By Barbara Forrest      

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Barbara Forrest

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

On December 7, fifteen Louisiana citizens stepped into the spotlight to ask the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to approve new high school biology textbooks for public schools. Spurred by its success at getting the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) passed in 2008, and then its subsequent success at gaining control over BESE policies governing the implementation of the LSEA (see here and here), the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) then went after the biology textbooks. But this time, the LFF lost. BESE approved the textbooks, first at a meeting of the Student/School Support and Performance Committee meeting on December 7, and again at the general board meeting on December 9. The students of Louisiana who depend on public schools won this round.

What made the difference this time? The difference this time was that pro-science citizens had time and momentum on our side. Thanks to the vigilance of the Baton Rouge Advocate in bringing to public attention the LFF’s attack on the textbooks, and thanks to an organic swell of activism by citizens who were concerned enough to sacrifice their time in order to fight it, the LFF was stopped in its tracks.

Every one of the citizens and students who testified in favor of the textbooks on December 7 had to sacrifice valuable work and study time — not to mention personal time — in order to get involved. Professors and students were in the middle of final exams. Public school teachers had to use their personal days. Scientists and other professionals had to let important work sit while they attended the meeting. Clergy had to disrupt their busy schedules so that BESE members could hear a religious voice in support of good science education rather than only the LFF’s voice attacking it. The Louisiana Science Teachers Association President Shannon Lafont attended the meeting and read a statement from the LSTA.

We also had help in the form of citizen alerts sent out by the Louisiana ACLU and the Forum for Equality, for which we are most grateful. In addition, the Biotechnology Institute in Washington, DC, sent a letter of support that was distributed to BESE members during the meeting. And, as they always do, the National Center for Science Education rendered invaluable assistance.

National media were covering the issue as well — such as John Farrell’s article for Forbes, a national business publication. Lauri Lebo, whose reputation as a fine journalist was sealed with her coverage of the Kitzmiller trial and subsequent book, was covering it on her Religion Dispatches blog.

But ultimately, the credit goes to the Louisiana citizens who showed up at that BESE meeting, both those who testified and those who were in the audience as a show of moral support. After so much negative publicity about Louisiana — much of it well-deserved, unfortunately — the nation now needs to hear the voices of the wonderful citizens who gave their time to show up and speak out.

At this point, you are probably wondering, “So where’s my Kitzmas present?” Here it is: a downloadable collection [pdf] of the testimony of these citizens compiled for your reading pleasure and inspiration. We offer an excerpt from the introduction:

The testimony presented here is a testament to the quality and dedication of the students, teachers, scientists, and concerned citizens who made their voices heard in this effort. However, although we succeeded on December 7, several decades of history have taught us that creationists never take no for an answer. They never give up their efforts to force their particular religious agenda into the classrooms — and into the minds — of our young people. In order to make sure that Louisiana students get the education they deserve and that the religious freedom of every student is respected, the people of Louisiana — parents, teachers and professors, scientists, the business community, clergy, and concerned citizens — who want children properly educated must make their voices heard and must back up their words with actions. The Louisiana Coalition for Science invites them to join us in this effort.

There will be a next time. The Louisiana Family Forum is not going to shrink away after one defeat. They’ll be back next year, making mischief again with the help of the Discovery Institute. And the Louisiana Coalition for Science will again need the help of citizens who value both good science education and the constitutional separation of church and state. We will need eyes and ears in every area of Louisiana. We will need people to contact their legislators to help in Zachary Kopplin’s effort to repeal the LSEA. And we are going to ask you for this help.

So settle in with some hot chocolate beside your Christmas tree and read this collection of testimony from your fellow Louisianians who cared enough to get involved. Oh, and one more thing . . .

HO, HO, HO! MERRY KITZMAS!

Today, December 20, 2008, marks the third anniversary of the landmark decision in the first intelligent design (ID) creationism legal case, Kitzmiller et al. vs. Dover Area School District (2005). Ever since that ruling, the plaintiffs and those of us who served on their legal team in the now-famous “Dover trial” observe the anniversary by wishing each other an affectionate “Merry Kitzmas!” On December 20, 2005, in a Memorandum Opinion that a former Ohio judge described as “judicial poetry,” Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the 2004 ID creationist policy statement adopted by the Dover, PA, school board “violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and . . . the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

As an expert witness for the plaintiffs, I would like to thank Judge Jones for helping to preserve both the integrity of public school science education and the constitutional separation of church and state through his decision. I was honored to serve in his courtroom and in this case. But this year, the anniversary of the plaintiffs’ success in the Kitzmiller case has been turned bittersweet by my state’s refusal to learn the lessons of Dover and of our own history. Despite Louisiana’s passage of a 1981 creationist law and the subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), which outlawed the teaching of creationism, the Louisiana legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal, by respectively passing and signing the LA Science Education Act (LSEA), ensured that our state will remain tethered to the bottom of every national quality-of-life survey.

