Anti-Evolution "Academic Freedom" Bill Passed In Louisiana

Ars Technica is running a story about recently enacted legislation in Louisiana which will allow school board officials to "approve supplemental classroom materials specifically for the critique of scientific theories" such as evolution and global warming. The full text of the Act (PDF) is also available. Quoting: "The text of the [Louisiana Science Education Act] suggests that it's intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to 'assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories.' Unfortunately, it's remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects 'including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.'"

Comments

Re:Weren't schools were supposed to do that alread

[sqldr]

You can say that all you want, but there's always modus ponens, and (the related) modus tollens.

Don't dispute that. But that's bordering on philosophy.


your unenlightened (but surely popular) rant.

So I'm unenlightened, in spite of being a former catholic Christian via indoctrination, having read the entire Bible (at which point I became a sceptic), before going on to read Kant, Descartes, Simon Blackburn and John Gray, having the audacity and rationally derived confidence to risk the possibility of going to hell for denying the holy spirit (I DENY THE HOLY SPIRIT, fuck you God. hah, did it. wasn't hard), then having the enlightenment to question what I'd always "known" because I was brought up that way? Pull the other one. The definition of the enlightenment era was funnily enough when scientific reason finally got to trump religious solipsism.

So let's assume that the Bible is utterly false

No, don't do that - amongst its camp-fire mutated whimsical musings, it does describe actual historical events. It's the job of archaelogists to determine which ones are true and which aren't, and it's the job of philosophers and critics to find poetic wisdom within it which we can all appreciate.

knowing the Bible was false would imply that "science" was true.

The whole POINT of science is the persuit of truth. If someone proves someone else's scientific theory wrong, it's welcomed. Go and disprove evolution - you'll be famous.

I find it VERY scary when charlatans with no sound knowledge of logic try to defend science.

No sound knowlege of logic. I refer to the introspection of Descartes above, which took a huge amount of logic to derive "cogito ergo sum".