next year for the repeal of the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act that you signed in 2008 as a favor to your friends at the Louisiana Family Forum, right?

Chris Matthews, whose nightly Hardball show did a nice May 2011 interview with Zack Kopplin about his 2010 repeal bill, did not let Jindal’s comments go unnoticed in his November 13, 2012, show. Matthews made some very critical comments about Jindal’s support for teaching creationism in Louisiana, and he also quoted from a July 30, 2012,Slate article by nationally known biologist Kenneth Miller. Miller teaches at Brown University, where Jindal earned a bachelor’s degree in biology. Although this article appeared before the 2012 presidential election, when rumors were flying that Jindal might be in the running as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, Miller’s conclusion is especially on point in light of the general consensus about the governor’s future plans.

Imagine, for a moment, that Jindal becomes the vice presidential nominee. Given his track record in Louisiana, can we expect a sudden shift in favor of scientific integrity and quality science education? I’d like to believe that Jindal’s courting of the creationist vote in his state has been nothing more than a matter of political expediency. Maybe once he faces a national audience, he’ll shake that Etch A Sketch and make his peace with science. We’ll see. But the times are critical, the record isn’t promising, and Jindal’s legacy in Louisiana schools has been shameful.

Here is a message for the governor: If you have really “had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism,” there is something you can do about that in your own state: “Respect Requires Repeal.”

Now, readers, watch Chris Matthews let Louisiana have it on Hardball.

By Barbara Forrest

Our readers won’t be surprised to learn that Louisiana citizens frequently write letters to newspapers defending intelligent design (ID) creationism and the Discovery Institute (DI), the creationist think tank in Seattle that co-authored the Louisiana Science Education Act with the Louisiana Family Forum. Creationist letter-writing is virtually a cottage industry in the Pelican State. However, it may come as a surprise that one recent letter-writer, management consultant Cecil R. Phillips of Baton Rouge, apparently went to Seattle and met the ID creationists in person. So in addition to the Louisiana Family Forum, we now have another vocal ID defender in Louisiana. And some interesting dots appear to be connected.

In an August 20, 2012 letter to the Baton Rouge Advocate, Phillips used well-known creationist talking points, saying, for example, that students should be taught “both Darwin’s theory and opposing evidence” so that they can “evaluate both arguments and reach their own conclusions.” (That’s an old one.) He was responding to an August 12 Advocate editorial, “Our Views: Louisiana’s Loch Ness Mythology,” in which the newspaper criticized the Jindal administration’s awarding of vouchers to private, religious schools that teach creationism: “[S]ome of the schools that want to cash in on the state’s new tuition vouchers — really cash in, by expanding their tuition base considerably — not only teach creationist nonsense, but are proud of it.” (Note: for some reason, the online dates of the letter and editorial do not match the print editions.)

What Phillips didn’t tell readers was that he had recently returned from a DI conference in Seattle, where he presumably met some of these creationists in person. He announced his trip in an August 16 Facebook entry:

We’ll have more to say below about some interesting dots that may be connected here. But first, let’s get back to Phillips’ Advocate letters.

Phillips’ Defense of DI and ID

In his August 20 response to the Advocate, Phillips promoted DI’s intelligent design textbook, Explore Evolution. (See the National Center for Science Education’s thorough critique.) He also touted DI’s dubious list of “over 800 scientists [who] have expressed skepticism about Darwinian evolution.” (More about this later.)

Phillips turned out to be on a pro-ID roll. He had another letter in the August 31 Advocate, this time responding to an August 25 letter by Prof. James Houk. In his letter, Houk informed readers that the list of 800 scientists that Phillips had cited in his August 20 letter is a DI project, and that DI promotes “a religious agenda.” Houk also stated that “individuals like Phillips should stop implying that the theory of evolution is controversial in scientific circles. It is not.” Houk is absolutely correct on both counts.

