Lone Star Science

Well, it don't surprise me none that all of the candidates for Lt. Gov. of Texas wants to teach creationism in schools.  This is a special brand of ignorance that doesn't see any difference between what science knows and what they believe, and no matter what, they want their beliefs to be taught as truth  in public schools even though this is only one of many religious truths.  This means that in teaching creationism the state becomes a de facto promoter of the Christian religion, a constitutional no-no.  And no matter what they really think, none of these politicians want to chance any nuanced position no matter how many times creationism has been ruled a purely religious idea. It's not that creationism or its offspring intelligent design are wrong, it's that they are useless.  You can't use them to do science, which also reflects how badly science is being taught, and this is the all important criterion of science: theories must be useful. As my colleague notes: "Evolution isn’t politics, it’s science. And science is a reflection of our attempts to understand how the Universe works. Evolution isn’t a guess, or a cynical move to promote atheism, or whatever feverishly imagined bugaboo flies around in the heads of these four men." Unfortunately such ignorance far from being a deal breaker, this is how you get elected in Texas, and in a number of other states too. It's no wonder that "red states" are leading education in the USA into further decline.