Belief In Creationism Is At An All-Time Low In U.S.

Creationism is the belief that humans did not evolve like other animals, but were created by a god in their present form (and that this probably happened less than 10,000 years ago). It is a strange belief that flies in the face of science, but it is a belief that has been strong in the United States.

Fortunately though, it looks like belief in creationism is declining. A recent Gallup Poll shows that belief in creationism has declined from 47% in the early 1990's to a current level of only 38% -- a record low since 1981, when Gallup began asking this question (and the first time since then that it has fallen below 40%).

An equal 38% now believe that humans evolved with the guidance of a god, while 19% believe humans evolved without the help of any god (a record high).

The Gallup Poll was done between May 3rd and 7th of a random national sample of 1,011 adults, and has a margin of error of 4 points.

Over Four Out Of Ten Americans Believe In Creationism

The chart above shows the percentages of Americans believing in creationism and evolution from 1982 to the present. The information is from Gallup Polls -- the latest of which was done between May 8th and 11th of a random national sample of 1,028 adults (with a four point margin of error). Frankly, I find the chart a bit depressing, because it shows the percentage of Americans believing in creationism (the belief that god created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years) has remained very constant for the last three decades. That was the belief of 44% in 1982 and 42% today -- an insignificant difference within the margin of error.

There are a couple of bright spots in the chart. Currently 50% of the population says they believe in the science of evolution (with 31% saying that evolution was guided by god, and 19% saying it was not). Those believing in evolution w/o god has increased by 10 points in the last three decades (from 9% in 1982 to 19% in 2014) -- but most of that growth has come from a reduction in the percentage of god-guided evolution believers rather than creationists.

The charts below show the belief in creationism/evolution by age and education. The only age group with a majority believing in evolution is the 18-29 age group, where 65% say they believe in evolution. The only educational group where a majority believes in evolution are those with a college education, where 68% say they believe in evolution.

This does help explain why it is so hard to convince Americans that something must be done about global climate change (commonly called global warming). With 42% of Americans already tossing science out the window in favor of their religious myths, it makes sense that this group would also be willing to disregard science for other reasons -- like accepting the right-wing lies that global warming is a myth, or that doing something about it will hurt the economy (neither of which is true).

Texas GOP Still Wants Creationism Taught As Science In The State's Public Schools

Texas government is dominated by teabagger/fundamentalist Republicans, and for years now we have been fighting to keep religion out of the science classes in our public schools. Recently we beat back an effort by right-wingers on the State Board of Education to require the teaching of creationism in schools. They were trying to include that religious concept in the state-approved science textbooks.

Unfortunately, that did not end the fight. We learned recently that several charter schools (private schools that receive state funding) are teaching creationism in their science classes. This is a clear violation of the Constitution, but it is happening nonetheless -- and it will probably require a herculean effort to get it stopped.

And if the recent debate among the Republican candidates for Lt. Governor are any indication, we won't be getting any help from the Republican-dominated state government. The four Republican candidates (current Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, State Senator Dan Patrick, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples) were all asked during the debate whether creationism should be taught in public schools and included in school science textbooks. All four of them said yes -- they all thought creationism should be taught as science.

Obviously the battle against teaching religion as science in Texas public schools is far from over. This makes it more important than ever to see a Democratic slate of candidates is elected next November to head the state government -- Wendy Davis as governor, and Leticia Van de Putte as lt. governor.

Science Wins Texas School Book Battle

(This image of Charles Darwin is from the website of The Telegraph.)

This is the year that science school books had to be approved for Texas schools. But that approval had to be made by the conservative State Board of Education. It was feared that the Board would force book publishers to include creationist and anti-global warming ideas into those textbooks to please the religious right. Fortunately, the publishers stood firm this year, and refused to alter their books to replace real science with religion -- and yesterday, the State Board of Education finally gave in and approved the books as written. This is a big victory for science, and for all Texas school children.

Here is the press release issued by the Texas Freedom Network after the Board's vote to approve the textbooks:

November 22, 2013 

Despite last-minute efforts by some board members and political activists to derail the adoption of two textbooks, the State Board of Education today voted to adopt all of the proposed instructional materials up for adoption for high school biology and environmental science. Throughout the adoption process, publishers refused to make concessions that would have compromised science instruction on evolution and climate change in their textbooks, said Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller.

