Monday, February 16, 2009

Creationist-Friendly Louisiana Boycotted

Let the political wars begin in earnest. The push for creationism/creation science/intelligent design/strengths-and-weaknesses/academic freedom has always been more about politics than science. Now the science side has fired back politically:

The repercussions that were expected from the Louisiana legislature’s passage and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signing of the creationist 2008 LA Science Education Act have begun. Louisiana taxpayers and schoolchildren are now reaping what the legislature and governor have sowed: the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, one of the nation’s leading scientific societies, is boycotting Louisiana.

They are calling on other scientific organizations to follow suit as well, an idea that seems to be catching on in the blogosphere. There has also been talk of doing the same to any other state that passes anti-science legislation. This comes at a particularly bad time for New Orleans, desperate for economic activity in their continued struggle to recover from hurricane Katrina.

Those on the right have not responded well recently to pushback against their narrow ideas. Rather than expand a little to increase their appeal, they seem to contract and contract even more (one might call this "Palinizing"). If that happens, Jindal's Louisiana could become West Mississippi.

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