Ethics

Louisiana, "Academic Freedom" and Lying to Kids

By Ed Brayton

NPR has a feature on Louisiana's "academic freedom" law that focuses on a guy named Danny Pennington, an administrator in a Louisiana middle school who is anti-evolution. Danny and his magical powerpoint:

As an administrator, he doesn't get to teach evolution anymore. But Pennington, a wiry and intense man, stands ready to supply teachers with the additional materials that the new law promises they can use -- like his PowerPoint presentation.

Pennington clicks through an illustrated program that he has been working on for years. At first, Pennington explains evolution in fairly straightforward terms. But he gets more heated when he reaches Part Two, which deals with what he calls "flaws" in the theory. He gestures dismissively at drawings made by 19th-century German scientist Ernst Haeckel.

"And there's the Haeckel's thing, which was overwhelming evidence for evolution," Pennington says. "And it was completely faked."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on February 17, 2009 (boomark / email).