This is 2008!

Doers anybody remember all of this talk from conservatives about "the freedom to question the curriculum" back when segregation was the law of the land, and all kids were ordered to say Christian prayers in school? Were "supplemnetary materials" ever encouraged for biology classes when the subject was sex? I'm just wondering.

Impressive as some of Governor Jindal's fellow undergraduate alumni are, when political ambitions come into play, I think the sheepskin isn't much reason to hope.

Why should he be any less of an opportunist than any other politician?

Is they sayin' prior to this here rulin, thems down in Louisiana was teachin' our childrens that they came from monkeys?

He's also claimed to have performed an exorcism. I'm not even slightly joking (click on the sig)!

But as for Jindal not "believing" in evolution: as someone with a biology degree, he's either a) an idiot, or, more likely, b) a political opportunist; as a Catholic, he's going against Rome.

(Which, of course, he also did as a lay Catholic casting out that ol' Devil.)

This story cites the Washington Times, which wants us to believe that we came from Moonies.

"The passage of the bill already has opponents of 'creation science' in an uproar."

This framing provides more dignity to the "creation science" advocates than they deserve. It's not supporters versus opponents of creation science, it's supporters versus opponents of science, period. And the advocates of "creation science" are opponents of real science. This is not an equal argument between rival theories based on data; this is a battle between data-based science and a narrow-faith-based assertion.

Darwinian Evolution For Idiots:

A molecule given that self-replicates,

Add random mutation, and open the gates

To wonders; selection, you see, with the time

Of a few billion years breeds a lion from slime.

Yet, pardon my doubt if that really is true

If G. Walker Bush is the best it can do.

...has schools? Wow, they really have come a long way.

You know, part of me thinks that this is an absolute atrocity. Another part of me thinks that if these people are this ass-backward that they make these kinds of choices, then for all I care they can replace the entire school curriculum with bible-study. Keep them stupid and servile. They can do things like fight wars and go down mineshafts. Their children certainly won't be able to compete with the rest of the world.

There are Alphas. There are Betas.

Oh, and to call this a promotion of "critical thinking" is the cruelest of ironies. What is religion if not the willful suspension of critical thought replaced by make-believe?

I am perfectly willing to believe that southern redneck Baptists are a special creation to show how stupid humanity can be.

he's a token to make people thin McCain might be a different kind of republican. HA!

What would having Jindal on the ticket provide McCain with? Stealing away the "black vote" from Obama? Good publicity? The all important middle asian vote? What?

No McLame will choose Romney.

Either way they lose.

As far as Louisiana goes...what a shame. If I lived there and wasn't wiped out by the Katrina I'd be hauling ass right now.

If schools were teaching kids to properly vet sources, this wouldn't be such a problem. But they're not.

It's not the presenting of different ideas, no matter how silly or unlikely, it's presenting them as if they both have valid evidence to support them.

This move is actually a benefit to students in states where they don't teach this creationism nonsense. Less competitive for admission to colleges (other than Regent U) and less competition for jobs requiring any understanding of science or rational thinking.

Hopefully, the rest of us won't have to support these miseducated kids when they graduate from Doofus High in Backwardville, LA.

Creationists are many things, few of them good, but the one thing they're not is stupid. And they've stumbled across some genuine philosophical conundrums -- most pointedly, the inherent and perhaps irreconcilable conflict between our biological understanding of homo sapiens as subject to the processes of nature and natural selection, and our political understanding of human beings as uniquely conscious, free agents with certain inalienable rights.

What many creationists seek is the unity of religion, science and politics, with religion forming the moral and philosophical framework for a society; science contributing fact-based knowledge, intellectual authority and epistemological clarity to that framework; and politics both reflecting and enacting the perfect harmony of the first two. The result would be something like Plato's infamous Republic, only without the need to base the society on a "noble lie."

Of course, this idea is based on the fetishization of science as the temporal form of Ultimate Knowledge, not on a working understanding of scientific method.

But all I can think of in regards to critical thinking applied to creationism is (stealing):

"It would be a good idea".

Until humans throw off the yoke of religion, we will never make progress towards peaceful coexistence.

all of it

the Creationists looking reality in the face (the flu is evolving right now, which is why we're always coming up with new vaccines) and saying "6,000 yrs"

Dawkins acting like an ideologue and then saying that what happened before the Big Bang "doesn't matter"

the anti-poor, southern rural bigotry that's still trendy

of course, this is all basically just that old human competitive urge to beat the out-group manifesting itself in a variety of ways

animal nature

ya know what Flava Flav says?

are you ready for the real revolution

which is the evolution of the mind

if you seek

than you shall find

that we all come from the divine

what a whacko, huh? ;)

Well you not thinking too critically if you believe in creationism. I guess these kids are not be going on to be scientists. It's very sad when this country is in need of more advanced science to compete in the world, we have religious fanatics trying to drag us back to th dark ages.