Darwin Schmarwin

Following up on Michael's post about textbooks in Texas -- now they're trying to re-establish creationism as an "option" to be taught in Wisconsin.

The spin now is that school systems shouldn't be forced to teach one theory of how life began -- even though evolution - which is a "theory" just as gravity or relativity are "thoeries" - has volumes of evidence to support it, and creationism is basically a story from the Bible.

I like reading the Bible. But this book claims certain people lived to be hundreds of years old, says Noah fit of millions of species of animals on a boat the size of a three-bedroom house, and intimates that the earth is flat. So my tax dollars should now go to force a science teacher to say, "Well, you've got all these books and pictures and fossils and records over here that say life has evolved over millions of years. Or maybe the world was created in six days and on the seventh God took a nap, like the Bible says. We don't know for sure. You decide."

Look, I understand that people honestly believe in a literal translation of the Bible, and that's their choice. And I understand that when evidence is shown that contradicts some of those beliefs, they may feel insecure or threatened. But the evidence shows the earth isn't flat, and we shouldn't teach our kids in public schools that it might be. Same goes for evolution.

But let's just use the spin of these fundies and see what happens. if "options" and open-mindedness are really the intent of these folks, we should fully expect them to include the "theories" of other, older religions with hundreds of millions of followers -- like, say, the Hindu Rig Veda. But I guess the idea that the atmosphere came out of the navel of a giant with a thousand eyes and a thousand feet would be just silly.