Botany confernence symposium generating more PR for Louisiana

Oh, gosh!  OK, it's just the Huffington Post, but it's more real good PR for Louisiana and its Governor Bobby Jindal.  Here's the link to what the HuffPo had to say about the symposium "Yes, Bobby, Evolution is True".  Quite a few highly complementary comments follow the article.  But what else is there to say?  Oh, yes, one commenter brought up the old "it's only a theory, not a fact" objection to evolution.  Well, many, many parts of the theory of evolution are facts, i.e., natural selection, and so on, and evolution works.  We use evolution in agriculture and medicine; stop and think about why you need a new flu shot each year.  There is no creationist/ID medicine or agriculture because it's a useless idea.  So we have a scientific explanation that works supported by lots of evidence, and a religiously based explanation with no supporting evidence that doesn't work, and then we get politicians that want us to spend time on the latter at the expense of the former.  How great is that for science education?  TPP is having some fun here at the meetings with all his colleagues.

Uh,oh! Botanists laugh at LA legislators who don't like evolution

Well, it just couldn't be helped.  For no particular reasons that TPP can see, a symposium entitled, "Yes, Bobby, Evolution is true" at our annual ongoing botanical meetings in New Orleans attracted some attention:  Now why would evolution be controversial?  Bobby got an invitation, to attend although his spokesperson said they didn't know about that.  But hey, a governor at a botanical meeting - aint' gunna happen.  Here's what the Times Picayune had to say.  Well, the college student presenter Zach Kopplin, just put up videos of LA legislators in action: defending witch doctors, carping about people with all those little letters after their names (like PhD) telling you what to do, and the like, and yep, a national audience of scientists laughed.  Now of course, this is quite unfair.  Similar videos of our own state (and federal) legislators in action would also elicit laughter, and are there any that wouldn't?  Now what all this was about is a LA law that basically permits teachers to introduce creationism and intelligent design into science classes.  The code phrases are "academic freedom" and "critical thinking".  In and of themselves these are good things, but when used as a smoke screen for pseudoscience, us professional science educators just can't be quiet.  So, yes, Bobby, people from across the nation laughed at you.  How's that work for your aspirations on a national level?  Still want the GnOPe to stop being the party of stupid?  Well, you signed the bill. 

Planning a symposium in Louisiana

Next summer the botanical meetings will be held in New Orleans, and TPP is looking forward to the food and music, oh, and the botany.  Good planning, go to Louisiana in the summer, but probably that's when academic types, especially students, can better afford it with off-season rates.  So some of us been thinking, how about a symposium on evolution titled "Yes, Bobby (Jindal), evolution is real".  It's hard to believe Jindal falls for the "it's just a theory" line; it's easier to believe he that he would play religious conservatives for political reasons, but why not take him to task?  So we can have some fun with this.  Maybe we invite Dr. Donald Aguillard to speak.  He's the superintendent of the St. Mary Parish School District, but if his name sounds familiar it's because he was the lead plaintiff in the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court Case in 1987 that ruled the teaching of creationism in public school science classes is unconstitutional.  Jindal has made news by giving vouchers, public money, to private religious schools who are under no such prohibition.  They can teach all the anti-science stuff they want.  So maybe the botanists get a bit uppity for a change.  If you want to know what botanists think about all this, here's the link to the Botanical Society's statement on evolution, which is pretty good even if TPP was the primary author.