Thoughts in a Haystack

Matt Young at The Panda's Thumb is reporting how the alleged "fiscal conservatives" of the Tea Party are nothing but social ideologues who care nothing about throwing educational resources down the toilet and whose supposed dedication to the Constitution is nothing but a political ploy masking a deep ignorance and disrespect for the rights it embodies. Alternatively, they are too stupid to read the Constitution and the multiple cases that have held that creationism cannot be taught as true in public schools.

Yes, a bunch of Tea Partiers are trying to force creationism into the local public schools in Ohio. If they succeed, there will be a lawsuit that will result in the school district having to pay the plaintiffs' legal fees. They can't even manage to wrap their small brains around the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" of the Intelligent Design scam:

Kelly Kohls, who was elected in Springboro on a platform of fiscal responsibility two years ago, requested last week the district's curriculum director look into ways of providing "supplemental" instruction dealing with creationism. Fellow member, Scott Anderson, who was elected with Kohls when the district was struggling financially, supports his colleague's idea.

"Creationism is a significant part of the history of this country," Kohls said. "It is an absolutely valid theory and to omit it means we are omitting part of the history of this country."

Make up your mind, Scott! If you want to teach creationism in a history of thought or comparative religion class, along with all the competing ideas and religions, then fine. But if you want to teach it as a "valid theory" alongside evolutionary theory, you'd be better off just piling the taxpayers' money up in the front yard of the school and lighting a bonfire as way to demonstrate your "fiscal conservatism."

This bothered me too:

John Silvius, a former biology professor at Cedarville University, a Christian institution that teaches both evolution and creationism, said the two theories can co-exist, even in a public school classroom.

"The joy of science, for me, is to raise questions that don't necessarily have easy answers," Silvius said. "If scientific inquiry is robust enough that it can reject false theories, why be so concerned?"

The problem is obvious from your very statement of it, Professor! Robust science has rejected the idea that creationism is science for at least 150 years ... but robust science is not practiced in elementary and high schools. The children are there to learn the basics and anyone who pretends that creationism is a "valid theory" is doing the opposite of education.

When that's done with my tax money, I have every reason to be concerned!
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