Phillips, however, charged that Houk’s pointing out the “anti-evolution agenda” of scientists “who question Darwin” was “disrespectful and contemptuous.” Yet Phillips’ amazing statement that “the actual mechanisms that drive evolution have not been found” reveals his own ignorance of the science. Then he again cited DI’s “800 highly credentialed scientists” who are skeptical of “Darwinian theory.” Finally, he recommended books by “some of the leading authors . . . on the weaknesses in Darwin’s theory.” Here is his list of authors (bold and annotations added):

• Stephen C. Meyers [should be "Meyer"] — A creationist philosopher, not a scientist. See his bio at the Discovery Institute, where he runs DI’s creationist wing, the Center for Science and Culture.
• Donald E. Johnson — An ID apologist with a background in computer programming. See Phillips’ blurb of Johnson’s book, Probability’s Nature and Nature’s Probability, which DI says “provides accessible introduction to technical aspects of intelligent design.” See DI’s promotion of Johnson’s book Programming of Life on its “2010 Intelligent Design Christmas List.”
  
• Michael J. Behe — A senior DI fellow and biochemist at Lehigh University. See the disclaimer of Behe’s ID work by his own department at Lehigh.
  
• William A. Dembski — A senior DI fellow and admitted old-earth creationist who got himself into hot water with his (former) young-earth creationist (YEC) employers at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
• Jonathan Wells — A senior DI fellow and “Moonie” creationist who has devoted his life to “destroying Darwinism” at the behest of his spiritual father, the recently deceased Sun Myung Moon.
• Jerry Fodor — A philosopher whose misunderstanding of evolution has provided DI with anti-evolution ammunition. Biologist Robert O’Hara of the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Germany has noted Fodor’s “basic ignorance” about evolution.
• Michael Denton — A senior DI fellow and ID apologist who wrongly presents evolution as a “theory in crisis.”
• Lee Spetner — A Jewish creationist. See biologist Gert Korthof’s analysis of Spetner’s book, Not by Chance.
• Thomas Woodward — A longtime ID supporter and evangelical theologian who recently offered an online course, “Darwinism and Intelligent Design,” at evangelical Trinity College.
• Geoffrey Simmons — A physician and DI fellow who has published anti-evolution books through religious Harvest House Publishers.

In endorsing these authors, Phillips omitted the fact that “top scholars” Meyer, Dembski, and Behe were discredited in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover [Pennsylvania] Area School District (2005) [pdf], the first (and so far only) ID creationism legal case. I testified in that case as an expert witness for eleven parents who filed — and won — their lawsuit to keep ID out of their schools. Meyer and Dembski were supposed to testify for the school board until they chickened out, forfeiting their golden opportunity to defend ID in federal court. (See my article about their withdrawal.) Behe remained as a witness for the board, and his testimony was thoroughly dismantled under cross-examination.

Concerning Phillips’ 800 scientists (who include DI’s own fellows, of course), they are all signatories to DI’s “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.” DI promotes this list of “hundreds of scientists [who] have courageously stepped forward to sign their names” because “There is scientific dissent from Darwinism. It deserves to be heard.” Here are a few of those courageous “scientists”:

1. Dean H. Kenyon, DI fellow, Catholic YEC, and co-author of the infamous ID textbook, Of Pandas and People.
2. Maciej Giertych, an anti-semitic Polish YEC who says in his article for the YEC organization, Answers in Genesis, that “evidence [for evolution] is lacking not only in genetics but also in palaeontology, as well as in sedimentology, in dating techniques, and in fact in all sciences.”
3. Matti Leisola, a Finnish YEC affiliated with DI’s “research” center and editor-in-chief of its “journal.”
4. Arthur B. Robinson, a climate-science denier who believes homeschooling can help “take America back from the anti-Christian forces that currently control American public life.”
5. Andy McIntosh, a British YEC who has been aggressively promoting the creationist agenda in England through his organization, Truth in Science.

And that’s just a small sample, folks. You don’t need to see the remaining 795 signatories to figure out what’s going on here.

Now let’s try to connect some dots . . .

