Barbara Carroll Forrest is a professor of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

at Southeastern Louisiana University in

Hammond, Louisiana Hammond is the largest city in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, United States, located east of Baton Rouge and northwest of New Orleans. Its population was 20,019 in the 2010 U.S. census, and 21,359 at the 2020 population estimates program. Hamm ...

. She is a critic of

intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...

and the

Discovery Institute The Discovery Institute (DI) is a politically conservative non-profit think tank based in Seattle, Washington, that advocates the pseudoscientific concept Article available froUniversiteit Gent/ref> of intelligent design (ID). It was founde ...

Biography

Forrest is a graduate of Hammond High School. She received her B.A. in English in 1974 from Southeastern Louisiana University, her M.A. in Philosophy in 1978 from

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 n ...

, and her Ph.D. in philosophy from

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

in 1988. She has taught

at Southeastern Louisiana University since 1988 and presently is a professor of philosophy in the Department of History and Political Science.

Work

She co-authored '' Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

, 2004), with biologist

Paul R. Gross Paul R. Gross is a biologist and author, perhaps best known to the general public for '' Higher Superstition'' (1994), written with Norman Levitt. Gross is the University Professor of Life Sciences (Emeritus) at the University of Virginia; he previ ...

. The book examines the goals and strategies of the intelligent design movement and its attempts to undermine established

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

. The authors analyze the absence of a scientific intelligent design hypothesis, identifies religious foundations, and the political ambitions of intelligent design proponents. They examine the movement's

Wedge strategy The Wedge Strategy is a creationist political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the W ...

which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. They also highlight intelligent design creationism's relationship to

public education State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary educational institution, schools that educate all students without charge. They are ...

and to the

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular s ...

. Forrest serves on the board of directors of the

National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding ...

(NCSE), the Board of Trustees of

Americans United for Separation of Church and State Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United or AU for short) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advocates for the disassociation of religion and religious organizations from government. The separation of church ...

, and the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association (NOSHA).

''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District''

Forrest was a key

expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...

for the plaintiffs in the 2005 ''

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District ''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'', 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005) was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design ...

'' trial. The defendants were represented by the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a conservative Christian, not-for-profit law center whose motto is "The Sword and the Shield for People of Faith". After Forrest had been deposed, the TMLC tried but failed to have her stopped from testifying. In a motion to have her removed as a witness, they described her as "little more than a conspiracy theorist and a web-surfing, 'cyber-stalker' of the Discovery Institute ... ." Judge Jones denied the motion and Forrest's testimony began on October 5. According to Forrest, after the TMLC's attempt to exclude her as a witness had failed, and only a few days before she would be testifying, the

attempted to publicly ridicule her on their website. She wrote: During her testimony the defense lawyers again asked the court to exclude Forrest from testifying as expert witness. Judge Jones allowed them to present their case for dismissing her and then denied their request. Forrest would go on to testify on the religious origins and nature of the intelligent design movement, the wedge document, and also demonstrated that the drafts of the textbook at the center of the court case, '' Of Pandas and People'', substituted terms such as "intelligent design" and "intelligent designer" in place of "creationism" and "creator" in an attempt to circumvent the ruling in '' Edwards v. Aguillard'' which determined that teaching creationism in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the United States constitution. Her testimony had a significant impact on Judge Jones's decision. A year after the ruling, Forrest commented in a telephone interview "It was very clear to everyone who followed the case that intelligent design is not science. The Discovery Institute has been trying for years to foment a court case. And they finally got one dropped in their laps and what was ironic is they didn't want it. They knew what this case would do to them."

''Synthese'' essay

An essay by Forrest, "The non-epistemology of intelligent design: its implications for public policy", was published online in March 2009 as part of a special issue of the journal '' Synthese''. The issue was titled "Evolution and Its Rivals" and was guest edited by

Glenn Branch Glenn Branch is the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education. He is a prominent critic of creationism and intelligent design and an activist against campaigns of suppressing teaching of evolution and climate change in school e ...

and James H. Fetzer, the latter a former editor of ''Synthese''. Forrest's essay strongly criticized philosopher Francis J. Beckwith, noting that he had "no formal credentials as a constitutional scholar" to justify his stances on issues regarding the

and connected Beckwith and other advocates of intelligent design to Christian Reconstructionism. Following complaints from Beckwith and others mentioned in the issue, the regular editors of ''Synthese'', Johan van Benthem, Vincent F. Hendricks, and John F. Symons, included an editorial statement in the print version of the special issue, published in January 2011, which criticized the tone of some of the papers in that issue. The note was perceived as directed at Forrest's essay and drew angry denunciations from the guest editors, who were not consulted about the statement, and other critics. At least one philosopher has withdrawn a paper from ''Synthese'' as a result.

Louisiana Science Education Act

Forrest worked with Zack Kopplin and helped begin the campaign to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act law that allowed the promotion of creationism in biology science classes. The repeal effort, SB70 of 2011, failed in the Senate Education Committee by a 5–1 vote. The repeal effort, SB374 of 2012, also failed in the Senate Education Committee by a 2–1 effort.

Public speaking

Forrest has appeared in the media, including PBS. She was the featured speaker for Southeastern Louisiana University's Linus A. Sims Memorial Library commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's '' Origin of Species'' on 23 April 2009. See also

Bibliography

book website
as retrieved by the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

on January 4, 2015.

References

External links

Barbara Forrest's academic homepage

by Barbara Forrest. From Natural History magazine, April, 2002, page 80.
Collected works
at Internet Infidels

by Barbara Forrest

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forrest, Barbara Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American philosophy academics American skeptics Critics of creationism Hammond High School (Louisiana) alumni Louisiana State University alumni People from Hammond, Louisiana Philosophers of science Criticism of intelligent design Separation of church and state in the United States Southeastern Louisiana University alumni Southeastern Louisiana University faculty Tulane University alumni 21st-century American philosophers