That a dozen Florida school boards have protested that the state’s new science guidelines will be (gasp!) pro-evolution (the number given by anti-evolutionist Oscar Howard Jr., Taylor County school superintendent, quoted in the Miami Herald).

Resolutions from several school boards say that evolution should be presented “as one of several theories” — which would be fine, as long as the classes make clear those other theories (creationism, catastrophism, Lamarckianism, intelligent design) have all been disproved.

Another recurring phrase is that science classes must adopt “an approach that does not unfairly exclude other theories as to the creation of the universe.” Which is meaningless, because evolution isn’t a theory about the creation of the universe, it’s a theory about how lifeforms have changed over time. As a commenter on scienceblogs.com put it, this makes as much sense as saying teaching Keynesian economics shouldn’t exclude other theories about how to smelt metal.

Of course from the point of view of creationists, it makes perfect sense, because the creation of the world and of all forms of life are wrapped up together in Genesis; if evolution invalidates part of that story, it invalidates all of it. Which for some Christians means we can’t take Jesus seriously either, so all human morality is flushed down the toilet, hence the endless blather about how evolution is responsible for every conceivable vileness of human behaviour (because Bible-believing Christians who reject evolution never, ever, ever do the same kind of vile things).

Which just shows that the push against teaching evolution is, as I’ve noted in the past, an attempt to force religion into schools past the First Amendment. Which is why creationism and intelligent design don’t belong there.

Evolution happened. Deal.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:42 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.