Louisiana: Burning Science at the Stake
By Phil Plait


4.56 billion? You don't look a day over 6000.

Quick background: In 2008, creationist Gov. Bobby Jindal signed the Louisiana Science Education Act into law. If there is a more Orwellian-named law, I’m unaware of it: It’s a blatant attempt to allow educators to teach creationism in public school science classes.

Science advocate Zack Kopplin (who is now 21) has tried to get the law repealed every year, and every year the appeal is denied by the Legislature.

Watching footage of the hearings is, quite simply, brain-exploding. In 2013, one legislator asked if E. coli bacteria would evolve into a human and another talked with dripping contempt for scientists. A third actually advocated using the teachings of a witch doctor in the classroom.

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I’ll be blunt: If I were a university taking applications from students who graduated from Louisiana public schools, I’d cast a careful eye over their application, especially in the sciences. That might be difficult for Louisiana universities, since Jindal is planning on brutally cutting their budgets, but it’s a necessary consequence of this sort of legislative environment.

This is not the students’ fault, of course, but of the Louisiana citizens who vote—or, more likely, don’t vote—at election time.

Voting matters, people. Local elections are critical. Educate yourself on the issues and candidates, and when the time comes, vote for those who stick to evidence-based reasoning. It’s no exaggeration to say our future depends on it.

Dismissing Darwin
Records show teachers and school board members conspiring to teach creationism in public school science class.
By Zack Kopplin


Louisiana’s education tribunal: Gov. Bobby Jindal, Jesus Christ, and state Rep. Valarie Hodges.

When I was a high school senior in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2010, I began a campaign to repeal my state’s “creationism law,” which allows teachers to sneak religion into public school science classes by using materials that criticize evolution. Seventy-eight Nobel laureates and many other prominent scientists and educators have joined me in calling for the repeal of this law, officially known as the Louisiana Science Education Act, and tens of thousands of people have signed petitions against it over the past four years, but so far we’ve failed. Louisiana teachers can still bring religion into public school science classrooms, legally.

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Gov. Bobby Jindal was asked about this law by NBC’s Education Nation and said, “I’ve got no problem if a school board, a local school board, says we want to teach our kids about creationism.” That is in fact why he signed the law.

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Now I have evidence that it’s not just one teacher. I have evidence that religion, not science, is what’s being taught systematically in some Louisiana school systems. I have obtained emails from creationist teachers and school administrators, as well as a letter signed by more than 20 current and former Louisiana science teachers in Ouachita Parish in which they say they challenge evolution in the classroom without legal “tension or fear” because of pro-creationism policies. I’ve found the back door.



I requested a copy of the teacher-signed letter from the Ouachita Parish School Board. The first signature is from Robert Webber, the superintendent of Ouachita Parish Schools, but the school system’s lawyer, Elmer Noah, told me that the letter was not a “school board document” and that the school system didn’t possess it. “I object to your characterization of the document as a public record,” he said.

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From the governor who signed the law to the teachers who implement the policy, everyone recognizes this is about creationism. I told Sen. Appel that I wanted to work with the Senate Education Committee to investigate what was being taught in Louisiana. “I would support that,” he said. I’m working on obtaining copies of Ouachita’s and Central’s curricula and more emails. I’m doing my part. The Senate Education Committee will consider a new bill to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act on Wednesday. I look forward to the legislators doing their part.