The anti-science circus continues in Louisiana. Thanks to Zack Kopplin and others, the bill to repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) almost got out of committee (a 3-2 vote against). It’s an insidious bill that allows public school teachers to use “supplementary materials” to criticize “evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” I wonder what those topics have in common? Why not quantum mechanics or plate tectonics?
The Act also contains an unbelievably duplicitous and weaselly disclaimer:
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.
If you believe that, I have a levee in New Orleans to sell you.
The LSEA, by the way, was supported and signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal, who seems determined to make Republicans, and Louisiana, look ridiculous.
Well thank Ceiling Cat for small favors. But the shenanigans continue in the State of Huey Long. According to a new Slate piece by Kopplin, one Louisiana senator thinks that maybe faith-healing should be taught in schools, too:
Evolution is not the only scientific theory that is controversial to Louisiana politicians. Apparently, modern medicine is also subject to debate. Louisiana state Sen. Elbert Guillory had a novel argument in defense of LSEA: It should not be repealed because he doesn’t want to “prematurely” declare that faith healing is “pseudo-science.”
During this year’s state Senate hearing to repeal LSEA, Guillory explained that he wouldn’t want to keep the “science” behind an experience he had with a witch doctor—who “wore no shoes, was semi-clothed, used a lot of bones that he threw around”—out of a public school science classroom.
Guillory said he is worried that repealing Louisiana’s creationism law will “lock the door on being able to view ideas from many places, concepts from many cultures.” Have no fear, Sen. Guillory, there is a great place for ideas from many cultures: history class, or philosophy or comparative religion classes. Faith healing and creationism are not science, though, and do not belong in a public school science classroom.
Here’s Guillory defending the LSEA by arguing that a half-naked witch doctor throwing bones on the ground helped him medically, even though what the shaman purveyed seems like pseudoscience. This is unbelievable:
Kopplin gives two more videos showing the embarrassing ignorance of Louisiana legislators about science. Here’s Sen. Mike Walsworth reacting to a description of Rich Lenski’s work on bacterial evolution, asking whether those bacteria evolved into a human! Clearly, if they didn’t, then evolution is wrong:
Finally, here’s Kopplin, an indefatigable and courageous young man (now an undergraduate at Rice), testifying at LSEA hearings and enduring the ignorance of Senator Julie Quinn:
Tired of hearing that the campaign to repeal LSEA had been endorsed by 78 Nobel laureate scientists and multiple major science organizations representing tens of millions of scientists worldwide, Quinn explained that the scientists whose discoveries had built our way of life were just people with “little letters” behind their names whom she had no interest in hearing from.
Fortunately, Louisiana senator Karen Carter Peterson is at the table defending all those “little lettered” Nobel Laureates as well as the many science organizations opposed to the LSEA.
Is there any hope for America, or at least Louisiana, with people this ignorant at the helm of government? I’d send them my book, but I doubt it would help. It’s religion that’s putting on the blinders here.
h/t: Randy
Reblogged this on Nightmares of Jesus.
So her law degree is meaningful, but a Ph.D. isn’t? wow
How does someone like that even pass a law degree?
Problem starts with uneducated teachers at elementary level,and it continues on….. The seeds for ignorance and superstition have been passed on for generations.
Those videos are so painful but I liked how Karen Carter Peterson made Senator Julie Quinn listen to the list of scientists all over again after she rolled her eyes the first time.
Zack Kopplin is very good on Real Time with Bill Maher as well: http://youtu.be/T5MBXPVWoFI
Hey Diana
I really enjoyed the link – thanks. If you have any more…
Forgot to mention, they are not only mutilating science,If I heard correctly, they use the bible to teach history too!!!!!!
The simple and often practiced technique of these fanatics is to seek to re-define the meaning of words (often by construing them so widely as to render them meaningless) used by scientists eg science.
The Oxford English dictionary defines science as “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment”
I also understand that experiments and observations have to become repeatedly reliable to survive peer review and become accepted. So theory is backed up by a consistent series of facts that strengthen the theory.
It’s a matter of whether you start with answer or the question. It is truly alarming to observe these people at work. As John McEnroe said “You cannot be serious”.
But…but…but he’s a Rhodes Scholar!
Just after he assisted at an exorcism while he was attending Brown
That’s Our Governor! Really, it could be a sitcom, if weren’t so ridiculous.
Sometimes democracy gives you this miasma of ignorance. Mostly, we in the U. S. generally have muddled through despite the South, which has been morally and politically wrong ever since the Constitution. But the world is changing too fast for democratically-elected ignorance even to pretend to keep up. At some point we must call willful ignorance just what it is: stupidity. And stupidity is the greatest danger to a democracy. In this instance, the danger is that it will spread virulently northward from Louisiana. I suggest a sociopolitical quarantine of the state. What the hell, let’s make it the whole South, with a few ignorance-free zones for universities such as, say, Duke–perilously isolated in the midst of benighted North Carolina.
I’ve considered secession to be a win-win proposition for a long time. Bringing back the Republic of Texas would solve a lot of problems for the rest of us.
