Good News for Kansas and America

Yesterday, the new Kansas board of Education overturned the pro-ID/creationism science standards and brought them more into line with 21st Century science. That's obviously good news, but remember this is an ongoing soap opera in Kansas. Kansans seem to have a short memory and this decision yo-yo's the standards back towards good science. We'll have to see if in the next two-year cycle, Kansans forget and elect another slate of conservative fundamentalists hell-bent on ruining science education by implementing religious dogma into the curriculum. The track record suggests that is not an unlikely event (this marks the 4th change in the last 8 years!).
This has to be viewed as another slam in the face to the ID crowd. They've met with defeat at nearly every political turn and run the risk of becoming a marginalized political action group. They certainly have not accomplished anything in the way of science, but that was just a guise to forward a political agenda that is having about as much success as the Detroit Lions or Oakland Raiders in the past year (which for the non-football educated is slim to none). However, a good theocrat never truly goes away and I'm sure that Dembski and the ID bandwagon is working hard to pretend this is no big thing. They can rationalize this any way they want, but it's not good news. Fortunately for the ID/creation folk, many Americans pay little attention to the science standards and even more have a short memory. That's why the ancient religion of Intelligent Design looks so new to many.
Good science standards are crucial to maintaining a technologically and scientifically literate society. The theocratic society envisioned by the creationist/ID'ers will accomplish nothing other than to begin a new dark age in America.
So, hats off to Kansas but the ID/creation folks won't go away so easily---so stay on your toes. Don't believe me:

“This issue is never going to go away,” said John Calvert, director of the Intelligent Design Network and a Lake Quivira resident. “You can’t keep science in a box.”

I think he's got the quote backwards. ID/creationism is trying to keep science in a box. The new standards bring science back out in the open where it belongs!

Cheers

Joe Meert