Pro-Controversy Act Made Law In Louisiana

PRO-CONTROVERSY ACT MADE LAW IN LOUISIANA - (Print)

This week marks the anniversary of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” (July 10-25, 1925), and folks are getting busy to celebrate down in Dayton, Tennessee where it all went down. Of course, the trial was quite a lot different than the play "Inherit the Wind" that is taught so faithfully in high schools across the nation – but most people don’t know that. Most people just know that a well-known battle in the Creation/Evolution debate occurred in Dayton that July of 1925. And, even though John T. Scopes was declared “guilty,” the trial was really a propaganda win for the side of the evolutionists.

Of course the war isn't over. This week, 83 years later, we Americans are still arguing over what our public school teachers are allowed to teach our kids about origins. In 1925, the trial was about whether teachers could legally teach that men descended from monkeys. Today, it’s just the opposite – will teachers be legally allowed to question Darwinian orthodoxy?

In Louisiana this week, Governor Bobby Jindal has opened himself to a whole hurrah of criticism from the liberal community because he has signed into a law a state bill that basically allows academic freedom when it comes to controversial subjects like evolution or global warming. The law does not mandate the teaching of anything. It merely allows teachers to teach the controversies, a long as they do so objectively without an attempt to promote religious doctrine.

The law states that school districts may allow teachers to "use supplementary textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner." Controversial issues that can be handled include Darwinian evolution, cloning, and global warming. The school district can still control which supplemental materials are used, but the law gives teachers and school districts more working room for informing students about difficult topics.

The new Science Education Act received widespread support from both parties and only three legislators voted against it. Several scientists testified in favor of the new law. Yet, a notably liberal faction tried to defeat the bill by demeaning it as an effort to get religion into schools. As attorney Michael Wolf told the Baton Rouge Press Club, "This does nothing but ruin the image of our state... basically by dumbing down [science education and political discourse]. It's political pandering."

Interestingly enough, the law’s biggest opponent was Humanist and atheist Barbara Forrest. It has come to the point in America where religion is equated with anti-science, which is ridiculous. Some of the greatest scientists in recent centuries have been theists who saw science as an effort to explain God’s creation.

"Liberal" used to mean open and generous. What today is called "liberalism" is not so. The narcissistic, hedonistic, anti-God worldview that has had a stranglehold on public schools, and especially the public university system, is anything but liberal. True liberal thought would hold open the doors of young minds to carefully and honestly weigh evidence – wherever it leads. That has often not been the case. When it comes to highly charged political issues like evolution or global warming, dissenting views are often shoved off the stage without apology.

As John G. West recently noted on National Review Online,

"Opponents allege that the Louisiana Science Education Act is 'anti-science.' In reality, the opposition’s efforts to silence anyone who disagrees with them is the true affront to scientific inquiry. Students need to know about the current scientific consensus on a given issue, but they also need to be able to evaluate critically the evidence on which that consensus rests. They need to learn about competing interpretations of the evidence offered by scientists, as well as anomalies that aren’t well explained by existing theories."

Scientific understanding is always in a state of flux. We are constantly learning new things about our world, and narrow views about what is and what isn’t “science” only slows scientific progress. Scientists need to be willing to follow the facts wherever they lead - even if they are found to point to God.

Related Links:

• Louisiana Confounds the Science Thought Police - National Review Online
• Evolutionists Fear Academic Freedom - Townhall.com
• Great Questions Of Human Destiny Don't Change; Science's Answers Do - Tennessean.com
• Science Law's 2 Sides Debated In Baton Rouge - The Times-Picayune
• Creation/Evolution Study Resources - Koinonia House