Let There Be Science in Science Class

According to the Wilmington Star-News the school board of Brunswick North Carolina is considering putting creationism in the science curriculum.  Says board member, Jimmy Hobbs, "It's really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism.  The law says we can't have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists."

Though declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1987, as well as plenty of lesser courts, teaching creationism–especially in its new, not-so-secret identity of “Intelligent Design”–as some kind of gesture towards intellectual “balance” is a horse some folks seem determined to just keep beating.

How I wish I could be sure that horse was dead.  But with creationist, Sarah Palin, on the Republican presidential ticket, a parent can never be too sure.  As someone who is neither an atheist nor a creationist, the insistance on either-or rhetoric in public discussions of this topic drives me insane. Everybody I know "believes" in evolution.  If "belief" is indeed the right word to apply to something as scientifically certain as gravity.  Ninety-nine percent of the people I know believe in a higher power.  Of those, 75% at least are Christians.  The fundamentalist theocrats trying to claim that creationism is the Christian "side" of this debate are falsely representing pretty much every Christian I know.  And it's a lie that kids can't have Bibles in schools.  That would be as unconstitutional as teaching creationism.