noteworthy wrote: Perhaps more worrisome than a political movement against science is plain old ignorance. The people determining the curriculum of our children in many states remain scientifically illiterate. And Kansas is a good case in point. A key concern should not be whether Dr. Steve Abrams's religious views have a place in the classroom, but rather how someone whose religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge can be chairman of a state school board.
Be sure to check out the survey graph from today's Science magazine regarding belief in evolution. Americans are next to last, just ahead of Turkey, among all nations surveyed.
Maybe that's because the survey is confounded with a totally boolean question by mis-using the definition of evolution. When presented with the question, do you think humans evolved or were created, I would expect to see such polarizing results. This is not a red state vs blue state issue. The theories are not polar opposites. Much to the chagrin of every idiot on the extremes that would like it to be so black and white. Interesting to note that there's not much data replicated in the graph (hello, percentage for Turkey? That could be 49% for all we know, depending on how the graph was scaled) and also that the US seems to be (lack of data again!) to be in the top 10 for "not sures". This graph is obviously built to inflame the issue, not provide any 'scientific' evidence of anything about the issue. Ironic? After googling the researcher cited, I came across this quote, which is probably the most damning: Miller said a lack of genetic literacy on the part of many American adults also plays a role. For example, only a third of American adults agree that more than half of human genes are identical to those of mice, and only 38 percent of adult recognize that humans have more than half of their genes in common with chimpanzees.
Yes Virginia, public education sucks in the US. This isn't an evolution vs creationism argument, oh yellow journalists! It's a 'failure of public education' issue. It's not focused purely on science either. Compare literacy and basic math skills across all those nations and I'm sure you'd see a similar distribution. The US has forgotten that to be truly competitive on the global landscape requires strong education K-12, not just higher ed. Read between the lines man. | 