Only if kindred spirits in other states first migrate to Texas.
If it happens, we’ll need to make sure to organize an Austin Airlift to ensure that the rationalists in Texas can make it out before the borders would be inevitably closed off.
Walsworth… dear gods and little fishes.
I don’t think he even knows what the word evolution means, never mind the theory of it. That was just embarrassing. Or at least, it should have been, but I suspect he doesn’t know how unbelievably stupid he sounded when he decided to wonder out loud if E. Coli had turned into humans. It’s the sort of thing you would expect a comedian to say if they were trying to make fun of Creationists. And then all the nice tone trolls would complain about how said comedian was grossly caricaturing Christians.
the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) has died in committee for the third year in a row.
The LSEA was enacted in 2008, It is the repeal that has died in committee despite Zack Kopplin’s efforts.
If you live and vote in Louisiana, contact your state representative. Heck, contact them even if you’re not a resident and let them know how damaging this is, and keep an eye on your own state governments
Good luck, Zack.
The hope is to get LSEA repealed. The latest vote was 3-2 against repealing — the silver lining being that we gained one vote for science since the previous repeal vote. Baby steps, I suppose. Zack is amazing; he’s a product of the Baton Rouge public school system.
Correction: the 3-2 vote was to table the latest bill, not a vote on the bill itself. Regardless, it died.
wow. I’m, for once, speechless. Sad. Embarrassing. Wow.
That’s not technically speechless. Although I guess you didn’t say it out loud, so…
Pandering, pandering, pandering…that’s all this is. Well that, and avoiding the tough problems of governance that might expose them as ineffective leaders.
These politicians are pandering to their base in an effort to convince their constituents that they are actually doing something productive. When their no-hope creotard legislation fails, they can blame the other side.
It’s a pantomime of governance – inventing fake problems than attempting to deal with the real problems.
Yes Senator, the bacteria actually evolved into a person. His name is Edward Coli and he is currently working on a run for the Louisana Senate.
Mr. Kopplin deserves our admiration and gratitude. What a fine young person!
In the videos I see several possible bits for the ‘Moment of Zen’ on the John Stewart Daily Show.
I received a solicitation in the mail today for a subscription to the Christian Science Monitor. Now reading this post about the LSEA legislation makes me wonder about the how the word science is bandied around in the media and by the public at large. A quick aside to the Christian Science website, looking for the science in Christian Science, I found – none.
It appears that the word “science” is used like the word “natural”, as in “natural foods” or ”all natural” , which we all know (I hope) has no official meaning , and can be used with impunity as ruse by the food industry. Not unlike the word Organic, until the USDA (and other state agencies) came up with a precise definition and requirement for use of the word as it is applied to food and agriculture. The USDA even has a little green symbol to let us know the product meets the “organic specification”.
Perhaps it is time for a precise National Standard Definition of Science, I see a few good starts by various associations, but there needs to be a national consensus definition and it has to be sanctioned by the U.S. Government – the National Academy of Sciences (without the NOMA crap) for example – and it must be binding throughout the public domain, public schools, and so forth.
They can even come up with some sort of sticker, symbolizing legitimate science.
That’s odd–when I was more active in science writing organizations, I would encounter the Washington-based science editor of the Christian Science Monitor from time to time. He did not seem inhibited in his writing by the Church’s beliefs. However, publications change with time.
(Note: Mark Twain wrote a book, Christian Science, that considered the Church a dangerous cult; he also applied his critical skills polished demolishing James Fennimore Cooper, to demonstrate that Mary Baker Eddy could not have written the Church’s main document–Science & Health With a Key to the Scriptures.)
Sorry about the excess italics. I goofed on the HTML end-of-format code.
Ahh, Louisiana, where they just passed HB 724, a bill to promote student-led prayer in school spaces such as classrooms, auditoriums, or other areas that are not in use at the time. Parents may attend, along with other invited members of the community. The bill passed unanimously in both the House and Senate. The Wall of Separation blog details some of the concerns that Americans United have with the bill.
Watched all 3 vids, and I could actually feel myself getting more stupid. Creationists seemingly are contagious. Thankfully there is a cure – science and education.
Here’s another that’s painful to even listen to, let alone watch. No idea if she’s in LA, but may I suggest that she be quarantined there? She showed such promise as a herpetologist before the accident, too.
Just a point of clarification: it’s the act that’s insidious isn’t it? Not the bill.
The ignorance is absolutely monumental. Real proof that politicians are among the least intelligent of our species.
The videos are astounding and should be kept for future generations to show how the religious mixed with power stifled science and humanity.
Reblogged this on The Ramblings of a Young Atheist and commented:
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been filling my blog with others’ brilliant material so that I am able to free up time for, as you may know, GCSE exam revision. I still have 5 exams left, so I’m afraid this week’s no different… But soon, I will be back. // Anyway, here’s a post from the ‘Why Evolution is True’ blog on ‘The anti-science circus’ of politicians in Louisiana, USA. There’s some prime idiocy on display here, so watch out. // Carnun 😛