“It’s hard to overstate the importance of today’s vote, which is a huge win for science education and public school students in Texas,” Miller said. “Four years ago this board passed controversial curriculum standards some members hoped would force textbooks to water down instruction on evolution and climate change. But that strategy has failed because publishers refused to lie to students and parents demanded that their children get a 21^st-century education based on established, mainstream science.”

The board voted to adopt all textbooks and instructional materials submitted by 14 publishers for high school biology and high school environmental science. None of those textbooks call into question the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution and climate change science.

The adoption of the Pearson biology textbook is contingent on the review by a panel of three science experts of factual “errors” alleged by an anti-evolution activist who served on the official state review team this summer. The publisher has insisted that the alleged errors are, in fact, accurate representations of established, mainstream science.

The board adopted the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt environmental science textbook after the publisher submitted a document agreeing to revise material that might be outdated. Scientists who have reviewed the publisher’s proposed revisions were satisfied that none of the revisions would compromise the integrity of the science in the textbook, Miller said.

Belief In Evolution In The United States

These results are from a YouGov Poll conducted on July 8th and 9th of this year. While enlightening, I found them to be a bit disappointing -- since only a plurality (46%) of Americans believe in evolution (either with or without help from a god), while 37% believe in creationism and 17% don't know what they believe.

It is interesting though to see the rise in the number of people in the last decade who believe in evolution without any help from a god. It has jumped from 13% in 2004 to 21% in 2013. This closely mirrors the rise in the number of Americans who say they are not religious -- which a Pew Research Center survey puts at about 20% (or 1 out of every 5 Americans).

NOTE -- The figures in the middle chart for some religions (Mormon, Orthodox, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu) are compiled from an extremely small samples -- and therefore could have a large margin of error.

Ignoring Scientific Reality

The religious right in this country is still trumpeting the idea that evolution is nothing more than a theory, and has yet to be proven to be true. That is an outrageous lie. Despite what fundamentalists want us to believe, evolution is a fact, not a theory. And that fact has been accepted in the scientific community for quite a while now. Evolution has been proven to have taken place for all living things, and if it is true of all other animals, then why would we think it has nothing to do with humans? Like it or not humans are scientifically an animal -- an animal with a higher functioning brain than other animals (thanks to evolution), but an animal nonetheless.

But far too many states in the United States have decided that religion must be taught in our schools instead of established scientific fact, or that some science should be ignored if it cannot be replaced by religion. The map above shows the states that teach or refuse to teach evolution. Note that only a handful of states bother to teach the whole scientific truth (those states in green). A passel of others, those in yellow, are listed as "satisfactory". But don't let that word "satisfactory" fool you, since some of those states (like Texas and Montana) don't mention human evolution at all, and others mar their teaching on evolution with "creationist jargon". Personally, I don't think that's "satisfactory" at all.

We are falling behind the rest of the developed world in education in general, and in science in particular. And the idea that we can't teach the truth if it conflicts with religious myths is a prime reason for this. We have failed to adequately fund our schools, and now we don't want the truth taught. It's just sad when a nation is afraid of the truth, and it's a bad sign for that nation's future.

(The map above is from the blog called The Immoral Minority.)

Bill Nye "The Science Guy" On Creationism

If you don't know the gentleman in the picture above, then your knowledge of American popular culture is sadly lacking. He's William Sanford Nye, more commonly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, and his PBS show turned thousands of American kids on to science. Nye made science fun. He is truly an American "treasure".

But Mr. Nye doesn't understand how people can turn their backs on science (like evolution), and substitute a silly belief like creationism. Here's some of what he has to say on the subject:

Denial of evolution is unique to the United States. I mean, we're the world's most advanced technological—I mean, you could say Japan—but generally, the United States is where most of the innovations still happens. People still move to the United States. And that's largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in that, it holds everybody back, really. 

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead of an exciting place. 

As my old professor, Carl Sagan, said, "When you're in love you want to tell the world." So, once in a while I get people that really—or that claim—they don't believe in evolution. And my response generally is "Well, why not? Really, why not?" Your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don't believe in evolution. I mean, here are these ancient dinosaur bones or fossils, here is radioactivity, here are distant stars that are just like our star but they're at a different point in their lifecycle. The idea of deep time, of this billions of years, explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your world view just becomes crazy, just untenable, itself inconsistent. 

