This is a great day for education.

Kansas Board of Education Chairman Steve Abrams said, "This is a great day for education" when the board passed the requirement that Science teachers be required to instruct their students that evolutionary theory is not proven, and will have to add that life is in fact so complex, it could not have arisen without the involvement of some external agent, or higher power. They must include statements to the effect that the fossil record is inconsistent with evolutionary theory; that there is a lack of physical evidence to explain our genetic code, and that evolutionary explanations are "not based on direct observations and often reflect inferences from circumstantial evidence"

Really. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

This creationism garbage is not science and has no place in science education. These people have deluded themselves into the narrow minded and dogmatic belief that the Bible is the absolute and pure word of god and must be taken literally. Hell, even the Pope has warned about such an interpretation. Sure, it took the Catholic Church 500 years to admit it was wrong for them to convict Galileo for saying the Earth went around the Sun, but they had actually given up on the geocentric universe idea a long, long time ago.

What is wrong with the fundamentalists in this country? Do they want to create a nation of morons without critical thinking? A land of sheep who do not question or inquire or offer any challenge to the directives of their rulers? I guess they do. Idiots are easy to rule over. They don't question authority. They don't know better.

I read this news on the BBC website. The rest of the world is completely baffled by this behavior. It is akin to the religious fundamentalism that is producing terrorists in the Middle East.

Here in Pennsylvania, a small victory on that front. The entire Dover school board, who have since 2004 required that a creationist statement be read in biology classes, have been voted out of office. They are currently being sued for violating the constitutional separation of church and state and it seems likely that they will loose that case and the new board is unlikely to appeal. On the other hand, new board member Judy McIlvaine said "We are all for it (intelligent design) being discussed, but we do not want to see it in biology class."

Intelligent design is a sham. It certainly isn't science so, yes, it has no place in science class. But it's trying so hart to conceal its creationist foundation that it isn't even good theology anymore and as such has no place in a decent sociology, philosophy or any other -ogy class you could think of. I could see it in a class on the study of propaganda, but then it would be discussing the form and not the substance.