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Bobby Jindal’s Science Problem, Romney’s Education Surrogate promotes
creationist nonsense in schools
By Kenneth R. Miller <http://www.slate.com/authors.kenneth_r_miller.html>|
*http://tinyurl.com/chdb8lv*
* *
It’s an election year, and plenty of things seem to matter to voters,
including health care, the budget, unemployment, and women’s rights. But
this year, as always, one of the things that doesn’t seem to matter is
science. That’s particularly troubling because just about every challenge
that America faces today has a scientific component, from revitalizing the
economy to dealing with climate change to managing health care.
Science took a beating in the primary season this year. Leading candidates
made it clear that they rejected climate science (Herman Cain and Rick
Perry), thought that vaccines caused mental retardation (Michele Bachmann),
and didn’t “believe” in evolution (a bunch of them, most prominently Rick
Santorum). One candidate, John Huntsman, bravely tweeted, “I believe in
evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” To
scientists, Huntsman’s candor was “right
on!<http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/08/18/huntsmans-campaign-calls-out-perry-on-science-denial/>”
To Republican primary voters, apparently he was crazy.
At least, for the second presidential election in a row, both major party
candidates are on record as accepting the science of
evolution<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/romney-elaborates-on-evolution/>,
the cornerstone of the biological sciences. But let’s not celebrate just
yet. One of those candidates still has to make a vice presidential pick,
and one of the leading contenders for that job has a public record on
science that’s crystal clear—and deeply troubling. It’s Bobby Jindal,
governor of Louisiana.
Jindal has an elite résumé. He was a biology major at my school, Brown
University, and a Rhodes scholar. He knows the science, or at least he
ought to. But in his rise to prominence in Louisiana, he made a bargain
with the religious right and compromised science and science education for
the children of his state. In fact, Jindal’s actions at one point persuaded
leading scientific organizations, including the Society for Integrative and
Comparative Biology <http://www.sicb.org/>, to cross New Orleans off their
list of future meeting sites
(PDF<http://www.sicb.org/resources/LouisianaLetterJindal.pdf>
).
What did Jindal do to produce a hornet’s nest of “mad
scientists<http://blog.nola.com/jamesgill/2009/02/mad_scientists.html>,”
as *Times-Picayune* writer James Gill described them? He signed into law,
in Gill’s words, the “Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), which is
named for what it is designed to destroy.” The act allows “supplemental
textbooks and other instructional materials” to be brought into classrooms
to support the “open and objective discussion” of certain “scientific
theories,” including, of course, evolution. As educators who have heard
such coded language before quickly realized, the act was intended to
promote creationism as science. In April, Kevin Carman, dean of the College
of Science at Louisiana State University, testified before the Louisiana
Senate’s Education Committee that two top scientists had rejected offers to
come to LSU because of the LSEA, and the school may lose more scientists in
the future.
And now Jindal is poised to spend millions of dollars of state money to
support the teaching of creationism in private schools.
The state of Louisiana has had a problem with evolution for a long, long
time. In 1981, it passed a “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and
Evolution-Science Act,” which required the teaching of creation science
alongside “evolution-science” in public schools. The Supreme Court struck
it down in 1987 (in *Edwards v.
Aguillard*<http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1986/1986_85_1513/>),
finding that creationism is inherently religious, and that the law’s
“preeminent religious purpose” placed it in violation of the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Case closed? Not really.
When Jindal stepped into Republican politics in Louisiana, he had a choice
to make. He could defend mainstream science, which sees evolution as the
powerful, strongly supported, and widely tested theory that it is today. Or
he could have joined the doubters and deniers that populate the electorate
in his party. Campaigning for the governorship in 2007, Jindal touted his
Christian faith, shied away from specific statements about evolution, and
emphasized his commitment to local control of education. Louisianans didn’t
have to wait long to find out what this meant for science.
Jindal signed the LSEA into law in 2008, endorsing the thinly veiled
attempt to allow creationism into the science classrooms of his state. The
backers of the law made it clear that material on intelligent design would
be high on the list of supplemental materials that local boards and
teachers could present to their students. Intelligent design is the
re-labeled form of creationism that a federal court in Pennsylvania threw
out of classrooms in the 2005 *Dover v. Kitzmiller*
decision<http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2005/12/is_creationism_destructible.html>.
The National Academy of Sciences has identified intelligent design as “not
science” <http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309064066&page=25> because
it is “not testable by the methods of science.” The National Academy of
Science’s opinion carried little weight with the Ivy League bio major.
In a 2008 interview on CBS’s *Face the
Nation*<http://crooksandliars.com/2008/06/15/face-the-nation-jindal-thinks-intelligent-design-should-be-taught-with-evolution>,
Jindal said that he wanted students “to be presented with the best
thinking, I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves, I want
them to see the best data. … I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to
the very best science. I don't want any facts or theories or explanations
to be withheld from them because of political correctness.” The problem, of
course, is that if the “best science,” in the view of a local school board,
includes creationism, the students in that school system are being cheated.
Presenting an idea that has no scientific support as if it were the equal
of a thoroughly tested scientific theory is academic dishonesty of the
rankest sort. Indeed, this is why Jindal’s own genetics professor at Brown
University, National Academy member Arthur Landy, advised him to veto the
LSEA, advice Jindal ignored.
Today, one might hope that Jindal, having established himself as a force in
his party, might be willing to spend just a little of his political capital
to take a stand on the side of science. No such luck. In fact, things are
getting substantially worse. This year Louisiana established a scholarship
program to allow students from underperforming public schools to receive
state tuition aid in the form of vouchers to attend private schools.
Whatever the merits of this program might be, observers in the state were
stunned when they saw some of the schools on the list of those eligible to
accept the vouchers. They include a school whose students will be taught to
“discern and refute the lies commonly found in textbooks,” including, of
course, evolution. Another school prepares students to “defend creationism
through evidence presented by the Bible,” and yet another assures students
that no instruction is included in its textbooks “that would conflict with
young earth creationism.”
According to Zack Kopplin, a blogger and college student who is monitoring
the implementation of the voucher
program<http://www.repealcreationism.com/697/stop-governor-jindals-creationist-voucher-program-before-governor-romney-takes-it-nationwide/>,
at least 20 schools may qualify for as much as $11 million of taxpayer
money to teach creationism to Louisiana students when school starts at the
end of the summer. What this means, in plain language, is that Gov. Jindal
has given wholehearted support to a program that will use public money to
teach scientific nonsense to the young people of his state.
Jindal has recently appeared on television as the Romney campaign’s
designated education
surrogate<http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/05/bobby_jindal_romneys_man_on_ed.html>.
This means that Jindal’s approach to science miseducation may soon extend
well past the borders of Louisiana.
Imagine, for a moment, that Jindal becomes the vice presidential nominee.
Given his track record in Louisiana, can we expect a sudden shift in favor
of scientific integrity and quality science education? I’d like to believe
that Jindal’s courting of the creationist vote in his state has been
nothing more than a matter of political expediency. Maybe once he faces a
national audience, he’ll shake that Etch A Sketch and make his peace with
science. We’ll see. But the times are critical, the record isn’t promising,
and Jindal’s legacy in Louisiana schools has been shameful.
--
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Martin Weiss, PhD
Senior Scientist
New York Hall of Science
mweiss at nyscience.org
cell 347-460-1858
desk 718 595 9156
--
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