And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems. 

It's just really hard a thing, it's really a hard thing. You know, in another couple of centuries that world view, I'm sure, will be, it just won't exist. There's no evidence for it.

Nearly Half Of U.S. Citizens Are Creationists

(This picture, from the Washington Post, was taken in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee -- the scene of the "Scopes monkey trial".)

It doesn't look like a lot has changed since the famous "Scopes monkey trial", where teacher John Scopes was arrested and tried for teaching evolution in a high school. There's still a significant portion of the United States population that believes in creationism and denies evolution -- and many of them would like to force their beliefs on the rest of us, by requiring schools to teach creationism instead of, or in addition to, real science like evolution.

A recently released Gallup Poll (taken of a nationwide sample of 1,012 people from May 19th through May 13th) shows that about 46% of the U.S. population believes in creationism (the belief that man was created by god in his present form and has not evolved). The margin of error for the poll is 4 points, but the results are in line with with polls taken on the subject since 1982. Since then, the poll results show belief in creationism has vacillated between 44% and 47%.

That means there is good news and bad news. The good news is that belief in creationism doesn't seem to be growing. The bad news is that belief in creationism doesn't seem to be shrinking either. Here is a graph of the poll's results since 1982:

A couple of unsurprising results are that more Republicans than Independents or Democrats believe in creationism, and that more educated people tend to believe less in creationism. Here are those numbers:

HUMANS CREATED BY GOD IN PRESENT FORM IN LAST 10,000 YEARS.
Republicans...............58%
Independents...............39%
Democrats...............41%
Post-graduate...............25%
College grad...............46%
Some college...............47%
High school or less...............52%

HUMANS EVOLVED IN A GOD-GUIDED PROCESS.
Republicans...............31%
Independents...............34%
Democrats...............32%
Post-graduate...............42%
College grad...............35%
Some college...............36%
High school or less...............25%

HUMANS EVOLVED WITH NO GOD INVOLVEMENT.
Republicans...............5%
Independents...............19%
Democrats...............19%
Post-graduate...............29%
College grad...............14%
Some college...............13%
High school or less...............11%

Those who attend church weekly (67%) are also much more likely to believe in creationism than those who seldom or never attend church (25%) -- which supports the idea that creationism is a religious belief rather than a scientific one.

-----------------------------------

In related news, some scientists believe they have found the "missing link". It is a 47 million year-old primate fossil, which has been officially named Darwinius masillae. The almost complete skeleton of the lemur-like creature had opposable thumbs and fingernails instead of claws. It's hind legs also showed evolutionary changes that scientists believe resulted in humans eventually walking upright. The fossil is pictured below:

Too Many Texans Are Idiots

The above picture is of some beautiful Texas bluebonnets by Alice Lund. I wanted to show you the picture, because after you read the rest of this post you may believe Texas is home to so many idiots that it probably shouldn't be allowed to exist. But there is some beauty here, and believe it or not, even some decent and intelligent people. Now, on to the very embarrassing facts about my home state.

Now that America has gotten a good look at Rick Perry (as if George Bush wasn't bad enough), I'm sure a lot of people are thinking that the quality of most Texas politicians is pretty low -- and that would be true. Rick Perry is not even the worst of the lot -- not by a long shot. But we have to remember that there had to be a lot of clueless voters in the state to elect such lame political leadership. How clueless? Here are the results of a recent Texas Tribune Poll:

HUMANS DEVELOPED FROM EARLIER SPECIES.
Disagree...............51%
Don't know...............14%
Agree...............35%

Amazing. Only slightly more than one out of every three Texans believes than human beings evolved from earlier species. It looks like way too many Texans skipped science class too many times in high school (assuming they got as far as high school). But it gets worse:

HUMANS AND DINOSAURS LIVED AT THE SAME TIME.
Agree...............30%
Don't know...............29%
Disagree...............41%

Oh my! Only four out of ten Texans know that humans and dinosaurs did not exist at the same time in our planet's history. And a full 38% of Texans think humans were created in their present form only about 10,000 years ago, while another 12% don't know if the Earth is older than 10,000 years or not -- that's a full 50% of Texans who think the Earth might only be 10,000 years old.

