The Louisiana Science Education Act, Act 473 (SB733) of 2008 is a controversial anti-evolution law passed by the Louisiana Legislature on June 11, 2008 and signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal on June 25. The act allows public school teachers to use supplemental materials in the science classroom which are critical of scientific theories such as evolution and global warming and to promote creationism as science. Louisiana was the first state to have passed a law of this type.

Proponents of the law claim that it is meant to promote critical thinking and improve education. State Senator Ben Nevers said the law is intended to allow educators to create an environment that "(promotes) critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussions of scientific theories such as evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

SB733 opens a backdoor to teaching creationism in public schools, which is illegal under federal law. Alan Leshner, the executive publisher of Science, condemned the bill as the "latest effort to insert religious, unscientific views into science classrooms." Leshner stated the bill would, "unleash an assault against scientific integrity, leaving students confused about science and unprepared to excel in a modern workforce."

In 2010, high school student Zack Kopplin launched a high-profile campaign sponsored by Louisiana State Senator Karen Carter Peterson to repeal the law. Kopplin's campaign has been endorsed by 78 Nobel laureates, the New Orleans City Council, and more than a dozen scientific and educational associations. Bills to repeal the LSEA have failed to advance past the Senate Education committee five years in a row from 2011 through 2015.

The Louisiana Science Education Act is an "academic freedom law" based on the Discovery Institute's academic freedom model statute. The LSEA allows teachers in public schools to use supplemental materials in the science classroom that are critical of established scientific theories "including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning."

Senator Nevers originally pre-filed the bill as the Louisiana Education Freedom Act (SB 561), at the behest of the Louisiana Family Forum to allow creationism to be taught in public schools. "They (the Louisiana Family Forum) believe that scientific data related to creationism should be discussed when dealing with Darwin's theory. This would allow the discussion of scientific facts," Nevers said. The Louisiana Science Education Act, SB 733, introduced April 17, 2008, is a renumbered and renamed version of SB 561, which was introduced earlier by Senator Nevers. Gene Mills, president of the Louisiana Family Forum, states that the bill is necessary to allow teachers to "critically present" evidence and "quit choosing sides when it comes to teaching students this controversial subject matter."

Critics of the bill suggest that it is intended as an end-run around the federal ban on the teaching of creationism in public schools, and say that the sole purpose of the law is to provide legal cover to educators who want to include fundamentalist scriptural interpretations other than the science curriculum in relation to the teaching of evolution, in contravention of court rulings in cases such as Edwards v. Aguillard and Kitzmiller v. Dover, something opposed by the scientific community.

On June 3, 2008, The American Institute of Biological Sciences sent a letter to House Speaker Jim Tucker opposing SB 733. On June 20, 2008, AIBS and seven other societies sent a letter to Governor Bobby Jindal requesting that he veto SB733. The requesting societies included the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Ornithologists Union, the American Society of Mammalogists, the Botanical Society of America, the Natural Science Collections Alliance, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the Society for the Study of Evolution.