This blog is mostly about the controversy in Montgomery County over the new sex education curriculum. But it's about more than that, of course. It is imperative to defend the school board's decision now, on this case, because there is no doubt that the religious right plans to intrude further and further into our lives. We need to stop them now.

Yesterday's Richmond Times - Dispatch has an excellent article about the movement to teach creationism in public schools. As they say:

... roughly 40 states face some kind of challenge to the teaching of evolution. Such is the case just up the road in Charles County, Maryland, where a majority on the board of education supports teaching creationism alongside evolution. In the words of one board member, "I believe that if we are teaching evolution, we should have a section on creationism as well, and any other theory. Let's motivate our kids to be creative thinkers." Creationism Might Deserve to Be Taught - in Religion Class

This is not far from us, it's not down in the deep South somewhere -- this is right here in the state of Maryland.

Such creativity, alas, would lead children to the conclusion that two plus two equals five and that when it rains, it does so because angels are crying. There is, in fact, a place for creationism in the classroom - the religious-studies classroom, that is. It does not belong in the science classroom any more than astrology or exorcism does. Yet more than a century after the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species, many Americans seem intent on putting it there.

We will see something in the sex-ed debate that we see in the evolution debate, and it is necessary to understand what it is. The religious conservatives will try to argue that there is a "debate" in the scientific community, or they will say that "scientists are not in agreement" about whether God made the universe in a week, or if gay people choose to be that way, or whatever argument they want to win.

To support this, they will find some oddball professor or author somewhere who will be willing to argue, with suitably obscure jargon, maybe even with charts and equations, that whatever the faithful believe is indeed scientific fact. Or if not fact, at least there is a "debate" in the scientific community.

Sometimes these individuals are associated with universities, sometimes with Christian schools, and sometimes less than that. Some of them hold doctorates (and some have less-than-respectable credentials), sometimes even in a relevant field. You can imagine that putting an academic face on the extremists' arguments would be very lucrative, especially since there aren't many academics willing to do it.

This is a matter of obfuscation of the highest degree. The ordinary person cannot tell what the real scientific community believes, and as the Christian conservative movement has no shortage of cash they are able to fund publications and media appearances. The illusion can be created that someone is a real scientist, when in fact they are simply using technical jargon to justify their religious beliefs.

Evolution does not contradict theism - God could have directed the process, and Darwin himself concluded his magnum opus with the comment that "there is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one."

But perhaps the strongest argument against the view that evolution and creationism are merely two different faiths is this: Were someone to collect sufficient objective evidence to disprove evolution, science would be radically changed - and the disprover would be hailed as a genius of our age. In short evolutionists, like all scientists, are open to the possibility that they might one day be proved wrong. Is there a committed creationist willing to say the same?

Of course I have cut a lot out of the article -- I recommend you follow the link and read through it. We who hope to have scientifically-supported facts taught in the public schools will need to prepare a coherent defense against this technique of slandering science by putting forth phonies.