Phillips, of course, did not divulge his personal visit to DI in his letters to the Advocate. Nor did he mention his positive Amazon reviews of DI’s creationist videos and books — including Explore Evolution, which he recently reviewed on September 16 and recommends as “well suited to teaching critical thinking and other fundamentals of the scientific method.” As far back as February 2010, he was promoting DI’s Darwin’s Dilemma video on Facebook:

A note to any friends interested in theories of evolution: I viewed a DVD on the ‘Cambrian explosion’ of fossils that I recommend for a clear explanation of that mysterious period. Titled ‘Darwin’s Dilemma’ it presents evidence and interpretations by Stephen Meyer and other scientists. They describe it as a significant weakness in Darwinian theory. 72 min. If interested, let me know.

[UPDATE October 2, 2012: Phillips began announcing his favorable impressions of ID back in 2009 on his now-discontinued blog, Ergo Sum. Of Stephen Meyer's book Signature in the Cell, he opined, "Meyer . . . present[s] detailed deconstructions of the leading theories of evolution and . . . build[s] a compelling case for intelligent design.” Of Johnson’s Probability’s Nature and Nature’s Probability, which Phillips says is “among the 19 books I have collected on the subject of evolution theory,” he says that, concerning the origin of life — which is not part of evolutionary theory, actually — Johnson has concluded that “input from an intelligent source, one that can create information, is required.”]

Clearly, Phillips is an ID fan. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would go to a DI conference. But here is where things get interesting. Which DI conference could he have attended? In his August 16, 2012, Facebook post, he said that he had “just returned,” which suggests that he was there the previous weekend, August 10-12. Was anything going on at DI that weekend?

Well, as it turns out, something was going on, and a most interesting event it was. On August 10-12, DI held its “8th Annual Insiders Briefing on Intelligent Design,” which DI describes as “the nation’s foremost gathering of intelligent design scientists, scholars and supporters.” This year’s briefing featured two of Phillips’ “leading authors,” Stephen Meyer and Michael Denton, as well as a host of other ID luminaries.

But here is the interesting part: DI doesn’t allow just anyone to attend these briefings. They are open only to “Discovery Society Members.” As DI said in its online invitation, “The Discovery Society Insiders Briefing is open only to Society members and immediate family, or special guests of Society Members.” And for this year’s briefing, DI promised that “throughout the event participants will be updated on our accomplishments in 2011-2012 and our strategic plans for 2012-13.” (That sounds very much like a reference to strategic plans for the upcoming school year, doesn’t it?)

DI wasn’t bashful about the price of such a privilege: the registration fee was $345 per person. And joining the Discovery Society is a prerequisite for even being allowed to register for the Annual Insiders Briefing: “If you are not a Discovery Society Member you must join the Society to register for the conference.” So in order to experience the privilege of registering for the conference, potential Insiders first had to fork over $300 for membership. But just look at what this $300 buys, in addition to permission to pay the $345 registration fee:

The Discovery Society is a group of individuals who come together to support the work — and disseminate the message — of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

As a Discovery Society member you will be supporting cutting-edge research that challenges Darwinian evolution and validates the intelligent design of life and the universe. Your membership will also help us promote a more balanced science education policy and powerful new videos and curricular materials.

The Society will provide you with resources and learning opportunities that will equip you to spread the word. . . .

Well, now, if this is the event Phillips attended (and DI doesn’t seem to have held any other such events in August), he is certainly giving DI his money’s worth in Louisiana. In his Advocate letters, he has definitely been “disseminating the message” of DI’s Center for Science and Culture. In fact, the Discovery Society is a project of the CSC and is linked to the CSC web page: http://www.discovery.org/csc/cscSociety.php. And Phillips has certainly been trying to “spread the word” about DI’s “powerful new videos and curricular materials” on Facebook and his Amazon reviews page.

To be clear: these are interesting dots that appear to be connected based on Phillips’ own Facebook posts, his use of familiar DI talking points in his letters, and the other circumstantial evidence presented here. Maybe all of this is not what it seems. But if Mr. Phillips is not a Discovery Society Insider, then his energetic letter-writing, his positive reviews of ID materials, and the timing of his trip and the DI conference are an incredible coincidence.

