More than 40 Nobel Prize-winning scientists have signed onto an open letter to the Louisiana Legislature urging lawmakers to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act.
More than 40 Nobel Prize-winning scientists have signed onto an open letter to the Louisiana Legislature urging lawmakers to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act, a 2008 law that ostensibly allows biology teachers in state public high schools to “supplement” the standard curriculum with materials that question long-established and widely accepted tenets of evolutionary biology.
Critics of the LSEA characterize it as a Trojan Horse for creationists. The law, signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, our Ivy League biology major, was vigorously lobbied for by Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative Christian group that seeks to return Louisiana to the halcyon ignorance of yesteryear.
Following is the letter, sans the lengthy amicus brief cited in the third paragraph:
As Nobel Laureates in various scientific fields, we urge you to repeal the misnamed and misguided Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) of 2008. This law creates a pathway for creationism and other forms of non-scientific instruction to be taught in public school science classrooms.
The warning flags many of us raised about this law have now been proven justified. Members of the Livingston Parish School Board recently announced their desire to include creationism in the science curriculum for the 2011-2012 school year. Clearly, the LSEA is well understood by Louisiana school administrators and public officials as having created an avenue to incorporate the teaching of creationism into science curricula in Louisiana schools.
Louisiana’s students deserve to be taught proper science rather than religion presented as science. Science offers testable, and therefore falsifiable, explanations for natural phenomena. Because it requires supernatural explanations of natural phenomena, creationism does not meet these standards. Seventy-two Nobel Laureates addressed these issues in 1987 in an amicus brief in the Edwards vs. Aguillard U.S. Supreme Court case, which originated in Louisiana after the passage of a 1981 creationist law.
Scientific knowledge is crucial to twenty-first-century life. Biological evolution is foundational in many fields, including biomedical research and agriculture. It aids us in understanding, for example, how to fight diseases like HIV and how to grow plants that will survive in different environments. Because science plays such a large role in today’s world and because our country’s economic future is dependent upon the United States’ retaining its competitiveness in science, it is vital that students have a sound education about major scientific concepts and their applications.
We strongly urge that the Louisiana Legislature repeal this misguided law. Louisiana students deserve an education that will allow them to compete with their peers across the country and the globe.
Read the letter with the amicus brief and see who signed the letter here.
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The Rev. Al Sharpton is slated for a return to Louisiana making a stop Saturday in New Iberia to demand justice in the mysterious death of Victor White III.
Friday's Blogs from the Bog!
Home Depot customers warned; appeals court rules against marriage; storm headed to Alaska and more national and international news for Friday, November 07, 2014.
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New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton sounds conflicted when the topic turns to his extraordinary success coaching in the Superdome in recent years.
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Episcopal School of Acadiana placed among the best private schools in Louisiana in a ranking released Monday by Niche.com.
NOV 7 Well, if they're trying to keep people from reading your stuff, you got to be doing something right. Tom Aswell, guest blogging on Bayou Buzz here, says state employees have been forbidden from visiting the site. His feelings aren't hurt; he says he's longed advised them to not visit at work. But, dang, isn't this a little crazy?
NOV 7 This post on LaPolitics Weekly is a look back at the start of the phenomenon, a hot sheet kind of fax that John Maginnis started back in 1993. Interestingly, some of the people featured in that first edition are still being discussed today, Jeremy Alford writes.
NOV 7 The Advocate's Marsha Shuler blogs about the Edwin Edwards victory party this week - it was attended by the infamous Juror 68, who was dismissed from Edwards' federal trial - the one that ended with a prison sentence.
NOV 7 Sure, didn't we all have a visual of Bill Cassidy running for his life when he heard Bobby was on his way over with an endorsement? Mary Landrieu is hoping the governor's endorsement of her opponent hurts him, this post on WWL reports, and she hasn't wasted in any time in reminding people how much they despise Jindal.
NOV 7 Here's a creepy story out of New Orleans on the Picayune site about the fire-bombing of a political operative's car. Mario Zervigon, who is involved in several NOLA-area campaigns, was the target of the attack. His uptown home was heavily damaged as well, but luckily no one was hurt.
NOV 7 In June 2013, a female state legislator stood for Texas women when she stood for 11 hours to filibuster a restrictive abortion law. It started a movement that many hoped would end in her election to the Governor's Mansion, but that didn't happen Tuesday. In this post, blogger (and IND contributor) Lamar White Jr. tells us why that's OK.
NOV 7 It's been a police station and a jail, but now it's falling apart and open to the elements (which include local drug dealers). A new owner wants to turn a Philip Street mansion into a bed and breakfast with a community center, Gambit reports in this post. But will bureaucracy foil her plans?
NOV 7 FroYo may have come up with the next big thing - to celebrate its second anniversary on Canal, the shop is offering King Cake Croissants, NOLA Defender posts here. It sounds good, and it looks good, but with no baby, does that mean we will always have to buy our own?
NOV 6 Here's an interesting (and unbiased, we're sure) look at the "rivalry" between Texas and Louisiana, posted in the Houston Chronicle. Who wins? Well, the first "contest" is for breakfast food, and breakfast tacos beat out beignets. Say what?
NOV 6 Hey, Bobby Jindal isn't going to let anybody get away with hurting Louisiana's coast. In this WWL story, he's calling out BP, accusing the oil giant of spending more money on advertising than on coastal restoration. Dang, that's as bad as trying to block a lawsuit that would hold coastal destroyers responsible for their actions. Or as bad as being paid to run a state and spending all your time in another one. Say, Iowa.
NOV 6 Although the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port is taking in half what it did six years ago, American output is soaring, this post on Bloomberg reports. American oil production has "significantly changed the flows of oil around the world," one expert says.