A bid to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act has failed for the second consecutive year in a Senate committee in Baton Rouge.
A bid to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act has failed for the second consecutive year in a Senate committee in Baton Rouge, falling in a 2-1 vote despite the testimony of the science community and the backing of more than 75 Nobel laureates in the sciences.
The fight to repeal the LSEA, which allows science teachers in public schools in Louisiana to "supplement" their biology curriculum with materials that question Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, has been led by Rice University freshman Zack Kopplin, who was a senior at Baton Rouge Magnet High School last year when the first LSEA-repeal bill was filed. Critics of the act, which biology major Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law in 2008, deride it as a stealth means of inserting Intelligent Design/creationism into public education. No major, mainstream scientific organizations lobbied for the LSEA when it was passed by the Legislature; only the socially conservative Louisiana Family Forum supported the bill.
The bill to repeal the LSEA failed 5-1 last year, and Kopplin says he hopeful based on this year's vote that a third attempt in 2013 to repeal the act will be successful.
For more on the LSEA and the battle over teaching real science, as opposed to pseudo-science, in Louisiana's public school classrooms, read our Dec. 8, 2010 cover story, "Devolve!"