Inherit the Dumbassery

After a brief break, Inherit the Dumbassery is seeing a revival with a new cast--this time in Brunswick, North Carolina:

The Brunswick County school board is looking for a way for creationism to be taught in the classroom side by side with evolution.

"It's really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism," county school board member Jimmy Hobbs said at Tuesday's meeting. "The law says we can't have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists."

"Of the atheists". Well, Jimmy, you're not a moron at all, are you?

Simple Fact That You're Missing: The scientific theory of evolution is not "of the atheists"--atheists don't have a special patent on it nor are the only people who subscribe to it.

This production, as usual, is high on the drama and stupidity:

When asked by a reporter, his fellow board members all said they were in favor of creationism being taught in the classroom.

The topic came up after county resident Joel Fanti told the board he thought it was unfair for evolution to be taught as fact, saying it should be taught as a theory because there's no tangible proof it's true.

"I wasn't here 2 million years ago," Fanti said. "If evolution is so slow, why don't we see anything evolving now?"

You've been watching YouTube videos of Kirk Cameron with a banana and peanut butter nonsense, haven't you?

But let's move onto where you say that "[evolution] should be taught as a theory", ostensibly because you believe 'it's not a fact'. And here is Simple Fact That You're Missing #2: evolution IS taught as a theory! It's a scientific theory. You don't know what that is? Shocking. Let's review, shall we?

In science, a theory is “an explanation that binds together various experimentally tested hypotheses to explain some fundamental aspect of nature”. For an idea to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be established on the basis of a wide variety of scientific evidence. Its claims must be testable and it must propose experiments that can be replicated by other scientists.

See? No, you probably don't.

The board allowed Fanti to speak longer than he was allowed, and at the end of his speech he volunteered to teach creationism and received applause from the audience.

Of course.

When he walked away, school board Chairwoman Shirley Babson took the podium and said another state had tried to teach evolution and creationism together and failed, and that the school system must teach by the law.

"Evolution is taught because that's what the General Assembly tells us to teach," Babson said, adding that she doesn't agree with it, but that students must learn it to graduate.

Oh that mean, scary General Assembly. It has more brains than you and for good reason, apparently.

Board attorney Joseph Causey said it might be possible for the board to add creationism to the curriculum if it doesn't replace the teaching of evolution.

Schools' Superintendent Katie McGee said her staff would do research.

Babson said the board must look at the law to see what it says about teaching creationism, but that "if we can do it, I think we ought to do it."

At least they aren't trying to call it "intelligent design" and are calling it what it really is. For now--I'm sure the Discovery Institute will change that once Ms. McGee contacts them.

Ugh. These morons are trying to decide curricula for science classes when they don't even appear understand what a scientific theory is. Or what evolution itself is, for that matter. Or Simple Fact #3: that they can teach creationism all the live long day to their kids IN THEIR HOMES. This isn't surprising at all--it's par for the course and it's really fucking pathetic.