While this is the strong overall pattern, there was one impor-
tant exception. In 2008, legislators in Louisiana combined text
from previous bills known misleadingly as “Academic Freedom
Acts” – a phrase promoted by the Discovery Institute, which
was the main organisation behind “intelligent design”
creationism – with text from a policy passed in Ouachita Parish
in Louisiana (a parish is equivalent to a county). This new bill
was called the Louisiana Science Education Act, and it was
passed state-wide in Louisiana.Another thing that the phylogeny indicates is that “success
sells”. After the passage of the Louisiana bill, the “Science Educa-
tion Act” language became the most popular source of new
legislative proposals. While most bills fail – sometimes only
after emergency last-minute opposition from scientists and
science educators – a similar Science Education Act passed in
Tennessee in 2012, and this became the source for new bills. By
2015 the Science Education Acts had completely taken over
from the Academic Freedom Acts.
One factor in the relative success of the Science Education
Acts appears to be the list of sciences that are considered “contro-
versial”. The Science Education Acts target not only evolution
and origin-of-life studies but also human cloning and global
warming. In the US, a strong alliance has developed between
religious conservatives and economic conservatives, and in the
past 10 years the anti-science attitudes that fundamentalists
have long nurtured in their opposition to evolution seem to
have been transferred to the topic of climate change.
The inclusion of human cloning in the list is peculiar. Human
cloning has not occurred, and pretty much everyone agrees that
it should not, so there is not even a moral controversy, let alone
a scientiic one, but it may be included just to distract critics who
focus on the long history of creationist attempts to interfere
with the teaching of evolution.
So it appears that politicians motivated
by fundamentalist religion are now
attempting to subvert science education
about not only our past but our future.
Phylogenetic analysis of these efforts
strongly indicates that if a policy is passed
in one jurisdiction it is likely to succeed
elsewhere. Indeed, the Discovery Insti-
tute is now promoting a new model bill
for the 2016 legislative session that is
copying the Louisiana strategy and
targeting the teaching of “controversial”
topics such as evolution, the origin of life,
human cloning and climate change.
Scientists, science educators and
science fans need to “stay on their toes”.
Much like pathogens that are evolving
drug resistance, previous wins for science
education are not likely to drive anti-
science to extinction. Instead, new anti-
science efforts are evolving.
Nick Matzke is a Discovery Early Career Research Award
fellow in the Division of Ecology, Evolution and Genetics at
the Australian National University. From 2004–05 he was a
researcher for the victorious plaintiffs in the federal
Kitzmiller v. Dovertrial in Pennsylvania, where the court
ruled that teaching “intelligent design” in a government
high school was an unconstitutional establishment of
religion.16 | APRIL 2016
A phylogeny of Academic Freedom Acts (AFA) and Science Education Acts (SEA).A currently popular meme on the evolution/creationism issue.