The War in Louisiana

While the media is directing all of our attention to budgets, deficits, the economy and stimulus, scientists of a certain stripe have been waging a quiet war against the state of Louisiana.

The cause? Last summer, state legislators overwhelmingly passed the Louisiana Science Education Act -- 35-0 in the Senate and 94-3 in the House. Signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal, the act allows teachers to use supplementary materials in the classroom. Fearing that the law will open the door of science classrooms and labs to religious materials and textbooks promoting intelligent design, some scientists are so outraged that they're calling for a boycott of Louisiana. In fact, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology was so upset that it has moved its 2011 meeting from New Orleans to Utah in protest.

Before other scientists get their test tubes in a tizzy, they need to practice scientific theory and look at this objectively.

First, what the bill does NOT do:
--It does NOT allow teachers to replace the current scientist-approved textbooks;
--It does NOT require school officials to glue any "offensive" materials into those sacrosanct textbooks;
--It does NOT require school officials to redact any information in those blessed textbooks; and
--It does NOT require science teachers to introduce any supplemental materials.

What the bill does do:
--It promotes academic freedom; and
--It allows for open discourse in the classroom. Isn't that what education is all about?

Another fact these scientists ignore is that the law applies only to public schools. Louisiana has a long history of relying on parochial schools to educate a large percentage of its students. Science teachers in these schools have been free to discuss creationism/intelligent design all along. So every year since the founding of the state, a large portion of Louisiana students, including many of the brightest, have been -- horror of horrors -- subjected to this subversive teaching.

One scientific conference, the Experimental Biology meeting -- which includes such organizations as the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and the American Physiological Society -- thought about canceling its April meeting in New Orleans, but it was too late to book another convention center that could house 12,000-15,000 scientists. And the group was bound by a contract with the convention center. Instead, the conference will include an open symposium on the "Evolution of Creationism" April 20. The group is inviting state legislators and high school science teachers to the free session. Do you think it will yield the microphone to scientists who have opposing views?

A professor at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Barbara Forrest -- who also serves on the board of directors for the National Center for Science Education and is the co-founder of the Louisiana Coalition for Science, which combats the use of creationist and intelligent design materials in schools -- said the symposium is well intentioned but unlikely to change the law. Instead, she is pushing for broad boycotts of Louisiana.

I guess her commitment to stamping out any beliefs or facts she disagrees with outweighs the needs of a state that is still struggling to its feet after a series of devastating hurricanes.

And liberals call conservatives intolerant!