Texas battles old fossils of creationism

This is a model of the Pteranodon longiceps - "Remains of this species were found in
the Niobrara chalk, laid down about 85 million years ago on the floor of a broad sea
way that covered much of mid-continental North America. ... Some Pterosaurs had
a wingspan as large as a modern F-16 jet fighter, yet would probably weigh no more
than a person due to the hollow bones and a super lightweight construction ideal for soaring.

The fight is on, just about everywhere. Creationists continue to rattle around state after state like bones in a closet. They just won't stay quiet. Now them bones are rattling around Texas. Laura Beil tells about it in an article in the June 4 edition of The New York Times.

The fight is centering on science textbooks. The creationist/ID kooks want the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution taught in public schools. It's another sneaky little ploy to introduce their godly "science" under the guise of real science. The ploy comes courtesy of the creationist Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington.

In Texas, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that seven of the 15 members of the State Board of Education are creationists, think Intelligent Design is delightful, and have the backing of the governor, Rick Perry, a Republican (of course!) One more creationist and they have a majority and can turn back time in Texas at least 6,000 years!

The problem whereof we speak is that as Texas goes, so goes the nation. As Ms. Beil says, "What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas: the state is one of the country's biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are loath to produce different versions of the same material. The ideas that work their way into education here will surface in classrooms throughout the country."

One thing you can say, these creationists are as slippery as serpents!

Dr. Don McLeroy is a dentist from Central Texas. He's also the chairman of the State Education Board. He's also an "orthodox" Christian who thinks the debate between evolution and creationism is a debate between "two systems of science."

"You've got a creationist system and a naturalist system," says the tooth driller. And that, of course, gives away the plot. A creationist system must necessarily posit a creator, and a creator is a god and thus religion sneaks into the science lab. All because a DDS is chairman of a State Board of Education. Why would a dentist be chairing any state board of education? Why isn't an educator in that position?

McLeroy has obviously forgotten whatever science classes he took in college - assuming he went to a real college and not some bible school with a dental lab. He thinks the Earth is only a few thousand years old--not 4.5 billion years old which real scientists can demonstrate to be the case. He says he believes "a lot of incredible things. The most incredible thing I believe," he says, "is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe."

The tooth driller can, of course, believe any damn thing he desires. That does not make it true, nor does it become worthy of inclusion in a science textbook.

And again, this dentist, like so many other creationists, fails the truth test. He doesn't believe that evolution is true or that it ever happened, but he believes a baby born in a manger 2000 years ago in Palestine was, surprise, surprise, the god who created the universe, but the reason he wants creationism taught in the public schools "is not based on religious grounds."

Right.

Dan Foster, also a self-described "orthodox" Christian, and the former chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, says he's afraid that if the state board votes in favor of the creationist position Texas will be "labeled scientifically backward." You think?

Dr. Foster, notes correctly, that science and not the bible belongs in public school classrooms. To bring in views that would question evolution, says Foster, "puts belief on the same level as scientific evidence."

But that's exactly what some people and organizations are trying to make happen! The Institute for Creation Research, sensing that Texas is vulnerable, being a hotbed of the religious right and conservative Christian fundamentalism, applied for permission to award graduate degrees in the state. (Graduate degrees in what - "How God maketh the Earth and all that Is?") That application was rejected just last April, but the Institute plans to appeal - naturally.


Again, one must ask the question as to why these creationist/ID folks insist on imposing their religious beliefs on public school students? There are plenty of home-schooled children--the great majority of which are some type of Christian--who are using these materials now. Many fundamentalist religious schools also employ Creationist nonsense in their science classes. Creationism receives an enthusiastic welcome in many fundamentalist and/or evangelical church Sunday Schools.

Why do Creationists and proponents of ID try to coerce, through deviousness and outright lies, state boards of education and district school boards to include their specifically religious notions into science curriculums? How many courts have to rule that Creationism and Intelligent Design are religious in nature and are therefore banned from the public schools before these clowns crawl back into their time-machine and retreat to the Middle Ages?