Louisiana's "academic freedom" bill will be reaching Governor Bobby Jindal's desk—and odds are he's going to sign it, say those in the know. The Senate voted 36 to 0 yesterday to pass the same version of the bill that the House passed last week by a vote of 94 to 3. The Louisiana Science Education Act, as it's called, would allow science teachers to supplement science textbooks with material "that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning." Critics, however, see the bill as an attempt to sneak religious theories like creationism and "intelligent design" into the science classroom.
Check out the open letter to Jindal written by the Louisiana Coalition for Science, and the analysis of the bill written by the group's best-known member, Barbara Forrest, author of Creationism's Trojan Horse. —Heather Wax