Religious Right pushes for "Academic Freedom" in teaching as well as Professional Society

[r.flowers]

One of those silly things has just been introduced in Florida.  However, if
you read the text, all the clauses begin with "students have a right to
expect..." and even a few "faculty have the right to expect..."
Nowhere in the text does it say that any person or group has any legal
obligation to meet any of those expectations.
Interesting.

Wills Flowers
Center for Biological Control
Florida A&M University
Tallahassee, FL 32307

On 4/6/05 2:46 PM, "christian thompson" <cthompson at SEL.BARC.USDA.GOV> wrote:

> From Nature, tomorrow (7 April, 434: 686), there is a report on the
> efforts of the fundamentalist, religious right, etc, to get bills of
> "Academic Freedom" passed in various states, etc. Not only would these
> bills require the teaching of Intelligent Design as the alternative to
> Darwinian Evolution, etc. They also include a clause about professional
> societies, like Entomological Society of and Biological Society of
> Washington. These bills would require professional organization to:
>
> "...maintain a posture of organizational neutrality with respect to the
> substantive disagreements
> that divide researchers on questions within, or outside, their fields
> of inquiry ..."
>
> So, who needs "peer-review," just publish anything researchers submit,
> etc.
>
> I wonder whether list-servers should be included too!
>
>
>
> F. Christian Thompson
> Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
> c/o Smithsonian Institution
> MRC-0169 NHB
> PO Box 37012
> Washington, DC 20013-7012
> (202) 382-1800 voice
> (202) 786-9422 FAX
> cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
> www.diptera.org  web site