Bush Endorses Creationism In Public Schools

Unbelievable. Keep in mind that these are public schools and this is science class we are talking about. Also keep in mind that this is 2005 and the leader of the free world actually has issues with evolution. EVOLUTION!!!

I wonder what he feels about those radical teachers that dare not to offer a counter theory to gravity in their classrooms. I can’t believe this needs to be said but, science, meaning the practice of formulating hypotheses and theories through a process of gathering data and experimentation, should be taught in science class, not faith.

Charles Krauthammer, a supporter of the President and one of the most conservative men in Washington, wrote an article for Time Monday (a day before the Bush endorsement) entitled Let’s Have No More Monkey Trials: To Teach Science As Faith Is to Undermine Both. Although I disagree with this man almost daily, I have been wondering for a long time where the actual Republicans (the uber smart ones that believe in principals-not talking points- who have seen their party hijacked by religious illiterates) were on this issue. I know the party loyalists have to pay lip service to religious people, even if they don't believe in it, but it was starting to get crazy.
Krauthammer nails it at least from the standpoint of someone that respects both:

The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.

But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states.
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Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.
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What we are witnessing now is a frontier violation by the forces of religion. This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer.

How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.

To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.