{"id":342,"date":"2009-02-20T12:36:57","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T16:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=342"},"modified":"2009-02-20T12:36:57","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T16:36:57","slug":"sicb-no-thanks-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2009\/02\/20\/sicb-no-thanks-new-orleans\/","title":{"rendered":"SICB: &#8216;No thanks, New Orleans&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The <a href=\"\/\/www.sicb.org\/index.php3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology<\/a> announced this week in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sicb.org\/resources\/LouisianaLetterJindal.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal<\/a> that the society would not hold future scientific meetings in Louisiana in response to the recent passage by the state legislature of the Louisiana \u201cScience Education Act.\u201d The letter was first reported <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nola.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2009\/02\/national_science_boycotting_lo.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Monday in the New Orleans Times-Picayune<\/a> and has also drawn coverage in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/02\/17\/us\/17boycott.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The New York Times<\/a> and at <a href=\"\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/2009\/02\/14\/jindal-dooms-louisiana\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Discover.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Passed in December, the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.state.la.us\/billdata\/streamdocument.asp?did=482728\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> state law<\/a> allows use of alternative materials and textbooks in the science classroom, including creationist ideas. The law was championed by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lafamilyforum.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Louisiana Family Forum<\/a>, a Christian group that says \u201cevolutionism\u201d is \u201ca controversial issue\u201d that \u201cgets attention because it sells newspapers!\u201d [sic].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">SICB conferences generally draw about 2,000 scientists, and the Society has held three past meetings in New Orleans. For 2011, SICB has instead selected Salt Lake City, applauding the Utah State Board of Education\u2019s rejection of a similar bill and its <a href=\"http:\/\/ncseweb.org\/media\/voices\/utah-state-board-education\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">passage of a resolution<\/a> stating that \u201cthe Theory of Evolution is a major unifying concept in science.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Other societies are also speaking up: The<a href=\"http:\/\/www.asbmb.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology<\/a> president Gregory Petsko has declared that after its meeting in New Orleans this year, \u201cNo future meeting of our society will take place in Louisiana as long as that law stands.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aibs.org\/core\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American Institute of Biological Sciences<\/a> has also written letters to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aibs.org\/position-statements\/20080603_aibs_sends_lett_3.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">state legislature<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aibs.org\/position-statements\/20080620_joint_statement.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gov. Jindal<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">So bravo, SICB, for making a stand against subterfuge in the science classroom. If this bill is allowed to stand, the quality of science education in Louisiana will produce students far behind their counterparts elsewhere, in the U.S. and around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Also check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/lasciencecoalition.org\/2009\/02\/14\/repercussions-in-louisiana\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Louisiana Coalition for Science<\/a> web page \u2013 a voice of reason in Louisiana.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology announced this week in a letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal that the society would not hold future scientific meetings in Louisiana in response to the recent passage by the state legislature of the Louisiana \u201cScience Education Act.\u201d The letter was first reported Monday in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and has also drawn coverage&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,10],"tags":[151,96,102,152,133],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-education","category-ecology-in-policy","tag-creationism","tag-education","tag-evolution","tag-louisiana","tag-science-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}