By Barbara Forrest

Sometimes the word “irony” is insufficient as a response to the actual nature of events. For some situations, “irony” is just too tepid. One finds that such is the case upon reading the article entitled “Louisiana Science Education Strategy Under Development” in the Business section of the July 15, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune. The article opens this way:

After recognizing a need for more students and graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie, drafted Senate Resolution 120. The resolution asks Louisiana’s top higher education board, the Board of Regents, to develop a strategy to attract and keep students in those degree fields to supply companies in New Orleans with a larger, more capable work force. 

Sen. Conrad Appel, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, is concerned about the state of science education in Louisiana. Although this is one of those cases in which “irony” sounds a bit weak, let’s just go ahead and say that his concern — while most welcome — is also most ironic. Read on to find out why.

Senator Appel’s Concern for Louisiana Science Education

According to the Times-Picayune article, Sen. Appel wants more of Louisiana’s young people to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in our universities and to stay in the state to make their careers.

‘It’s clearly important that our best and brightest stay in Louisiana,’ Appel said. ‘We have to be in a position to compete on a world basis. These are the jobs for the future.’

That’s very nice. We certainly agree.

So, shortly before the 2012 legislative session ended, Sen. Appel introduced Senate Resolution 120 [pdf]. SR 120, which sped right through the legislative process, “urge[s] and request[s] the Board of Regents [the chief higher education governing board in Louisiana] to develop a strategy to attract more students to, and graduate more students from, the state’s colleges and universities in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).” Who could argue with that? That’s a great idea.

Sen. Appel is impressed by the importance of science education to the future of America, which he believes is threatened by the fact that “the United States produces fewer STEM graduates relative to other economically developed countries.” In his resolution, he earnestly observes that

as we moved into the 21st century . . . it became clear that our economic preeminence was threatened as other countries became more educated and started gaining economic ground.

In keeping with this concern, his resolution directs the Board of Regents to “submit a written report of its findings and recommendations to the Senate Committee on Education not later than March 1, 2013.” What a timely deadline! That will be only a few weeks before the next legislative session begins at noon, Monday, April 8, 2013 [pdf] — which will also be shortly before Zack Kopplin plans to make his third attempt to get the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) repealed.

How fortunate! The spirit of the Enlightenment and concern for science education will flow like the Mighty Mississippi through the halls of the State Capitol that the dictator Huey Long once tyrannized! And, as the saying goes, the third time is the charm! We’re bound to get the LSEA repealed next year with a champion of science education at the helm of the Senate Education Committee! (The chair last year was the senator who actually sponsored the bill.)

Here’s Where the Irony Starts

But wait. . . there’s a hitch — of course. In Louisiana, nothing that makes rational sense is that easy. “So, what is the hitch?,” you ask. Well, the hitch — and this is where the irony emerges — is that last year, 2011, when Senator Karen Carter Peterson introduced SB 70, the first bill to repeal the LSEA, Sen. Appel voted to defer the bill rather than allow it out of committee. The Senate Education Committee’s 5-1 vote to defer the bill effectively killed it. So let it be noted that in 2011 Sen. Appel voted against repealing the LSEA.

As of this year, 2012, when Sen. Peterson introduced a second repeal bill, SB 374, Sen. Appel had actually become the committee chair. This time, rather than vote against the bill, he exercised his prerogative as chair and did not vote at all. But he sounded skeptical of the need for repeal.

Education Committee Chairman Conrad Appel, R-Metairie, questioned whether any complaints had ever been filed about creationism being taught in schools since the law was passed. An education department official said no complaint has ever been lodged.

Hearing that no complaints had been filed, Sen. Appel was apparently reassured that the bill has done no damage. This must explain why he sat out the vote to repeal the LSEA — or, more accurately, to let the bill go to the Senate floor for a vote. Appel apparently doesn’t know that in 2010, the Livingston Parish School Board made very loud noises about explicitly using the LSEA to add “creationism” to public school science classes. (Fortunately — probably because humongous legal bills were not a desirable prospect given the present reality of budget cuts — the matter progressed no farther than noise-making.) And the senator must have forgotten that New Orleans, the city right next door to his district, lost a national science convention because of the LSEA.

