Michael at “The Bible is the Other Side” is upset. He’s been reading about the suppression of research on evolution acceptance among the American public, and doesn’t like what he sees. In particular, he doesn’t like yours truly, and the way people like me talk about science literacy:

There is a myth propagated by radical left leaning evolutionists that you can have a PHD and have papers published in mainstream science journals and have discoveries that save lives but if you doubt evolution then your an illiterate in science.

Oh my stars and LOLcats! This is so adorable that if I had a photograph of Michael, I’d stamp “literacy FAIL” all over it! “Your an illiterate” indeed!

Does the likes of Joshua Rosenau want to require students a recitation that pledges of allegiance to evolution? Do you want left leaning socialists forcing science curricula on students that say in order to understand science, you must believe that ?nothing? banged and became everything by an unguided process?

Am the likes of Michael cretin creating a straw man? Do the likes of the sky color blue? Does anyone have video of “nothing” getting banged? Because that’d be pretty hot.

To return to the point, such as it is, no, I don’t want “a recitation that pledges of allegiance to evolution,” nor do I think science education should be politicized by socialists (whichever direction they lean), or by right-wing theocrats. Science education should cover the best available science, which means covering evolution and the Big Bang. On account if its not being a science, creationism doesn’t belong in science class.

Michael expresses confusion that I was quoted referring to “the controversy,” as if acknowledging a (social) controversy over creationism and evolution suggested that one must “teach[] this controversy in the public schools.” Lest I be accused of taking his words out of context, the question he actually asks is:

Isn?t this the same Joshua Rosenau from the NCSE who believes there is no controversy about evolution rather it?s controversy is one concocted by creationists and the Discovery Institute?

Assuming I untangled that sentence’s grammatical failings correctly, it is. That this social controversy has been ginned up by religious extremists doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and doesn’t impact science education. I wish it didn’t, and I don’t want this social/political/religious controversy to be taught in science classes.

artist’s conception of Michael via.