Just yesterday, December 19, the Michigan legislature ended its 2008 session without passing a similar bill that had languished in committee for months. The Louisiana and Michigan bills were two of six creationist bills introduced in state legislatures in 2008; all of them were coordinated by the Discovery Institute, the ID creationist think tank in Seattle. Five of these states — Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, Missouri, and now Michigan — had the good sense not to pass the bills. But despite the kick in the teeth they suffered in Dover, the Discovery Institute creationists are hell-bent on doing as much damage as possible. Next year, when state legislative sessions reopen in those five states and elsewhere, they will be back.

Although their always paper-thin credibility has been totally in tatters since Dover, ID creationists simply keep evolving, as creationists always do after court defeats. This year, working through the Louisiana Family Forum, the Discovery Institute creationists took aim at Louisiana, and the legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal were only too happy to help them. And this was after Discovery Institute staffer Casey Luskin publicly criticized a Louisiana State University scientist, Dr. Bryan Carstens, who has chosen to live and work in Louisiana, and who testified against the LSEA before the Louisiana House Education Committee on May 21, 2008. Gov. Jindal quietly signed the LSEA on June 25, 2008, and the news hit the papers two days later. The Discovery Institute announced its victory at 7:18 a.m. on June 27.

Victory in Louisiana: Governor Jindal Signs Historic Science Education Act On Evolution and Education

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has signed into law the Louisiana Science Education Act, ensuring the state’s teachers their right to teach the scientific evidence both for and against Darwinian evolution. The bill enjoyed surprisingly overwhelming support from lawmakers. It was passed unanimously by the Louisiana state senate, and passed the state House by a vote of 93-4.

This week, as 2008 draws to a close, the news from Gov. Jindal’s office is that the budgets of our public universities must take a huge hit because of declining state revenues. This is not a new phenomenon in Louisiana. In the mid-1980s, universities endured a similar crisis. Only in recent years, during which university funding was given a high priority, has most of that damage been undone. However, because of their distrust of the very politicians whom they keep electing, Louisiana voters have either constitutionally or statutorily protected every area of the state budget except education and health care. So when the state falls on hard times, the young and the sick are the politicians’ first targets.

On top of that, our best-educated young people are leaving the state by the thousands, and Gov. Jindal has voiced his concern about this outward migration and the deficiencies in the Louisiana work force: “The reason people are leaving, Jindal says, is because of the lack of educational and economic opportunities in Louisiana. And Jindal says his administration is seeking to address the problem.” Well, you sure could have fooled us, Governor. Signing creationist bills into law is not what one does if one is concerned about the loss of the state’s best young minds.

Our fellow Americans around the country observe us with a combination of amusement and incredulity. Some have taken special notice of Louisiana’s politically self-inflicted injury to state science education. Dr. Gregory Petsko, president of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which represents two of the most important areas of current scientific research, has called for a boycott of Louisiana by scientific societies not only in the United States but around the world.

As scientists we need to join such protests with our feet and wallets. The ASBMB Annual Meeting is scheduled to take place in New Orleans in April 2009. We have longstanding contractual obligations that require us to meet in Louisiana next spring. But I think we need to see to it that no future meeting of our society will take place in Louisiana as long as that law stands, nor should we hold it in any other state (are you listening, Michigan and Texas?) that passes a similar law. And I call upon the presidents of the American Chemical Society, the American Association of Immunologists, the Society for Neuroscience, and all the other scientific societies around the U.S. and the world, to join me in this action and make clear to the state legislators in Louisiana, the governor of the state, and the mayor and business bureau of New Orleans that this will be the consequence. You can do the same. Governor Jindal can be reached through his website (www.bobbyjindal.com/) and so can Mayor Ray Nagin (www.cityofno.com/Portals/Portal35/portal.aspx).  — Gregory Petsko, “It Is Alive,” President’s Message, ASBMB Today, August 2008 (emphasis added)

These are strong words, but, unfortunately, they are totally justified. Until the constituencies in Louisiana for scientific research and science education — and, one might add, for sheer common sense — develop an effective way to speak more loudly to the legislature and Gov. Jindal than do the Louisiana Family Forum and an out-of-state creationist think tank, this is the image that our beloved state will continue to have. We must find some way to repair the state’s image and earn the respect of our fellow Americans, who may then take seriously the proposition that Louisiana is a good place to live, work, and do business. There is one way to begin the process of earning this respect.

In Louisiana, “respect” must now be spelled “R-E-P-E-A-L.”

By Barbara Forrest

November 27, 2008

Texas science education is currently in the crosshairs of the Discovery Institute (DI), the conservative Seattle think tank that serves as the headquarters of the intelligent design (ID) creationist movement. DI’s supporters in the Lone Star state are using the same code-language strategy that its Louisiana supporters used earlier this year, in spring 2008, when DI targeted the science education of Louisiana children. Working through the Louisiana Family Forum, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, DI helped to promote the “academic freedom” bill that the legislature passed and Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law on June 25 as the “Louisiana Science Education Act” (LSEA). Long-time DI fellow David K. DeWolf admitted helping to shape the legislation, which is designed to permit the use of creationist supplementary materials such as DI’s intelligent design textbook, the deceptively titled Explore Evolution, in public school science classes. When Gov. Jindal signed the LSEA into law on June 25, the Discovery Institute declared victory. Now, in fall 2008, DI has targeted Texas.

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

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

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

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

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

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