Sen. Appel’s position this year is very odd. Apparently, he was not moved at all by the testimony of Dr. Kevin Carman, a biologist and Dean of the College of Science at Louisiana State University, who told the committee flat out that the LSEA has had a negative effect on recruiting and retaining scientists at LSU.

Carman said two top scientists who rejected his offer to come to LSU cited the Louisiana Science [Education] Act as the reason they wouldn’t come to LSU. Also, ‘I just lost an evolution biologist‘ who said he was leaving the state because his children are nearing school age and he didn’t want them to attend a school where they might not be taught true science.

‘Teaching pseudo-science drives scientists away,’ Carman said. [Shreveport Times, April 19, 2012; emphasis added]

OK, let’s go slow and get this straight. Sen. Appel wants the Board of Regents to find ways to increase the number of university science majors in Louisiana, but he isn’t concerned about the fact that the LSEA is driving university science professors away from Louisiana. He heard Dean Carman, a university administrator, testify that Louisiana has lost TWO prospective scientists and ONE who was already here because of this flaming farce of a law.

Assessing This Situation

Given Sen. Appel’s apathy about the damage to Louisiana science education that he learned about from Dean Carman, what explains his sudden, end-of-the-session concern with the quality of science education? Was his SR 120 merely an attempt at damage control? Did he have second thoughts about just sitting there and not voting after Dean Carman came all the way down to the Capitol from his busy job trying to attract and keep science professors? Was the resolution motivated purely by concern for the state’s economic development prospects? Surely, Sen. Appel realizes that Louisiana can never become “more educated and [start] gaining economic ground” by running off the science professors who will be responsible for teaching future wage-earners.

Here’s an idea: Concerned readers who live in Sen. Appel’s District 9 [pdf] should get together with other, pro-science citizens of his district and schedule a sit-down visit with him before the next repeal bill is introduced in 2013. Appel’s district office is located at 721 Papworth Avenue, Suite 102A, Metairie, LA 70005. The phone number is (504) 838-5550. You could take along some beignets. (There’s a Cafe du Monde Coffee Stand right over on 3301 Veterans Boulevard.) Or, if you go around Mardi Gras (February 12, 2013), you could bring him a king cake from Gambino’s! (Metairie residents know the significance of Gambino’s.)

Please remind Sen. Appel that the LSEA is doing more than just making us look stupid down here. It is literally keeping smart people from coming to Louisiana to teach the students about whom he professes to be concerned. That can’t be good for economic development. Tell him that you appreciate the fact that his position appears to be “evolving.” Last year, he voted against repeal. This year he sat out the vote. Next year, maybe he will vote for repeal. He could conceivably even survive the next election cycle despite doing the right thing!

Hey, it’s worth a shot.

By Barbara Forrest

The intelligent design (ID) creationists at the Discovery Institute (DI) are nothing if not tech-savvy. They make masterful use of the Internet, producing podcasts, videos, and slick websites to get their message out (see here, here, here, and here). You’d think, then, that they could make sure that all of their supporters had received that little memo saying that the Louisiana Science Education Act DOES NOT PERMIT TEACHING INTELLIGENT DESIGN (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). They apparently forgot to send it to Bradley Monton, an atheist philosopher who announced his support for ID (you read that right) in the title of his book, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design. Or maybe he failed to notice it in his inbox. Or maybe he read it and forgot. Or something. Whatever the reason, DI just can’t seem to keep its people from periodically telling the truth about the Louisiana Science Education Act.

Let’s get some background in place before we return to Dr. Monton’s role as “An Atheist [Who] Defends Intelligent Design.” (We know this sounds strange, but bear with us).

Background

DI specializes in dissembling. They deny that ID is creationism, even though it has been exposed in the published scholarship and in federal court as merely the newest variant of old-fashioned creationism. (See also here.) They also deny that the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) has anything to do with ID, despite the fact that showing otherwise is very easy [pdf] and that the LSEA’s legislative sponsor himself announced that the law was introduced precisely to permit teaching creationism. Nonetheless, we have a string of denials from DI.

