NCSE Evolution and Climate Education Update for 2013/03/22

(by NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch)

Dear Friends of NCSE,

The Baton Rouge Advocate endorses the effort to repeal Louisiana's
antievolution law. NCSE's Eugenie C. Scott is named as the Rosenblatt
Lecturer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for 2013. A
proposed revision to the British national curriculum would eliminate
any discussion of climate change at the primary level. And a bill to
repeal the antievolution law in Louisiana is prefiled -- will the
third time be the charm?

BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE ENDORSES REPEAL EFFORT

In a March 20, 2013, editorial, the Baton Rouge Advocate editorially
endorsed Louisiana's Senate Bill 26, which if enacted would repeal the
so-called Louisiana Science Education Act. "Ostensibly, the law is to
allow divergent opinions to be taught in public school classrooms
about evolution and global warming, among other topics," the editorial
explained. "But in reality, it is cover for introducing religious
views into science classrooms."

The editorial noted, "A leader of the anti-creationism forces is Rice
University student Zack Kopplin, a Baton Rouge native who noted that
the questioning of evolution provokes widespread criticism and
ridicule of the state," and mentioned that he recruited seventy-eight
Nobel laureates in the sciences to endorse the repeal effort. Kopplin
received NCSE's Friend of Darwin award in 2012 in recognition of his
efforts.

Senate Bill 26 was prefiled in the Louisiana Senate by Karen Carter
Peterson (D-District 5) on March 12, 2013. It is the third attempt to
repeal the Louisiana's antiscience bill, following SB 70 in 2011 and
SB 374 in 2012. Also endorsing the repeal effort in Louisiana are the
Louisiana Association of Biology Educators, the Louisiana Coalition
for Science, and the New Orleans City Council.

For the editorial in the Baton Rouge Advocate, visit:
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/5482640-123/our-views-a-new-effort 

For Louisiana's Senate Bill 26 (PDF), visit:
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=828787&n=SB26%20Original 

And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Louisiana, visit:
http://ncse.com/news/louisiana 

NCSE'S SCOTT NAMED AS ROSENBLATT LECTURER

NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott was awarded the Richard H.
and Glenda G. Rosenblatt Lectureship in Evolutionary Biology at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography for 2013. According to Scripps,
"The Rosenblatt Lecturer is selected for current, outstanding
scientific contributions in evolutionary biology." Previous lecturers
include Jonathan Losos, Tim White, Francisco Ayala, Neil Shubin,
Richard E. Lenski, Dolph Schluter, and Geerat Vermeij, of whom two,
Losos and Lenski, are members of NCSE, and two, White and Ayala, are
members of NCSE's Advisory Council. Scott will be presenting "In the
Beginning: Science, Religion, and Origins" as her Rosenblatt lecture
at 3:00 p.m. on April 2, 2013, at the Robert Paine Scripps Forum for
Science, Society, and the Environment (Scripps Seaside Forum) on the
Scripps Oceanography campus, 8610 Kennel Way in La Jolla, California.
The event is free and the public is invited; seating is available on a
first come, first served basis.

For a press release about the lecture from Scripps, visit:
http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1332 

CLIMATE EDUCATION TO BE AXED IN BRITAIN?

"Debate about climate change has been cut out of the national
curriculum for children under 14," reports the Guardian (March 17,
2013), referring to a new draft of the British national curriculum
currently under development. While the existing curriculum explicitly
discusses sustainable development and "its impact on environmental
interaction and climate change" in the section on geography, the draft
curriculum is silent about climate change in the section of geography,
containing only a single reference to carbon dioxide's influence on
the climate in the chemistry section.

David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the government, told
the Guardian that he suspected political interference with the
curriculum, adding, "It would be absurd if the issues around
environmental pollution weren't core to the curriculum.I think we
would be abdicating our duty to future generations if we didn't teach
these things in the curriculum." John Ashton, a former Special
Representative for Climate Change to the Foreign Secretary, insisted,
"Climate change should have as much prominence as anything in teaching
geography in schools."

But the proposed changes were not universally opposed. Rita Gardner,
the director of the Royal Geographical Society, told the Guardian, "In
the past, in some instances, young people were going to start on
climate change without really knowing about climate. ... What we have
got [in the new draft] is a much better grounding in geography, and it
has the building blocks for a much better understanding of climate
change and sustainability." And a spokesperson for the Department for
Education emphasized, "All children will learn about climate change."

