Louisiana Coalition for Science

Just a slight twist on the words of Orleans’s popular song accurately describes Louisiana’s position at the top of the charts concerning the “academic freedom” bills that the Discovery Institute has been peddling in various and sundry states around the country. The results are in concerning this year’s roster of academic freedom bills:  Louisiana is still the one — the only one with a law on the books [pdf], Act 473, the “Louisiana Science Education Act,” permitting teachers to use creationist supplements in our public school science classes (a fact that the young-earth Institute for Creation Research has noted approvingly). Continue Reading »

Barbara Forrest

Louisiana is at or near the bottom of quite a few lists, a fact that is not news to anyone who lives here and cares about the future of the Pelican State. Gov. Bobby Jindal himself announces on his “Workforce Development” website that Louisiana is #49 —second from the bottom — with respect to schoolchildren’s educational success and economic prospects as adults:

Student achievement and preparation for the workforce:  In a 2007 national Chance-for-Success Index, Louisiana ranks #49 in the nation based on 13 indicators that highlight whether young children get off to a good start, succeed in elementary and secondary school, and hit crucial educational and economic benchmarks as adults.

But things are looking up — as of March 22, 2009, Louisiana is now actually at the top of a list. The only problem is that it is a list on which the Louisiana legislature and the governor should be ashamed to have placed us. Continue Reading »

By Barbara Forrest

Louisiana continues to receive quite a bit of attention because of the decision by the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology to stay out of Louisiana in the wake of the state’s passage of the creationist Louisiana Science Education Act. The New York Times is only one of the out-of-state media outlets that have picked up the story. (The Louisiana Family Forum was apparently caught off guard by the story and issued a peevish response.)

The comment to the NYT from Bobby Jindal’s office is indicative of the level of (un)concern about the SICB’s decision: “That’s too bad,” a spokesman, Kyle Plotkin, said in an e-mail message. “New Orleans is a first-class city for a convention.” It’s ironic that the NYT even received an answer from Jindal’s office — Jindal never responded to the SICB letter [pdf]. Continue Reading »

Barbara Forrest

The repercussions that were expected from the Louisiana legislature’s passage and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signing of the creationist 2008 LA Science Education Act have begun. Louisiana taxpayers and schoolchildren are now reaping what the legislature and governor have sowed: the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, one of the nation’s leading scientific societies, is boycotting Louisiana. In a February 6, 2009, letter [pdf] to Gov. Bobby Jindal, SICB Executive Committee President Richard Satterlie told the governor that “The Executive Committee voted to hold the 2011 meeting in Salt Lake City in large part because of legislation SB 561, which you signed into law in June 2008…. Utah, in contrast [to Louisiana], passed a resolution that states that evolution is central to any science curriculum.” [See the resolution adopted by the Utah State Board of Education affirming that "The Theory of Evolution is a major unifying concept in science and appropriately included in Utah's K-12 Science Core Curriculum." Contrast this resolution with the recent decision by the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to strip the prohibition against teaching creationism from the policy implementing the LSEA.]

The LA Coalition for Science has issued a press release [pdf] announcing SICB’s decision. [Correction: Although the LA Science Education Act was first introduced as SB 561, it was renumbered during the legislative process and signed into law as SB 733.]

The legislature and the governor cannot say they weren’t warned. They were, but they ignored the warnings. Indeed, they ignored everyone except the creationists at the Discovery Institute and the Louisiana Family Forum. Before the Louisiana Family Forum and the Discovery Institute — and perhaps well-meaning critics — start squawking about how mean this is, let’s just consider a few things, shall we? Continue Reading »

By Barbara Forrest

“Louisiana Open for Business — Creationists Welcome”

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

By Barbara Forrest

The kind of publicity that Gov. Bobby Jindal brought to Louisiana by signing the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), a stealth creationism bill, is the kind that the state could well do without. The December 2008 issue of Scientific American, the country’s most respected science magazine for the educated public, calls the attention of the entire country to the fact that Jindal ignored his Brown University biology professor, Dr. Arthur Landy, who publicly requested that he not sign the bill. (Prof. Landy’s appeal was only one of many. See here and here.) In “The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom,” Glenn Branch and Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education use Louisiana as the prime example of the creationist strategy of disguising their agenda in legislation such as the LSEA: “Creationists who want religious ideas taught as scientific fact in public schools continue to adapt to courtroom defeats by hiding their true aims under ever changing guises.” Why did they use Louisiana as the prime example? Because we are the prime example—thanks to the Louisiana Family Forum, the Discovery Institute (the LFF’s partner in this sorry episode), the Louisiana legislature, and Gov. Jindal. Continue Reading »