Sending Wingnuttery Overseas

Hello Bear Republic! I’ve just returned from an extended jaunt in America’s heartland, where “Impeach Bush” bumper stickers are finally starting to replace the ones saying “W in 04!”. Just when I thought I’d escaped the wingnuttery, this article popped into my inbox. Russia is currently experiencing its own version of the Scopes Monkey Trial, as a student sues her school for presenting a “one-sided” version of biological history. You’ll see, though, that this issue is much larger than a single student - in fact, it has very little to do with the student and her desire for.. well… anything. The student in question has not even attended the first two court hearings. Instead, she was spoken for by her father and a family friend who just happens to run a conservative Christian public relations firm.

And it all becomes clear.

I’ll let you read the article yourself, and if you speak Russian, you can also check out the official website of the plaintiff. (Or the Russian equivalent. I watched a lot of “Divorce Court” over the holidays.) However, I would like to bring your attention to this quote by the girl’s laywer, who said:

“Secular education should not be based on offending the feelings of religious believers.”

I like this quote because it’s so obviously a page torn straight out of the Discovery Institute playbook. Apparently, simply by not presenting a religion’s mythology as fact, scientists are offensive to believers. And if that’s the case, boy, are they gonna be upset when we expand biology curricula to include “Holy Object Desecration”.

If the above links haven’t quenched your thirst for complete crap, try taking this dinosaur quiz , brought to you by people who think that science provides inadequate evidence, so we should just believe a bunch of made-up stuff.

-superawesomestuff