Friday, January 23, 2009

Something Else That Never Goes Away

What? Wingnuts trying once again to force creationism into the science classroom? Who woulda thunk?

This time, instead of Kansas or Dover, PA, the scene is Texas, a state best known lately for its Village Idiot-in-Chief. As the old saying goes, however, there's no such thing as just one, and evidence in support of this may be found in the person of Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education:

Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist, pushed in 2003 for a more skeptical version of evolution to be presented in the state’s textbooks, but could not get a majority to vote with him. Dr. McLeroy has said he does not believe in Darwin’s theory and thinks that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event, thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion as scientists contend.

I'm not going to go on at length about the stupidity of equating religious myths with scientific theories or the sliminess of the wingnuts' "teach the controversy" and "it's all about free speech" sloganeering. Presumably, you know this already. Still, I did want to mention this latest infestation, because even if it sometimes feels hopeless that we'll ever rid ourselves of these cockroaches, we have to keep shining the light, so that we can at least keep them in huddled in the dank cracks where they belong.

(h/t: Steve Benen)

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