Yin and Yang

You win some and your lose some. The school board dimwits in Dover, PA who were pushing Intelligent Design into the curriculum, and triggered the still pending court case over it, were all soundly defeated in this week’s election. Score one for the good guys.

But as if to show the scientific merit of the law of Conservation of Lunacy, the Kansas school board managed to pass (again) an ID requirement into their science curriculum. The ruling sites inspecific (and fabricated) evidence related to fossils and chemistry which refute fundamental evolutionary theory. They even went so far as to redefine “science” so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. Hmmm… that opens the door a bit.

In principle, this should allow (if not require) the teaching of potions in chemistry class and telekinesis in psychology class. Astrology and Numerology will probably need to be their own classes. And I suspect the Flat Earth Society won’t be far behind in demanding an airing of their ideas in Geography. After all, now that we’ve established that all manner of popular pseudo-science is fair game as “real science”, the course load will increase dramatically. Certainly, if I were a science teacher in Kansas, I’d be introducing all of this stuff. We’d probably do a whole grading period on witchcraft alone. After all, there’s more evidence for UFOs and alien abductions than there is for Intelligent Design.

I think these mental midgets in Kansas should get what they’ve asked for.