a careful piece of "cover your ass"

[acroyear]

Louisiana just passed an "Academic Freedom" bill, which is meant to give teachers the ability to bring in materials outside the core curriculum.  They pretend it is meant to allow them to keep up with newer discoveries and developments, but the reality is that it is solely intended to allow creationists to bring in "criticisms against evolution", all of which comes straight from the creationist handbook.

Louisiana passes first antievolution "academic freedom" law:

The text of the LSEA suggests that it's intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to "assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories." Unfortunately, it's remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects "including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

The introduction of such materials will, of course, mean the local school boards will get sued, and lose, in the very state whose earlier law requiring "equal time" was struck down as promoting religion.  There's reasons we've been calling Academic Freedom bills the new "Dover Trap".  Already there is precedent against any law that singles out "Evolution" in its text (the Cobb County stickers), and the other items are ones where conservatives have become famed for bringing religious arguments rather than scientific ones.

The real curse of it all is how they all claim this is "promoting critical thinking" - critical thinking on a topic is only possible when one actually has all the experience and knowledge in it, which no high school student could possibly have. If you read through the indexcc above, you'll note there's some heavy-duty stuff in there.  As I've written before, it takes 5 seconds to quote a lie about evolution or abiogenesis, but it can take an hour to explain why its a lie, often having to use knowledge a biology student will only get in college courses.

Supporters of the bill are now claiming this new law is "protecting teachers", but this is, of course, utter bullshit.

The only people protected are the legislation and the executive, by that key clause here, "This Section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and 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 non-religion."

If the local governments were really paying attention, they would realize this means they are effectively left to hang on their own - the means for them to get sued are now in their hands, but they then can't turn around and sue and blame the legislation and state for this (to get state funds to pay for the inevitable legal fees), by this touch of Cover Your Ass protection.

Comments

[fiona64.livejournal.com]

objective discussion of scientific theories

The problem here, as always, is that the average person does not seem to understand that a scientific theory is a hypothesis that has been proven. period. They think 'theory" is just an idea or a concept, and that you can argue against it by presenting other theories and hypotheses. Nor do they have the vaguest understanding of how scientific method is used to prove or disprove a hypothesis. The whole situation just irks the crap out of me, because I always find myself having to explain what a scientific theory *is* before I can even get past "evolution is just a theory." Argh.

[just-showtune.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that this wond be a perfect oppurtuinty to teach about all sorts of previously taboo topics such as the latest census data showing the number of minorities, non-2 parent households, same sex households raising children, etc. I mean, just think of the can of worms they've opened up for themselves with this one.

[zammis.livejournal.com]

I ponder this as an opportunity- bring in FSM and introduce the kiddies to His Noodly Appendage.

Or how about studying the Raelians and Human Cloning? Sweet... the chaos possibilities are large.

[uncle-possum.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Louisiana--the state that we left before my son started second grade.

Of course, this now appears to guarantee bringing in alternative theories such as--
attacks on the cell theory of disease, plate tectonics, relativity, and the heliocentric theory;
explanations of math which include nonEuclidean geometry;
alternative political theories such as Marxist socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, as well as non-Marxist socialism;
ethical theories which are not religiously based, such as natural law and utilitaritianism;
medical and biological systems such as the theory of correspondences, or phrenology;
the physics of lawsonomy or phlogiston.
And, of course, this law should allow criticism of the current government of LA, right?

I have always wondered why the hangup on evolution yet the acceptance of modern astronomy, when the Bible clearly refers to Joshua stopping the sun from moving (not the earth from moving around the sun). But that's a different thread.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, non-euclidian geometry is real (parallel lines that always converge or always diverge), but it is not something i'd ever throw at anyone until they get to calc in 3D. :)

oh, and astronomy and geology (which both disprove YEC) are both regularly attacked by creationists - they just don't need to attack them in public schools because they're not taught in schools. hell, the only reason abiogensis is attacked in schools is because of the collective ignorance and FUD created by associating it with evolution when they really are two separate (but related) parts of biology.

in fact, creationists love the "high school" level version of the Big Bang because, well, "let there be light" fits it just fine.