Last week on the Michael Medved Show’s weekly Science & Culture Update, Michael talked with Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin about physicist Eric Hedin at Ball State University. As readers will know, Dr. Hedin is in serious career jeopardy for teaching a course favorable to intelligent design. (Sign the petition in support of his freedom to teach!)

Hedin’s story is not isolated. The freedom to teach about both sides of the evolution controversy hangs in the balance around the country as state legislatures consider laws that would protect teachers from administrative retribution if they tell students about scientific critiques of Darwin’s theory. Today, Casey Luskin returns to the Medved Show to debate education activist Zack Kopplin. The topic is academic freedom under fire, on the Science & Culture Update in the second hour of the show.

That’s 1 pm Pacific Time, or 4 pm Eastern. Remember you can also tune into the Medved Show online by going here.

States including Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana currently protect teachers from being punished for letting young people know that Darwinism has genuine scientific strengths and weaknesses. In other states, attempts to pass such academic freedom laws have been turned back. Should science instructors be allowed to use scientific controversies over evolution and climate change as a context for teaching critical thinking skills? Or should they be censored for it?

Zack Kopplin says, when it comes to climate change or Darwinian evolution, we must not present young people with both sides of the question. Casey Luskin, a proponent of academic freedom, disagrees. Who’s right?

Casey Luskin is research coordinator for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Mr. Luskin is an attorney with a graduate degree in earth sciences. He is a co-author of a unique and highly readable new curriculum for high school students and general readers, Discovering Intelligent Design, that makes the often-challenging science of intelligent design easily accessible to any reader. You can learn more by going to DiscoveringID.com.

Zack Kopplin is a 19-year-old student activist and history major at Rice University. As a high school student in Louisiana, he made headlines by publicizing a repeal effort directed at his state’s academic freedom law, the Louisiana Science Education Act. That effort, and a second this year, failed. Zack is the winner of a "Friend of Darwin" Award and the 2012 Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award. That’s Mr. Kopplin on the Bill Maher show above.

Don’t miss what promises to be a very interesting discussion.