For example, let’s look at what DI staffer Casey Luskin told the Baptist Press (“News with a Christian Perspective”) on May 13, 2008, as the LSEA was being fast-tracked through the legislative process (emphasis added):

In fact, Luskin said, the language of the bills in Louisiana, Michigan and Missouri does not even allow for ID to be taught. Nevertheless, he said, the bills would be a significant step forward. . . .

The Louisiana bill (SB 733) . . . says the state board of education ‘shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators’ to ‘help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied,’ including ‘evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.’ A teacher would be allowed to ‘use supplemental textbooks’ in addition to the textbooks in use. In addition, the bill says it ‘shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine.’ . . .

‘The language in those bills pertains to only teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution,’ Luskin said. ‘That language does not even cover the teaching of alternatives like Intelligent Design.’

Contrary to what some might assume, the Discovery Institute does not support the mandated teaching of Intelligent Design in classrooms, Luskin said.

On May 24, 2008, in DI’s Evolution News & Views blog (ENV), Luskin said this (boldface added):

Louisiana’s academic freedom legislation is not about ‘creationism.’ It’s about protecting the rights of teachers to teach good science. . . .

The proposed legislation in Louisiana does not address the teaching of alternative scientific theories such as intelligent design. It merely protects critical thinking and discussion regarding existing scientific theories in the curriculum. . . .

That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? These are straightforward denials that the LSEA permits teaching ID. (Remember them; they will be relevant below.) Now, we know better than to take DI’s denials seriously. Their history of mendacity is as well established as the fact that ID is creationism. (For example, see here, here, here, and here.) For obvious legal reasons, they keep denying to high heaven that the LSEA permits teaching ID in Louisiana schools, despite the fact that a central goal of their “Wedge Strategy” is “the integration of design theory into public school science curricula.”

However, the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling [pdf] that prohibited teaching ID in public schools, although binding only in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, has in effect made DI’s promotion of legislation containing the term “intelligent design” impossible everywhere in the U.S. (This is why, in March of this year, DI staff attorney Joshua Youngkin posted online instructions to “reformers” in state legislatures about how to write — and how not to write — their “academic freedom” bills. Some creationist legislators haven’t been getting the message.) At the Dover trial, DI’s expert witnesses were shredded during cross-examination, and ID was definitively exposed as creationism. Case closed. Consequently, the creationists at DI have now been forced to implement their post-Kitzmiller fall-back strategy, namely, to promote creationist legislation by stealth, couching it in antiquated, creationist code language.

In Louisiana, this exercise in dishonesty succeeded in 2008 (although, as we have documented here, DI has had a devil of a time getting the LFF and its followers to stick with the playbook). DI’s legal advisor, David K. DeWolf, working with the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), helped stealthify the language of the LSEA. The strategy was (1) to lie their way into the Louisiana Revised Statutes, and then (2) work on getting a teacher to implement the real strategy behind the closed doors of a public school classroom. And if someone with academic credentials who seemingly had no dog in the hunt decided to lend them some credibility (in their minds), so much the better.

Enter Bradley Monton

Bradley Monton is a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The creationists at DI really like him, even if they are not crazy about atheists in general (see here, here, and here). They constantly refer to him as “atheist philosopher Bradley Monton.” Having an atheist on their side helps them to continue the charade that ID is something other than what it really is — a form of creationism, which is rooted in the New Testament Gospel of John rather than Genesis (in order to avoid fights with young-earth creationists about Earth’s age) and anchored in the religious commitments of its chief proponents.

Monton has been useful to DI. On January 4, 2006, he posted a paper on the Internet arguing that Judge John E. Jones’ reasoning in his Kitzmiller ruling [pdf] is flawed. Monton wrote his paper quickly — the decision had just been issued on December 20, 2005. On January 5, 2006, DI fellow William Dembski posted a link to Monton’s “important article on Dover” at his Uncommon Descent (UD) blog. Dembski, by the way, had been scheduled to testify as an expert witness for the creationist Dover School Board until he bailed out before being deposed. So it was nice to have some help in criticizing the ruling after the fact from the safety of a computer keyboard.

