Science magazine urgently contacted us several days ago allegedly to get our take on the Louisiana Science Education Act passed by the state’s legislature and awaiting the governor’s signature. (A bill opposed by the AAAS, publishers of Science.) The reporter interviewed CSC’s John West for upwards of an hour seemingly trying to get the facts straight. Then she called back with an urgent request for a picture of the cover of Explore Evolution: The Case For and Against Neo-Darwinism. One wonders why she bothered.

Science has a story in their latest issue that is in lock step with their typical Darwin only approach to science education policy. It leads with a from Darwin defender Barbara Forrest, puts the words academic freedom in scare quotes, and then inserts a quote from LA. Governor Jindal that was not about, nor had anything to do with, the LSEA. Finally they round it out with attacks from critics, nicely referred to as science educators.

“Science educators say the new wording is intended simply to circumvent rulings by U.S. courts that creationism and intelligent design are unconstitutional religious intrusions into a public school science curriculum.”

Never mind that they ignored us. But, what about the science educators who testified in support of the act? What do they say? Dr. Caroline Crocker, a noted skeptic of Darwinism, and Professors of Biology Dr. Wade Warren and Dr. Brenda Pierson of Louisiana College all spoke on behalf of the LSEA and in support of teaching students both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Dr. Pierson summed it up pretty well:

“The bottom line is this: science is complicated, often controversial, but oh so interesting. We need to be academically honest when discussing scientific theories and searching for scientific truth. Teachers deserve the freedom to present the evidence for controversial theories and also the evidence against them.”

And what about the bill itself, what does it say? Again, let me quote from Section 1D:

“it shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.”

So, the reporter waste her time as well as ours and files a report that doesn’t even mention Discovery Institute or cite any of the points we made. And of course it doesn’t cite anything responding to the critics of the bill, least of all the section of the legislation that prohibits any promotion of religion.
Oh yeah, they do use a graphic of Explore Evolution that they urgently demanded as well–with dismissive caption that doesn’t even describe the book. Well, I guess at least we can describe Explore Evolution as “featured in Science.”