Support for the effort to repeal Louisiana's anti-evolution law is mounting. The American Institute for Biological Sciences, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology, the Louisiana Association of Biology Educators, the Louisiana Science Teachers Association, the National Association of Biology Teachers, and the Society for the Study of Evolution together with the Society of Systematic Biologists and the American Society of Naturalists have all endorsed Louisiana's Senate Bill 70, which if enacted would repeal Louisiana Revised Statutes 17.285.1, which implemented the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008. All of these statements are posted at the Louisiana Coalition for Science's website.
That should be enough to get the attention of the legislators who passed the stupid bill, but who can tell?
A real hero in the fight for repeal of the bill is Zack Kopplin, a high school student from Baton Rouge. His website is Repeal Creationism.
The Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 should be renamed to the Louisiana Non-Science Education Act. The law disgraces and embarrasses all but the ignorant amongst us.
The text of the act may be found here.
D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.
And the above statement from the text is nothing more than a load of BS.
Thank you MImi. Louisiana children will be ill-served by these anti-science laws if they take hold. How can we compete internationally if our children reject science?
ReplyDeleteBTW it is perfectly possible to believe in evolution and believe that God made it happen-- intelligent design, aka creationism, tries to argue it's an either or but it's not. Google the website "Evolutionary Christianity" for refreshing conversation on the topic.
BTW it is perfectly possible to believe in evolution and believe that God made it happen--
ReplyDeleteIT, that's what I've believed my whole life, and in my 16 years of Roman Catholic schooling, I was never taught that there was a conflict between faith and evolution.
Most mainline faith groups do not see a conflict. It's manufactured by the evangelical/fundamentalist side. The danger is that organizations like the Discovery Institute claim that there is scientific evidence that points to an obligate "entity" or "creator". They further claim that evolutionary theory attacks religion. It doesn't of course. It is simply not necessary to invoke a God to explain evolution. That doesn't preclude one crediting God if one so chooses.
ReplyDeleteThe false conflict between faith and science is actually largely set up by the fundamentalists to justify their anti-intellectualism. most scientists don't think about it (Dawkins is an exception) as we have other things to worry about.
When I first heard the fundamentalist drivel, I thought, "Whaaat! Where does this come from?!!"
ReplyDeletein my 16 years of Roman Catholic schooling, I was never taught that there was a conflict between faith and evolution.
ReplyDeleteThere are those Popoids, given a platform on EWTN, trying to change that however. (I wish I were kidding)
Where did those Popoids come from? Not even in the days of Pius XII...
ReplyDelete