Evolution and climate education update: May 31, 2013

From the National Center for Science Education

BACK TO 1981 IN LOUISIANA

At its May 29, 2013, meeting, the Louisiana House Committee on Education declined to endorse the attempt to repeal Louisiana’s Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act.  Enacted in 1981, the Balanced Treatment act was declared to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Edwards v.  Aguillard in 1987, but remains in the state’s statutes nevertheless.  At the May 1, 2013, meeting of the Senate Committee on Education, Dan Claitor (R-District 16) proposed to amend Senate Bill 205 — which originally provided only for the establishment of foreign language immersion programs in public school districts—to repeal the act; the amendment was unanimously adopted by the committee on a voice vote.

The amendment followed on the heels of the failure of Senate Bill 26, which would have repealed the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act. Karen Carter Peterson (D-District 5), who introduced SB 26 (and identical bills in 2012 and 2011), was quoted by the Associated Press (May 13, 2013) as saying, “This act should not be on the books … It does not make sense.” Peterson also proposed to amend SB 205 to repeal the LSEA, but her motion was rejected on a 5-32 vote. Ben Nevers (D-District 12), who sponsored the LSEA in the Senate in 2008, expressed opposition to the repeal of the Balanced Treatment Act, arguing that it would be useful for it to be on the books in case the Edwards decision is ever reversed.

At the House committee’s meeting, discussion centered on the provisions concerning the foreign language immersion programs. Asked about the repeal provision, the bill’s sponsor Eric LaFleur (D-District 28) described it as “oddball,” and indicated that he would not object if it were to be removed. Eventually Rob Shadoin (R-District 12) proposed to remove the provision repealing the Balanced Treatment Act; his amendment was adopted by voice vote, and the amended bill then passed 7-6. SB 205 now proceeds to the House of Representatives. If it passes, either the Senate will concur with the removal of the repeal provision or the bill will go to a conference committee. The legislative session ends on June 6, 2013.

For information on Louisiana’s Senate Bills 205 and 26, visit:

http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=13RS&b=SB205

http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=13RS&b=SB26

For the text of the decision in Edwards v. Aguillard, visit:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard.html

For the Associated Press story (via the Lafayette Advertiser), visit:

http://www.theadvertiser.com/viewart/20130513/NEWS01/305130021/Senate-rejects-attempt-kill-Louisiana-Science-Act

And for NCSE’s previous coverage of events in Louisiana, visit:

http://ncse.com/news/louisiana

“CLIMATE SCIENCE IS CORE TO SCIENCE EDUCATION”

The American Meteorological Society, in a policy statement adopted on May 23, 2013, affirmed the importance of climate science to science education. The AMS criticized attempts to undermine the teaching of climate change “by those seeking to frame it as somehow different from other scientific subjects, often with claims that it is either ‘uncertain’ or ‘controversial.’ They advocate the need for a special approach to its teaching, such as added effort to balance perspectives.” “With this statement, the AMS seeks to confirm the solid scientific foundation on which climate change science rests, and to emphasize that teaching approaches different from other sciences are not warranted. Uncertainty is a natural component of all scientific endeavor. The existence of uncertainty does not undermine the scientific validity of climate change science; to the contrary, it provides a sound example for broader instruction of the scientific method.”

The statement continues by reviewing the scientific basis of climate science (“The primary findings of climate change science have been well established in the peer-reviewed science literature and replicated by numerous independent investigators and methodologies.  … There are small scientific differences as research continues to refine the details, but there is strong agreement on the primary findings and essentially no controversy with respect to them.”) and debunking the idea that it is inherently dubious (“Scientists acknowledge and work routinely within a framework of uncertainty. …  Aspects of climate science such as the greenhouse effect, the flows of solar and terrestrial radiation, and feedbacks are as scientifically sound as gravity, the human genome, or orbital mechanics.”) “Climate literacy in the next generation of U.S. citizens,” the AMS concluded, “will ensure a firm foundation of knowledge and discourse as society faces decisions on how to best deal with a changing climate.”

For the statement, visit:

http://www.ametsoc.org/POLICY/2013climatesciencecorescienceeducation_amsstatement.html

For NCSE’s collection of organizational statements in support of climate education, visit:

http://ncse.com/climate/taking-action/voices-climate-change-education

A GLIMPSE OF THE DAWN OF THE DEED

NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview of John A. Long’s The Dawn of the Deed: The Prehistoric Origins of Sex (University of Chicago Press, 2012). The preview consists of chapter 8, “At the Dawn of Archaic Sex,” in which Long asks, “So when and why did organisms first start reproducing by sex?” and answers with the first eukaryotes “1.78 to 1.68 billion years ago,” and because sexual populations “can adapt more readily to changes in environment .. [and] are less prone to accumulation of deleterious mutations in their genes.”

The reviewer for Publishers Weekly writes, “Combining thoughtful science with sheer fun, this book is impossible to put down. … The book is far from prurient, even though it’s intriguing to hypothesize how 70-ton dinosaurs might have copulated. Long provides great insight into the process of science and makes the compelling case that understanding the history of sexual congress offers incontrovertible documentation of the evolutionary process.” John A. Long is vice president of research and collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

For the preview of The Dawn of the Deed (PDF), visit:

http://ncse.com/book-excerpt

For information about the book from its publisher, visit:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo13183022.html

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.

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Sincerely,