Subsequently, the Guardian (March 18, 2013) described a "backlash"
against the proposed changes, citing opposition from People and
Planet, the National Union of Students, the University and College
Union, the UK Climate Coalition, Greenpeace UK, and Friends of the
Earth. Doug Bourn, director of the development education research
center at the Institute of Education, told the newspaper that with the
omission of any mention of climate change in the curriculum, "The
danger is that it will now not be taught at all or that the vacuum
could be filled by people who are not positive about it, like
deniers."

Writing in the Independent (March 19, 2013), Sarah Lester of the
Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London
expressed anger over the proposed change, remarking, "To learn
effectively about climate change, and to allow students to critically
assess the evidence on climate change themselves, they should learn
about the physics and chemistry of the climate system and also the
geographical impacts and societal responsibilities of mitigating
climate change." She added, "the basic principles of climate change
science and energy mitigation must be taught in schools."

For the stories in the Guardian, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/17/climate-change-cut-national-curriculum 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/18/climate-change-schools-backlash 

For Sarah Lester's column in the Independent, visit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-its-a-mistake-to-trim-climate-change-from-the-curriculum-8540423.html 

And for NCSE's previous coverage of events overseas, visit:
http://ncse.com/news/international 

REPEAL EFFORT REVIVED AGAIN IN LOUISIANA

Senate Bill 26, prefiled in the Louisiana Senate on March 12, 2013,
and provisionally referred to the Senate Committee on Education,
would, if enacted, repeal Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:285.1, which
implemented the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act, passed and
enacted in 2008. The bill was introduced by Karen Carter Peterson
(D-District 5), who sponsored the identical SB 70 in 2011 and SB 374
in 2012. The Senate Committee on Education voted 5-1 to shelve SB 70
in 2011 and voted 2-1 to shelve SB 374 in 2012; Zack Kopplin, the
student who spearheaded the repeal effort, said in a March 18, 2013,
press release, "We believe that this spring we can muster the votes we
need to pass" the repeal bill.

The law targeted for repeal calls on state and local education
administrators to help to promote "critical thinking skills, logical
analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories
being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of
life, global warming, and human cloning"; these four topics were
described as controversial in the original draft of the legislation.
It also allows teachers to use "supplemental textbooks and other
instructional materials to help students understand, analyze,
critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner" if so
permitted by their local school boards. A sponsor of the bill told the
Hammond Daily Star (April 6, 2008) that the bill was aimed at
promoting the discussion of "scientific data related to creationism."

Since 2008, antievolutionists have not only sought to undermine the
law's provision allowing challenges to unsuitable supplementary
materials but have also reportedly invoked the law to support
proposals to teach creationism in at least two parishes -- Livingston
and Tangipahoa -- and to attack the treatment of evolution in biology
textbooks proposed for adoption by the state. Meanwhile, the Society
of Vertebrate Paleontology urged Louisianans to repeal the law in
2008, and the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology decided
to hold its conferences elsewhere while the law remains on the books
(relenting only in the case of New Orleans after the Orleans Parish
School Board prohibited the teaching of creationism in its science
classes).

Endorsers of the repeal effort include a group of seventy-eight Nobel
laureates in the sciences (representing nearly 40% of living Nobel
laureates in the science), the National Association of Biology
Teachers, the Louisiana Association of Biology Educators, the
Louisiana Coalition for Science, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Biological
Sciences, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
the American Society for Cell Biology, the Society for the Study of
Evolution together with the Society of Systematic Biologists and the
American Society of Naturalists, the Clergy Letter Project, the New
Orleans City Council, and the Baton Rouge Advocate.

For Louisiana's Senate Bill 26 (PDF), visit:
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=828787&n=SB26%20Original 

For the press release from Zack Kopplin's Repeal Creationism, visit:
http://www.repealcreationism.com/733/733/ 

For the story from the Hammond Daily Star, visit:
http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2008/04/06/top_stories/9327.txt 

And for NCSE's previous coverage of events in Louisiana, visit:
http://ncse.com/news/louisiana 

Thanks for reading. And don't forget to visit NCSE's website --
http://ncse.com -- where you can always find the latest news on 
evolution and climate education and threats to them.

-- 
Sincerely,

Glenn Branch
Deputy Director
National Center for Science Education, Inc.
420 40th Street, Suite 2
Oakland, CA 94609-2509
510-601-7203 x305
fax: 510-601-7204
800-290-6006
branch@ncse.com 
http://ncse.com 

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