... the freedom to redefine science!
Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. The 6-4 vote was a victory for "intelligent design" advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power. Critics of the new language charged that it was an attempt to inject God and creationism into public schools in violation of the separation of church and state. All six of those who voted for the new standards were Republicans. Two Republicans and two Democrats voted no. "This is a sad day. We're becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that," said board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat. Supporters of the new standards said they will promote academic freedom. "It gets rid of a lot of dogma that's being taught in the classroom today," said board member John Bacon, an Olathe Republican. The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life have been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology. In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.
I, for one, am delighted that my job has been made that much easier. I think I'm going to submit a paper to the Astrophysical Journal tomorrow, asserting that the accelerating expansion of the Universe is caused by Scott McLellan's ever increasing excuses for the government's need to torture people. Seems as good an explanation as any other.
