… his fight for Darwin-only schools in Louisiana. If so that’s significant, because the media party is sure backing him.
Their ignorance and prejudice is his strength. Get a load of the cream puff interview at I09:
We last spoke with Kopplin in early 2013. Since then, he has continued to campaign tirelessly against the act. He’s penned editorials for outlets like The Guardian, been profiled by the New York Times and Washington Post, and appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
In short, he has had an intercontinental soapbox.
In late April, he testified before the Louisiana Senate Education Committee in support of a bill repealing the act. During his testimony, he presented evidence in support of the claim that schools are indeed using the LSEA to teach creationism — a claim denied by Senate education committee chairman Conrad Appel.
Well, if some teachers were doing that, their actions would violate the express intent of the act. Such instances can be dealt with in a straightforward way.
But don’t let that get in the way. The grouse in the I09 interview is that attempts to repeal the act have failed five times running.
Meanwhile, Louisiana’s education standards have improved, relative to other states*. Not discussed, of course.
So, what’s the real problem, according to Kopplin?
But it’s also because people are afraid of the religious right, which wields a great amount of influence in Louisiana. Senator Conrad Appel, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee is not a creationist, but he cast the deciding vote against us and for creationism. I can’t speak for what’s in his mind and in his heart, but I believe he voted the way he did because of the undue influence that right-wing religious groups wield in this state.
Kopplin goes on to strongly imply that the guy doesn’t care about the students.
Oh, and from his black list of bad stuff teachers said:
As already mentioned, Snake Leg Nubbs are used as proof of creationism. In addition, punctuated evolution is supposedly untestable, there are gaps in the fossil record, there is a lack of observable data of evolution, the fossil record has been misinterpreted by scientists, Darwinian evolution has no explanation for the flagella, and so on. You’ll find plenty more examples in these documents, here and here.
Not sure about the Snake Leg Nubbs, which sounds like a snack food, but most of the other stuff is largely or often true.
So to the extent that Darwinian evolution (and that’s the only kind the Darwin-in-the-schools lobby tends to care about) functions as a religion, zealous lobbyist Kopplin experiences genuine shock at the idea that anyone might be allowed to know of problems with the theory in its very temples, the publicly funded school systems.
He is planning to go from state to state searching out offenders.
* “You mean, they got the Darwin lobby’s shovel out of the hole and …” naw, just a coincidence.
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