Louisiana House Passes Academic Freedom Bill on Evolution
June 12th, 2008 midwifetoad Posted in News |
Baton Rouge — By a vote of 94-3, Louisiana’s House of Representatives today passed an academic freedom bill that would protect teachers and school districts who wish to promote critical thinking and objective discussion about evolution and other scientific topics.
There was no vocal opposition, and the floor speech by Rep. Frank Hoffman made clear that the bill was about science, not religion.
Good luck guys. It worked for you in Dover.
Just speculating, but this law (and it seems inevitable that it will become law) may have some interesting unintended consequences for the state. The Dover case was decided in federal court, not state court, so state law is unlikely to have any authority if a parent or group of parents objects to the teaching of materials not based on established science. More to the point, Louisiana will now be a lightening rod for the examination of materials being taught. It’s very likely (based on recent surveys) that some Louisiana teachers have been teaching creationism all along, but now they will will have their classrooms and teaching methods examined for compliance with a law that forbids teaching religion in the name of science.
The law will also brand Louisiana as a backward state (if that isn’t redundant). Corporations might think twice about locating to a state with a school system dominated by fundamentalist Christians. The promoters of the law have obviously made the same noises about the secular purpose of the law. It will be interesting to study the legislative history of the law to find the list of weaknesses in science that prompted the law. I’m sure they have a long, well documented, peer reviewed list of weaknesses that will not look foolish in court, under oath, the way Behe and company looked in Dover.
The last time Behe testified in an biology textbook case, he was thanked for undermining his supporter’s case.
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