I’ll never understand that. Why would you take something as important as that away from your children? Quite literally, they are the future. Any investment in the mental/physical health of our children is as good as investing money in our future. Education is arguably the most important aspect of our infrastructure ….

http://www.kirkusreviews.com/kirkusreviews/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003646777

“Still, in the end, it is Darwinism that raises the interesting questions, which is what good science is all about.
Substantive food for thought about natural selection and universal common descent, and surprisingly rich for so concise a treatment.”

(Kirkus can get things wrong- no doubt. But I see no reason to think this is the case here)

As Howe points out- it might be more of a ‘freedom for teachers to teach’ act.

Second this will not make much of a difference in whether or not Creationism/ID will be taught in classrooms. It already is being taught in the classrooms of many of the teachers who lean that way ideologically. For example my brother was told by his teacher in fifth grade that the reason the dinosaurs went extinct was that Noah wouldn’t let them eat the other animals after they got off the ark, this was not some misunderstood joke or a nonsense answer, she actually believed this to be true. The local schools many times will turn a blind eye to this sort of thing until some parent gets upset, which seems to happen very rarely.

I myself was lucky enough to have had very excellent science teachers for most of my schooling, but in the middle school (7th-8th grade) I attended the principle said a prayer every Monday and Friday morning over the intercom. This was not in the 40s or 50s this was in the early 90s. This only stopped after a parent threatened to sue, at which point a “student organization” began giving the morning prayer, which was somehow alright as long as they didn’t say “Jesus”.

Now I love my home state very dearly but one thing that many people don’t realize is that in many ways it is two states. The southern portion where most of the population is heavily french and spanish influenced and very multicultural, most of the technological infrastructure is located, and protestants (especially fundamentalist) are the minority. And the northern portion which is primarily agrarian, with a large percentage of the population white and protestant, have more in common with Texas and Arkansas, and are firmly planted in the bible belt.

This fact is very important in understanding Louisiana’s politics. Any politician in Louisiana has to play to both sides if he wants to get much of anything done, it’s a sad fact, but that is how it is. To further complicate things the overly complex state constitution all but spells out that if there is a budget shortfall that money should be taken from education. While this is a terrible thing, the one advantage of this is that state funds will not likely be used to purchase any Creationism/ID materials for classes.

I’m not saying this to defend this bill, or the governor, but to say that those of us that are opposed to the slow creep of ID into our school systems should not view this as a loss or defeat. Instead we should see this as them coming more into the open. They have made themselves a larger and easier target. Most people are unaware of the way things have been in Louisiana and by doing this all they have really done is draw attention to themselves, but they have not succeeded in forcing any teachers who were not already in the ID camp to join them. In a way this may be a strategic victory for the pro-science camp since the many good teachers in the state now have their hands slightly less bound and the pro-ID teachers will be easier to find.

Also, I kind of like the idea of kids going home and teaching their parents about science. Even if it’s just helping their kids with homework, the process requires parents, who haven’t thought about this sort of thing since high school, contemplate science! What could be better! And if they’re actually learning something about the scientific process, rather than just mindless facts, maybe they’ll be less inclined to buy into the political idea that ID has some place in schools’ curriculums.

The switch from the label ‘creationism’ to ‘intelligent design’ was predicated on the need to make it less obviously a religious idea, which wasn’t enjoying much success, and make it more sciency-sounding, which makes it easier to sell, because it’s easier to obfuscate the fact it’s merely creationism wearing a lab coat it has not earned.

A court precedent has been established, in Kitzmiller v. Dover, decided against the creationist/ID case:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover_decision.html