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*ScienceWeek Editorials*

*Creationism vs. Sanity - January 23, 2005 
<http://scienceweek.com/editorials.htm#050123>*

*Harvard, Women, and Science - January 19, 2005 
<http://scienceweek.com/editorials.htm#050119>*



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*January 23, 2005*

*Creationism vs. Sanity

One grows tired of the recurring efforts of inadequately educated 
religionists to base the teaching of science in schools on biblical 
passages written during a time when civilization and understanding of 
the natural world were both primitive.

In a country of nearly 300 million people, there will always be some 
people who, because of "religious" conviction, believe the Earth is as 
flat as a pancake, a few thousand years old, and resting on the backs of 
four giant elephants. Their belief is unfortunate. What is even more 
unfortunate is teaching our children that such beliefs, because they are 
"religious", deserve respect.

Creationism and its latest effluvium, intelligent design, are not 
science, not evidentiary, not even close to science, and do not deserve 
respect as material to be taught to children in public schools. The idea 
of imposing one's religious views on others via public education is 
totally un-American, and the people who promulgate that idea need to be 
called that -- un-American.

Religionists who accept the work of their God as revealed by science, 
and who understand that creationism is blasphemy, need to come out into 
the arena and be heard.

Scientists who devote their lives to science and scientific attitudes 
and scientific truths also need to come out into the arena and be heard 
with their strongest voices.

Science teachers who find these creationist crusades obnoxious and 
potentially damaging to the children they teach also need to come out 
into the arena in droves and wage the battle of their intellectual lives.

It is time. We are nearly 150 years after Darwin's / Origin of Species/, 
and it is time for the United States, the foremost scientific enterprise 
on the planet, to deal firmly with this issue. People are free in the US 
to practice any particular religion. They are not free to impose that 
religion on others, and they are certainly not free to force the 
teaching of their religious beliefs in the public schools.

We call for an end to stickers on textbooks telling children that 
evolution is only a "theory". We call for an end to mandated teaching of 
creationism or intelligent design or any other attempt to subvert the 
public school teaching of science as it is currently understood by the 
scientific community. We call for all scientists, educators, and 
thinking Americans to raise their voices in a decisive confrontation 
against insidious and un-American anti-scientific dogma.

The US Supreme Court owes the American people a unanimous and 
unambiguous rejection of religionist attacks on science education.

The Editors
ScienceWeek
*