Neanderthalic misadventures: Creationism

     I checked out the OC Reg this morning and came across an article about a presentation today at Chapman University:

     An advocate for the “spherical earth hypothesis” who will detail her fight against the “flat earth hypothesis” today in a talk at Chapman University says anti-Spherists are taking a new tack: teaching the “evidence against Spherism,” even though, she says, there isn’t any.
     Eugenie C. Scott, whose Oakland-based non-profit group, the National Center for Science Education, has been fighting “Flat Earth” science in public schools since 1987, says her wide-ranging talk will touch on the scientific, educational, religious and legal issues surrounding Spherism and Flat Earthism — and, perhaps most importantly, the politics as well.

      --Just kidding. The article isn’t about Spherism v. Flat Earthism. It’s about Evolution v. Creationism.
     Same thing.
     The Reg, being the Reg, has a poll:

Do you believe creationism or "intelligent design" should be taught alongside evolution in public school classrooms?

Yes, it is a valid scientific alternative
No, it has no scientific validity

     So far, two thirds of Reg readers voted “no” and one third voted “yes.”
     I’m impressed.
     The Reg article (Tough talk: evolution vs. creationism) includes an interview with Scott. At one point, she’s asked: “California seems to have few active controversies over evolution in public schools at the moment. Do you see the potential for such problems in Orange County?”
     She answers:

Let me put it this way. We tend to have the most problems in parts of the country where there’s a lot of religious conservatism, and certainly Orange County would qualify.

     Yeah. It’s the land of the Neanderthal.
     Today, the Reg also reported the opening of an “Evolution Education Research Center,” which exists

in part to combat “misconceptions” about evolutionary science and to explore how scientific and religious views intersect.
     The new center … will ... be a westward expansion of a center now based at Harvard and McGill universities.
     “The entire nation, almost, has problems with evolution education, with close to 50 percent of the public thinking the science is so bad they doubt that it even occurred,” said Brian Alters, a new science education professor at Chapman who will also head the center….
. . .
     Alters gave three main reasons for widespread misconceptions about evolution in the United States.
     “One is scientific illiteracy,” he said. “There is also religious illiteracy: people think they shouldn’t accept evolution because they somehow think their religion is against it, when maybe, perhaps, their religion isn’t against it.”
     A third factor, he said, is “an entire industry against evolution. It creates organizations that are large and powerful, and very effective.”

     A key financial supporter of that industry is OC’s own Howard Ahmanson, Jr.
     Ahmanson is one of Tom Fuentes’ pals.
     He’s also a major supporter of Education Alliance, which is a player in Orange County’s Neanderthal wars on school boards—e.g., the CAPO school board.
     In 2004, the Reg asked Ahmanson what he thought of societies that execute people for homosexual acts. His answer: "It would still be a little hard to say that if one stumbled on a country that was doing that, that it is inherently immoral, to stone people for these things. But I don't think it's at all a necessity."
     How very big of him.

Tom Fuentes