'Historic' education bill in Louisiana (OneNewsNow.com)

'Historic' education bill in Louisiana

Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 7/1/2008 6:00:00 AM

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is being praised for signing what is being hailed as a historic education act.

Jindal recently signed into law the Louisiana Science Education Act, allowing the state's teachers to freely teach the scientific evidence both for and against Darwinian evolution. Casey Luskin, who works public policy and legal affairs with the Discovery Institute, applauds Jindal for signing the law.

"[This law basically] requires the public school system in Louisiana to be friendly towards teachers who want to 'help students understand, analyze, critic, and objectively review scientific theories being studied' – including the scientific theory of evolution," Luskin contends.

However, the law states that teachers must be consistent with the prohibition of the promotion of religion. "Well, the bill does not allow the teaching of religion," Luskin explains, "but there are many legitimate scientific critics of evolution that have a purely scientific basis that you can talk about without having to get into religion at all."

Besides opening the door to critiquing leading theories of evolution, the bill also protects teachers from being harassed, intimidated, and sometimes fired for offering evidence critical of Darwinian theory. Several other states are considering similar legislation.

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Comments on this article:

"The evidence against evolution is rather simple and painfully evident when examined and it is this: Genetic mutation, the core driving force in an organisms that makes evolution possible, has NEVER been scientifically been shown to ever ADD anything to an organism's genetic code. Rather, genetic mutations usually turn up as a lack of something (a missing chromosome for skin pigment for example in albinos). To grandly theorize that one-celled organisms mutated into complex multi-celled organisms is based on circumstantial evidence alone; the smallest evidence of this spontaneous addition to the genetic code has never been shown in a lab. This should cause us all to remember that the theory of evolution is not completely scientifically sound, and should be presented that way to students."
"You really need to do some serious homework if you think that evolution has no evidence against it. If you think it is scientifically solid, it may be because you've been brainwashed over the years of public eduction that only taught evolution to be true and that anyone who said anything against it was a moron. Granted their is some evidence that supports micro-evolution. We should consider the data and evaluate it objectively. As a mathematician I've read about many estimates of the age of the earth and several of them contradict each other. So let's just get in there and be objective. Let's listen to both sides. That's what science and reason are all about (not to mention observability and repeatability - which evolution and dating methods fail to produce)."
"Bravo Governor Jindal. What a novel idea teaching both sides of a theory. Scientific evidence will destroy the theory of devilution. One example, the sun is shrinking at a measurable and consistent with mathematical formulas and has been so ever since these measurements have been taken, mid 1800. If you were to increase the size of the sun based on its shrink size you would find that the sun would be touching the earth about 10 million years ago making it impossible for evolution to happen, not enough time. This is one of a myriad of examples but space does not allow me to list the 100's of examples that exist. At least now the students may get a balanced view of evolution showing all the scientific evidence and I am confident that they will come away seeing that evolution is a hoax put on the people by those trying to find a way to disprove the Holy Scriptures. Agenda over substance which is typical leftist propaganda. Thank you Governor Jindal."
"What we need more than anything is vouchers - that way the public mis-education system would slowly wither away and our children would be saved from that liberal propaganda machine."
"In 1610, the Church found any number of "scientists" to discredit Galileo Galilei's advocacy of Copernicanism (you know - the earth orbits the sun) and "junk science" was born. Apparently, some people have learned nothing since."
"Unfortunately, there is no scientific theory in intelligent design (aka. creationism) because it's a negative argument. This is the nonsense that spins out of selectively reading the bible in a literal (aka. fundamentalist) viewpoint. The bible depicts God's word, but it was written with a 2000 year-old frame of reference, translated multiple times, and the books were selectively chosen. That's why God gave us reason: To find the true meaning behind it and apply that meaning and intent to every aspect of our lives."
"The interesting thing about this bill is that there isn't all that much evidence against the Theory of Evolution at all. In fact, a scientific theory is an idea that has been intensely researched and results have been verified and peer-reviewed. If some teacher in Louisiana can find non-bible-based evidence against the Theory of Evolution, I'd love to hear it. And, according to this law, if it is bible-based "evidence," then it has no place in the classroom."

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