In what will surely be a losing cause, a Louisiana School Board prepares to allow the teaching of creationism in their science classes. Any opponents to this potential decision will easily win in court. Time and time again, judges have ruled Creationism/Creation Science/Intelligent Design to lack scientific credibility and an attempt to establish religion into schools.
Not only do they lack understanding in science/evolution, they do not seem to understand the legal history of teaching creationism. Board President said in the interview, "Maybe it’s time that we look at this." It has been looked at. Over and over again.
I have tried to think about how I would handle my job if the school board decided to demand that I teach creationism. Since the newest attack of the anti-science crowd is to claim a position of promoting "critical thinking", I believe that would be the best approach. I would gladly take up the offer to critically analyze evolution and creationism. In fact, most good teachers already critically show evolution to their students. I discuss all kinds of experiments, discoveries, and debates within evolutionary biology. I could do the same thing with creationism, but the unit would be much, much shorter. I could show my students how no empirical evidence supports creationism. I could show how almost every claimed fallacy in evolution stems from common misconceptions with what the science really is. Because no experiment has supported the creationist hypothesis, I can move on to the experiments of evolution- my favorite involves breeding foxes for tameness and the appearance of domestic traits we find in dogs.
So, I believe that I could easily handle a mandate to teach creationism in my science classroom. But somehow, I don't think that is what the Livingston Parish School Board had in mind.
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