America’s Christianists are nothing if not persistent. For decades, they’ve tried pushing evolution out of public school science classrooms in favor of their own mythology, aka Creationism. Because teaching religion in public schools runs afoul of the First Amendment, they’ve been set back periodically by the courts, in rulings such as Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), and Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Dist. (2005).
Creationists have, accordingly, given up forcing “test cases” through the courts so the judicial branch of government can pave the way for their preaching in public schools. Instead, what they’ve done is get themselves onto state education boards so they can just ram their mythology into schools from within the executive branch. The latest example of this effort, as the Phoenix New Times explains, comes from the Grand Canyon State (Archive.Is cached article):
Diane Douglas’ office is defending her decision to appoint a young-earth creationist to help review and change state education standards on evolution.
As Phoenix New Times reported last week, Douglas, the Arizona superintendent, tapped Arizona Origin Science Association President Joseph Kezele, who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible’s Genesis narrative, for an August 30 working group that finalized the evolution science standards.
Justification of this maneuver reflects the old, tired, and fallacious “teach the controversy” trope:
In interviews following the article’s publication, the superintendent’s chief of staff, Michael Bradley, said, “We wanted to include a wide variety of views so that we’d get the best product possible.”
Bradley went on to overstate his case — and almost in the same breath, admitted it:
“We wouldn’t consider Christianity a fringe view,” Bradley said. He added that Christian religious beliefs are widely held by a broad segment of Americans. Unprompted, Bradley explained that he is a Christian too, but that he does not share Kezele’s uncompromising creationist views.
The overstatement here is in Bradley’s initial premise that Creationism equals Christianity. That is most assuredly untrue. There are many Christians — on an individual basis, as well as whole sects and institutions — who do not embrace Creationism. Inconsistent with what he first said, Bradley concedes he’s a Christian who’s not a Creationist — so one wonders why he’d insist that Creationism equals Christianity in the first place. That’s weird.
The main appeal here, especially in citing that Creationism is “widely held by a broad segment of Americans,” is the democratic fallacy — also known as appeal to consensus, bandwagon fallacy, or more formally, argumentum ad populum. As it turns out, veracity isn’t up for a vote. Things don’t magically become true just because they have a constituency that adheres to it. So who the fuck really gives a shit that there are Creationists in Arizona who want public schools to teach their mythology? The state’s school board should just tell all of them to go fuck themselves and stop unconstitutionally jamming their religion into public schools. If they want their kids to be Creationists, they can make that happen … in their homes and Sunday schools. They’re absolutely free to do that. There’s no reason to impose that bilious tripe on the entire population.
Hopefully, now that this effort has been laid bare, something can be done to derail it, before Arizona’s education system is compromised and turned into an engine of proselytization. But I doubt that will happen, given that it’s a “red state” filled with sanctimonious Rightists.
Photo credit: shane_d_k, via Flickr.
Hat tip: Rational Wiki.
