Expelled!

Christopher Hitchens chronicles the long, sad history of Creationism's pathetic assault on evolution, which was dealt another blow in Texas this week when the Board of Education retired a state science curriculum which compelled instructors to pretend that evolution theory is the equivalent of a pretty good guess---giving blinkered creationist clowns their opening to suggest an alternative theory: Goddidit.

Had the geniuses in the vanguard of evangelical Christianity's "culture war" actually succeeded in upholding the guidelines, Hitchens points out, it would only have set the table for some serious blowback. What proponents of "equal time" for creation stories may be missing is that people who care about good science education are beginning to rally behind proposals from people like materialist philosopher Dan Dennett that indeed equal time be given to as many of the thousands of available creation myths as you can cram into a textbook.

During the seminal Dover, Pa trial a few years ago, a marvelous new meme was born when previously published "creationist" propaganda was discovered to have been repurposed as an "intelligent design" manifesto. Buried within the text was a typo resulting from the sloppy replacement of the word "creationist" with the slightly more scientific "design proponent". So much for the claim that "intelligent design" is anything less than creationism in scientific garb. Lawyers on the prevailing side of the case were able to herald that they had discovered the missing link between creationism and intelligent design. Behold, the cdesign proponentist.

It may have been the low point for a once-prominent political lobby whose demographic base is in swift retreat. "Victories" like the one they sought in Texas would only hasten their decline.