Maryland Citizens for Science

By Reed A. Cartwright

Doug McNeil (MarylandScience@aol.com), a computer field engineer from Baltimore, has in mind a statewide organization, called Maryland Citizens for Science, to promote good science education and to oppose the creationist threat in his state. In no particular order, its basic functions would be:

  • To monitor creationist activity in Maryland. Marylanders can’t know everything that happens in every classroom and every school board meeting unless people tell them. They need a well-known local organization that concerned parents and teachers know they can contact when they need help. It would be an information clearinghouse, similar to what the NCSE does on the national level.
  • To serve as an informed resource for the press. The group’s chair, who would be the main spokesperson, is particularly important here – more on this later.
  • To review and evaluate the current state of science education in Maryland (e.g. textbooks and state curriculum standards) and to promote improvements if needed, which they probably are.
  • To assist in coordinating lawsuits challenging any attempt to include pseudoscience in the curriculum, if this should become necessary.

Maryland Citizens for Science would be a group run by Marylanders for Marylanders.

What they need now is several people who are well informed about creation/evolution to help set this organization up. (Right now they don’t have the time to train people who want to learn about this issue, but they will later.) Political organizing experience would be a definite plus – Doug can coordinate the organizing, but he can’t do all the work myself.

They also need a distinguished and articulate scientist who knows a lot about creation/evolution to chair the group. Political experience would not be necessary for this position.

They need a good website designer. This will be one of our main means of communication with the public (press reports being the other).

They need an attorney familiar with nonprofit law to set things up legally if we want to raise money from outside sources. Setting up such groups doesn’t take a lot of money, but it does take some.

So let Doug know what you think about this idea, and of course he’s especially interested in hearing from anyone who would like to volunteer to work on this.

Maryland Citizens for Science can be contacted at MarylandScience@aol.com.