Ignorance in Kansas

Those Kansans, creationists, idists, and proids who welcomed the anti-evolution and anti-cosmology decision of the Kansas Board of Education did so at the expense of education in both science and in critical thinking of the schoolchildren of Kansas.

ScienceWeek: "KANSAS, EVOLUTION, AND IGNORANCE IN AMERICA
Concerning the recent decision by the Kansas (US) State Board of Education to purge evolution and cosmology from the science curricula of all Kansas public schools, R.B. Hanson and F.E. Bloom (_Science_) present an editorial, with the authors making the following points:
1) The authors suggest that two aspects of 'this
intellectual cleansing atrocity' are most troubling: a) No political leaders from either party have as yet elected to step forward and challenge the lunacy of removing from the educational opportunities of the future voters of Kansas two of the best established theories of our era. 'Such reluctance emphasizes a growing public ignorance of the methods by which scientific observations are formulated into testable hypotheses and, when sufficiently strongly supported, are elevated into... theories.'
b) Second, and more troubling, is the shrewdness of the strategy used by the creationists in achieving their ends. No longer are they attempting to overturn the series of court decisions that have banned the teaching of creationism as a science. The new strategy, representing a far more threatening menace to future generations, is not only not to teach evolution and cosmology, but to undermine the solidity of their scientific acceptance."

Comment: Politicians care about one thing, and one thing only, and that is to ensure that they are re-elected to public office. When a politician's constituents include a vocal minority of religious fundamentalists and a large number who know nothing of science and care little for scientific truth, then few politicians would care to step forward on the side of knowledge, science, or logic. The battle against ignorance has since been brought to the courts by parents who are concerned about the education of their children. Keeping up with the Jones decision

Ignorance in the White House

Yes, I refer to Giorgio W. Borgia, Idiot-in-Chief who endorsed "teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools".

Ahem, might I point out that there are no alternatives to evolution ... biological evolution is a fact. How can there be alternatives to facts? Nonfacts?

Bush: "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

Debate is the key word in that statement. Debate falls under the aegis of philosophy, yet debate has little merit and ought to be abandoned when one side of the debate is clearly superior in terms of empirical facts and logic.

Almost four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon promoted empiricism and scientific induction. Science, which derives from the Latin root for knowledge, has long-since supplanted metaphysical philosophy for those who seek to comprehend the physical world. Scientific debate is a process directed toward better understanding of empirical facts.

As I have argued elsewhere, so-called "intelligent design" theory could be utilized as an exercise in philosophy classes. It is not science, it is not scientific, it is religion, it offers NO viable alternative explanation for the observable fact of biological evolution.

Why would Bush endorse an anti-science policy for public education? One can only assume that he is pandering to the conservative voters.

There are abundant reasons to consider Bush a fool who cares nothing for truth. This policy is yet another example. That Bush has blundered into a job far beyond his intellectual capabilities is testament to the problems inherent in the democratic process (voters) and to rigged elections. That Bush is allowed to remain in office despite uncovery of lies designed to instigate invasion of Iraq, when Clinton was impeached over a mere sexual peccadillo, is evidence of the intellectual malaise that has overtaken the US.

The Constitution insists upon separation of Church and State. Is Bush too dense to realize that his declared policy of putting ID theory into science classrooms is in violation of the Constitution? Does Bush not care to uphold the Constitution? Does Bush believe that most voters care nothing for the Constitution? Perhaps Bush knows that conservative voters do not know the difference between fact and fantasy. After all, some deluded souls voted for him.