Frankly, those are some very embarrassing views held by my fellow Texans. But maybe it does sort of explain why the best politicians Texas has to offer the nation in the 21st century are George Bush and Rick Perry. After all, politicians are not going to be any smarter than the people who elect them.

Texas SBOE Still Waging War On Science

Back in 2009 the Texas State Board of Education approved requiring science teachers in Texas to teach the "weaknesses" of evolution. That's a fancy way of saying they want creationism (religion) taught as an alternative "theory" to evolution in classrooms. The only good thing is that the state is in such a serious financial bind (due to Republican mismanagement) that there was no money to have textbooks re-done to include the creationist nonsense.

So the State Board is now meeting to decide what to do about this. The religious right members of the Board want to purchase "teaching aids" to be used in science classes. The "teaching aids" are developed by a firm engaged in spreading creationism. The Board heard testimony yesterday, and they are scheduled to take a vote today on whether to purchase (and require the use of) the creationist propaganda.

At this point all we can do is hold our breath and hope the changes made to the Board in the last election were enough to keep religion out of science classes. But the Board is dominated by Republicans, and the vote could go either way.

The idea of teaching science (and not religion) in science classes did get some testimonial help yesterday. Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education spoke to the Board. Here is what he had to say:

My name is Josh Rosenau; I am a Programs and Policy Director at the 
National Center for Science Education. NCSE is a nonprofit organization 
that works with local science advocates in every state and around the 
world to defend evolution in public schools. Our members are scientists, 
doctors, teachers, parents, students and clergy. They are united by an 
understanding that evolution is the foundation of modern biology, and 
that the revolutions in biotechnology, biomedicine agriculture, and 
engineering are transforming the global economy. 

 As a biologist, I know how critical evolution is to 21st century science 
and the 21st century economy, and how dangerous it would be for textbook 
supplements to skimp, obfuscate, or undermine evolution education. 
Texas's competitors--other states, other countries around the world--are 
investing in evolution and bioscience education. Texas must match this 
effort if it wants to remain a world leader. 

 As a Kansan, I saw first hand how badly a state can be hurt by watering 
down science education. When the Kansas state board cut back its 
coverage of evolution, the media had a field day. Friends sent their 
kids to Catholic schools to make sure they got a solid, accurate science 
education--and they weren’t even Catholic! The governor said the board's 
action made it harder to attract businesses to Kansas. Why would anyone 
want to hire employees who haven’t got a solid science education? 

 No state requires creationist claptrap in science classes, and Texas 
should not be the first to do so. That's why we're urging the Texas 
board of education to reject the supplement from International 
Databases. The supplement is riddled with scientific errors, repeats 
outdated and long-disproven creationist claims, and advances the 
sectarian religious dogma of intelligent design creationism. It even 
claims creationist pseudoscience is the “default position” in science! 

 Nor should the board compel other publishers to shoehorn such ideas into 
their supplements. These supplements were written by expert scientists 
and educators, based on the most modern research. Forcing them to 
rewrite their textbooks and supplements to satisfy a political or 
religious agenda would harm Texas for years to come. 

Josh Rosenau 

Programs and Policy Director 

National Center for Science Education, Inc. 

Four Out Of Ten Americans Are Anti-Science

I personally believe the last election turned out the way it did because a lot of Americans just stayed home instead of voting.   But a case could be made that it happened because a lot of people in this country just aren't very bright.   Look at the results of this latest Gallup Poll (which might make any thinking person wonder if there's any hope at all for the United States).

The poll was conducted December 10th thru 12th with a random sample of 1,019 adult Americans (and has a margin of error of 4%).   But even if you figure in the full 4% margin of error, the results of the poll are (or should be) embarrassing.   It seems that nearly four oout of every ten Americans don't think much of science -- they believe that god created man as he currently is less than 10,000 years ago (which would mean they believe several scientific disciplines are just wrong and science has not advanced for the last 3,000 years).

It seems that about 38% of the population believe that god created man less than 10,000 years ago.   This is the same percentage that believed this in 1982 (when Gallup first starting polling on this question).   Another 40% believed that man evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life with the guidance of god (a drop of 4% since 1982).   At least this group doesn't deny the reality or advancement of science.

Another 16% of the population believe that man evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life without the help or guidance of any god.   The good news is that this is the one segment of the population that is growing (it was only 9% in 1982, and as recently as 2000).