(Aside: Monton’s opining about Kitzmiller is irrelevant. He showed up after that party was over. The real work in that case had already been done. DI had blown its first big chance to defend ID in federal court when most of the DI fellows serving as witnesses for the Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board withdrew from the case. Besides having to worry about their people being cross-examined under oath, DI staff were too busy writing and posting on DI’s website a fake interview with one of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses. We are concerned here only with Monton’s pronouncements on the LSEA, which we shall discuss shortly.)

DI enthusiastically publicizes its friendship with Monton. Casey Luskin, who attended the May 21, 2008, House Education Committee hearing on the LSEA at the Louisiana Capitol, has interviewed Monton for DI’s ID the Future podcast no fewer than five times. In November 2008, ID supporter Denyse O’Leary, who also blogs at UD, plugged Monton for plugging ID. Monton has even earned the distinction of being listed (just before young-earth creationist Paul Nelson) among the “ARN Authors” at Access Research Network, a clearinghouse for ID materials that functions as a de facto arm of DI. Even better, his book was endorsed by two DI fellows, Dembski and David Berlinski. (See a review of Monton’s book by philosopher Sahotra Sarkar. Here is another review by Jeffrey Shallit, who was scheduled to testify for the Kitzmiller plaintiffs as a rebuttal witness to Dembski until Dembski pulled out.)

DI must have been grateful for Monton’s public support for the LSEA, which he announced on his blog on July 5, 2008, precisely ten days after Bobby Jindal signed it into law.

I support the passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act, which Governor Jindal recently signed. I recognize that this is not popular with fellow secularists. . . .

Monton assures “secularists” who might be upset at the passage of the LSEA that they have nothing to fear. (Apparently he doesn’t think that there might be religious people who object to this law.) The “relatively innocuous” law is all about critical thinking, which Monton declares himself “all for promoting” because promoting critical thinking “is what philosophers do, and I’ve encountered too many college students who are shockingly bad at it.” No disagreements here. I teach critical thinking, too. Good stuff, critical thinking.

Monton also assures readers that the LSEA’s specific listing of “evolution, the origins of life, global warning, and human cloning . . . doesn’t change the material content of the act; it just provides examples of the sorts of theories that could be talked about.”     (Insert long pause here.)     Uh, actually, no. The LSEA specifies unambiguously that

the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education . . . shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes 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]

In short, the state board is under a mandate (“shall allow and assist”) to enable public school teachers to promote “critical thinking” about (read: “undermine”) “scientific theories being studied including [not "such as"] evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” And they can throw in anything else they want kids to think “critically” about since they are not even “limited to” those subjects. Monton apparently wasn’t thinking critically about the law. He ends his post with some additional reassurance (emphasis added):

It’s clear that the worry from many secularists is that creationism or intelligent design will be taught as true in science class as a result of this act. Well, if that were to happen, teachers would be violating what the act says — they wouldn’t be having an open and objective discussion.

It seems that some critical thinking is needed here. Monton assures us that “secularists” shouldn’t worry about creationism or ID being taught “as true” in a science class “as a result” of the LSEA. But his assertion clearly rests on the premise that ID will actually be taught in a science class as a result of the LSEA. So, ID can be taught in Louisiana, but it can’t be taught “as true.” But Casey promised us in May 2008 that the bill “does not even allow for ID to be taught” at all and that “the proposed legislation in Louisiana does not address the teaching of alternative scientific theories such as intelligent design.” Period. Have we properly understood Monton here? Perhaps he didn’t read Casey’s comments to Baptist Press (“News with a Christian Perspective”) and in the ENV post. Or perhaps we should consult more of Monton’s thinking about the LSEA than he shared in this July 2008 blog post, so let’s do that now.

