Last year, Louisiana passed the Louisiana Science Education Act,
a law that many scientists and educators said was a thinly
veiled attempt to allow creationism and its variants into the
science classroom. On Tuesday, the state's Board of Elementary
and Secondary Education adopted a policy that sharpens those
fears, giving teachers license to use materials outside of the
regular curriculum to teach "controversial" scientific theories
including evolution, origins of life, and global warming.
Backers of the law, including the Louisiana Family Forum, say it
is intended to foster critical thinking in students. Opponents
insist its only purpose is to provide a loophole for
creationists to attack the teaching of evolution. "We fully
expect to see the Discovery Institute's book, Explore Evolution,
popping up in school districts across the state*," says Barbara
Forrest, a philosopher at Southeastern Louisiana University in
Hammond. The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank, is
a proponent of Intelligent Desi