Among those "young-earth creationists" are 22% of those with a postgraduate degree, 37% of all college graduates, 44% of those who have had some college, and 47% of those with a high school diploma or less.   This makes some sense, since it should be expected that those with more education would be less likely to accept creationist ideas.   Still, I think the numbers are too high in all education levels.

It comes as no surprise that the political subdivision with the highest percentage of creationists are the Republicans.   Here's how the numbers break down by party affiliation:

REPUBLICANS
Creationists...............52%
God-driven evolution...............36%
Secular evolution...............8%

INDEPENDENTS
Creationists...............34%
God-driven evolution...............39%
Secular evolution...............21%

DEMOCRATS
Creationists...............34%
God-driven evolution...............40%
Secular evolution...............20%

Creationism Loses A Battle In Texas

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) thought they had found the promised land when they moved to Texas. Texas has as many fundamentalists as any state and it has been a real battle here to keep creationism out of high school science classes -- a battle that is still being waged.

The ICR wanted to issue their own version of a master's degree in science. Their science master's degree would be in "creation science". If they could get state accreditation for the degree, then they could get these fraudulent "science" teachers into schools across the state (and maybe across the South). But they ran into a problem. Even Texas is not that crazy.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) voted unanimously to deny the ICR the authority to issue the degree in creation science. The THECB ruled that the degree would not really be in science (but religion) so it did not meet the state's standards for a science degree. Well, fundamentalists never give up easily so they took the THECB to court claiming they imposed "an unconstitutional and prejudicial burden against ICRGS's (ICR graduate school) academic freedom and religious liberties."

But the United States District Court for Western Texas disagreed with them a couple of days ago. The court said the "Plaintiff (ICR) is entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering, and full of irrelevant information." The court found that the THECB's "decision was rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest, and there is no evidence the decision was motivated by animus toward any religious viewpoint."

In plain English, the state has a right to set it's science standards and doing so does not deny anyone their religious freedom. Whether the fundamentalists like it or not, science and religion are different things and religion should not be taught as science (or vice versa).

I'm sure the ICR will probably appeal this decision, but I doubt a court of appeals will overturn this very rational decision.

Incredible Stupidity Of Leo Berman

State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) continues to amaze me with his breath-taking stupidity. We already knew he was a racist immigrant basher. He has been the author of several unconstitutional bills directed at immigrants with brown skin. He has even written one that would deny citizenship to those born in the United States, if there parents were brown-skinned and born south of our border.

Then he gets into a public argument with a Asian-American journalist whose questions were evidently a little too tough. Berman basically told him to go back to China. The journalist later apologized, but Berman refused to do the same. He seemed to be proud of his inexcusable behavior. There is a movement afoot to have Berman censured in the Texas House over this incident.

Now Berman is trying to make higher education in Texas a national laughing-stock. Several months ago, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) refused to grant the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) the right to grant a Masters Degree in science for creationism. Obviously, granting ICR such a right would degrade the value of all higher education science degrees in Texas.

Creationism is religion -- not science, and those who believe in it can get all the degrees they want in theology. But that is not good enough for them. Their purpose is not to grant degrees, but destroy the teaching of real science in Texas and replace it with religion. If the state recognized a science degree in creationism, this would mean schools in Texas could hire those with the degree as science teachers.

Well, Berman got upset because ICR can't grant Masters Degrees in Science, so he has now filed a bill in the Texas House (HB2800) that would exempt them from any decisions of the THECB and allow them to issue the creationism degrees. The bill would force the state to recognize these degrees as SCIENCE degrees.

Berman told Fox News, “I don’t believe I came from a salamander that crawled out of a swamp millions of years ago. I do believe in creationism. I do believe there are gaps in evolution."

I have to agree with Berman about that. The salamander is far too high on the evolutionary scale to have produced such a freak of nature as Leo Berman. Slime mold would be much more likely.

The bill is currently stuck in the Higher Education Committee, and hopefully it will never be reported out of that committee. But Texas legislators have done some incredibly stupid things in the past, so a letter to your State Rep. and Senator would not be out of order.

And a note to the people of Tyler. Elect a Republican if you must, but try to find one with at least half a brain. Berman is an embarrassment to your city and our entire state.

