<...I maintain he provides a very good primer for the defense of evolution against the incursions of creationists. I had to fight that fight in our public schools, with others opposed to our board's policy positions, not so very long ago. This would have been handy to have.

In a country where the schools were not the property of the government, this would be a non-issue, but that's another thread.

This intrusion of radical creationism into our society is annoying to say the least--very similar to the constant harping of certain UFO folks over on That Other Board. However, the case for evolution in general is so persuasive on so many levels of science, that I don't think creationism, even if mentioned peripherally in class, will do any lasting damage, any more than the "duck and cover" drills of my childhood made us all into raving peaceniks.

Fortunately, I have never seen this to be a major problem in the schools in my area.

I wish I could say the same about the rest of the politically-correct indoctrination the schools pump out on a regular basis. Some people I know spend almost as much time un-educating their kids as the schools do "educating" them. Fortunately, I have been lucky with my kids' teachers so far. However, my daughter just entered high school. We shall see.

Just as an aside, one of conservatism's worst moments was the Firing Line debate* in December of 1997, which pitted pro and anti evolution people against each other. To my chagrin, William F. Buckley, no dummy, was on the anti-evolution side. This was not too surprising, given his previous negative treatment of Ayn Rand, whose impact on the conservative scene has always been considerably dampened by her atheism. Warching the pro-evolution scientists give concise fact after concise fact, only to have them bounce off these supposedly intelligent people opposing them, was painful to watch.

If I stop reading when something annoys me, I don't learn. Sometimes when I read it all, I know my enemy, which is important. Sometimes I find that my enemy really isn't so much of an enemy after all, which is really important. Why do you think I keep coming back here?

Why do you think I posted a liberal owners manual?

*Yeah, the link is to some kind of a pro-creation web site, but the Firing Line pages are gone, and these sites are the only ones interested in this debate any more.