In his blog post, Monton promised readers that “there’s a lot I could say about these issues (and I do say a lot in my forthcoming book).” He was true to his word. His book was published a year later in July 2009, and he certainly did have more to say. In the interim, his thinking about the LSEA appears to have “evolved” even further, if you will. In fact, one might wonder whether the DI fellows who endorsed the book actually read that part. If they had, they would surely have reported back to Casey, who might have retracted the nice things he said about Monton in those podcast interviews. Casey, after all, assured us unambiguously — this bears repeating — that the LSEA would “not even allow for ID to be taught.” So, what does Monton say about the LSEA in his book?

On p. 143, Monton says that “it can be a good idea to teach ID in school” and that “if I were the teacher, I would take up intelligent design because . . . the students are eventually going to hear about it anyway.” So they should hear about it in “an intellectually well-informed climate.” That squares with what Casey says on p. 4 of The Theory of Intelligent Design: A Briefing Packet for Educators [pdf], which he co-authored with DI colleague John West. Casey and West say that although DI “do[es] not propose that intelligent design should be mandated in public schools” (because they know that mandating creationism was declared unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguillard), teachers should be well-informed.

[I]f you [the teacher] voluntarily choose to raise the issue of intelligent design in your classroom, it is vitally important that any information you present accurately convey the views of the scientists and scholars who support intelligent design, not a caricature of their views. Otherwise you will be engaging in indoctrination, not education.

They also say on p. 7 (and this part is baloney) that teaching ID should be constitutional because ID is a real scientific theory.

Since ID is a legitimate scientific theory, it should be constitutional to discuss in science classrooms and it should not be banned from schools. If a science teacher wants to voluntarily discuss ID, she should have the academic freedom to do so.

This sounds like it could be relevant to Louisiana and might make Pelican State “secularists” a little nervous. But we can rest easy because Casey said that the LSEA does not allow ID to be taught. (Insert sigh of relief here.)

Let’s now continue our consideration of Monton’s comments on p. 143 because that’s where he talks about “legal matters.” This could be important. He opines that Dover was a “highly non-ideal” case for testing the legality of ID. (As pointed out earlier, his opinion on Dover is irrelevant.) What Monton would really like to see, he says, is “a test case that stemmed from an individual teacher choosing to take up the issue of intelligent design in a intellectually informed, non-proselytizing way.” Well, maybe he would like to see that, but Casey has already told us that we won’t be seeing it here in Louisiana. What does Monton say next?

Perhaps there will be one in Louisiana, as a result of the Science Education Act, which passed the legislature and was signed into law in June 2008.

Wait a minute . . . what was that? But Casey promised us in May 2008  — let’s quote him one more time — that the LSEA “does not even allow for ID to be taught.” As chummy as Casey and Monton are, surely Monton reads all of Casey’s blog posts, right? So maybe we misunderstand Dr. Monton. (He actually seems to be hoping that the state will be sued!) Let’s read a little further.

He quotes the relevant part of the LSEA, just as he did in his post a year earlier. So, okay, there’s that. And then, on p. 144, he says — uh . . . oh.

As you can see, this act allows for intelligent design to be taught in school, as part of the open discussion that could take place regarding evolution and the origins of life. . . .

Maybe we didn’t read that closely enough. Let’s look at it again.

As you can see, this act allows for intelligent design to be taught in school, as part of the open discussion that could take place regarding evolution and the origins of life. . . .

My goodness. We did read that right. Ok, let’s do one final test and compare what Monton said side-by-side with what Casey said (with emphasis added for clarity).

Casey, to the Baptist Press (“News with a Christian Perspective”):

In fact, Luskin said, the language of the bills in Louisiana, Michigan and Missouri does not even allow for ID to be taught.

Monton, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design:

Perhaps there will be one [a legal test case] in Louisiana, as a result of the Science Education Act, which passed the legislature and was signed into law in June 2008. . . .

[Quotes LSEA]

As you can see, this act allows for intelligent design to be taught in school, as part of the open discussion that could take place regarding evolution and the origins of life. . . .

We knew it! We’ve been saying all along that the LSEA gives teachers the green light to teach ID creationism! Perhaps Monton has been reading our blog instead of Casey’s!

Someone should point this out to Casey. What he’s got here is a clear case of Cool Hand Luke Syndrome. He’s going to have to be more conscientious about making sure everyone gets those memos.