New Creationist Attack On Teaching Science

It seems like the creationists just won't give up on their efforts to replace science with religion in Texas classrooms. When efforts to outright replace the teaching of evolution with creationism failed, they tried to get both taught side-by-side in Texas classrooms. But the citizens of Texas didn't particularly care for a "multiple choice" science program with the truth decided by students instead of scientists.

Then they decided that the "fallacies" of evolution should be taught alongside its reality in Texas classrooms. When that failed to be adopted, some of us thought we could breath a little easier with the knowledge that real science would be taught in schools. But the creationists haven't given up.

Last Friday, State Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Center) introduced a bill (HB4224) in the Texas legislature. That bill would force the teaching of "the strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific "theories". Of course, this is nothing more than an attempt to get creationism in the classroom through the back door.

But this silly bill could affect even more than the teaching of evolution (which is really a proven fact and not a theory). As Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex points out, this bill could be used to question anything of a scientific nature, such as:

•Hurricanes aren’t caused by global warming, or anything to do with ocean and atmosphereic temperature because all of that is based upon fuzzy math and incorrect science; instead, they are caused by God’s wrath and sent to rein down upon cities he views as immoral because it is a more logical viewpoint.

•HIV/AIDS isn’t an autoimmune disease, but rather God’s punishment upon homosexuals because it is more logical to believe that than what scientists have come up with.

•Condom’s never work because the theories and evidence supporting their use are flawed, so abstaining from sex is the only form of birth control acceptable under any circumstance.

It no wonder our state and country is falling behind and not producing the scientists we need. Why can't religion be taught in churches and science in the schools? Why do some people feel they must force their religion on children and families that don't want it? Whatever happened to freedom of religion, which must also include the right to freedom from religion?

Creationist Teacher Brands Students

I'm a firm believer in the idea that everyone has the right to believe in whatever religion (or no religion) that they wish to. However, when you try to force those beliefs on others, you've gone too far. And when you introduce your religion into the academic school system and abuse the students, you're in the wrong no matter what that religion happens to be.

That's what has happened in the small community of Mount Vernon, about 40 miles northeast of Columbus, Ohio. Independent investigators hired by the school board, tell of a science teacher out of control. I use the term "science teacher" very loosely, because he was actually teaching religion instead of science.

They said John Freshwater kept a Bible and other christian items in his middle school classroom. Freshwater taught creationism to his students and would not teach evolution. He also taught that carbon dating was a flawed and unrekiable system.

The district's director of teaching said she has fielded complaints about Freshwater throughout her 11 years with the district. A former superintendent said he tried to move Freshwater to another position, but was unsuccessful because science was all he was certified to teach. Personally, I think he should have been fired for teaching religion instead of science.

But he got even worse this past year. One family has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Freshwater and the school district. They say the teacher burned a cross on their child's arm that didn't go away for nearly four weeks.

Freshwater doesn't deny it. He used a high-frequency generator to burn crosses on the arms of several students. In spite of this, Freshwater has his defenders. One said, "With the exception of the cross-burning episode...I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon School District."

Whether that is true or not is irrelevent. He was supposed to be teaching science -- not values or religion. As for burning crosses on the arms of middle-schoolers, that is nothing less than child abuse. He should not only be fired, but also arrested and charged with child abuse.

This fool is not just unfit to teach science. He is unfit to teach at all.

Board Says No To Creationist "Science" Degree

It looks like the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has come to its senses. The Institute for Creation Research had asked the Board to approve its plan to offer a Masters Degree in Science based on creationist principles. They would have offered the degree online.

Back in January, an advisory committee to the Board had recommended the degree be approved. It looked for a while like the Board would go along with them and approve it, but science teachers across the state objected and the Board put off its vote.

The teachers pointed out that this "science" degree would not be based on scientific principles, but instead it would be based on Biblical principles. The Institute does not believe in the Big Bang, evolution or that the earth is millions of years old. Obviously, this would not be a science degree at all. It would be a religious degree.

On Thursday, the Board finally voted, and they rejected the application. The Institute says they will appeal. If they do, they should lose the appeal. A true science degree must be based on science, not religion.

Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes did not think the degree program met accepted standards of science or science education. He said, "...religious belief is not science. Science and religious belief are reconcilable but they are not the same thing."

Thank goodness the Board came to their senses. Otherwise, Texas would have been the laughingstock of the scientific world.