According to Forrest, the Act allows teachers and school boards across the state to teach non-scientific alternatives to evolution including ideas related to Intelligent Design (ID). Forrest says the bill is a backhanded way to get creationism back into schools.

She states the wording of the Act names evolution along with global warming, the origins of human life and human cloning as worthy of “open and objective discussion” -- suggesting that evolution is scientifically controversial topic.

A U.S. Supreme Court case in 1987 barred creationism from being taught in U.S. public schools. The justices ruled state aid to religious teachings violated the Establishment Clause of First Amendment. Since then, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute has successfully lobbied that intelligent design is not only scientifically sound, but also that it differs from creationism barred from schools.

Despite Forrest’s testimony, the bill passed easily in Louisiana with a majority House vote of 94 to 3, followed unanimously in the State Senate. Louisiana's conservative Christian governor Piyush Jindal signed the bill, making it law on June 28.

Supporters of evolution say that the new legislation is nothing more than a new maneuver in the war to challenge the validity of Darwinian evolution. Forrest was also a figure in a 2005 trial in Dover, where she presented leaked Discovery Institute documents that demonstrated intelligent design school books were in fact creationist schoolbooks with the names replaced. 

Immediately following Forrest's comments to New Scientist, the Discovery Institute wrote a blog on its Evolution News website, claiming Forrest and the publication needed "a reality check."

"Intelligent design is currently not in the Louisiana state science standards and so could not be taught. But this allows scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory to be taught," said Discovery Institute fellow John West in a recent Reuters interview.