by Zach Bigalke

Created on: August 13, 2007

Creationism certainly may be creative...but sure as Hell is not science, neither is creationism. Creationism doesn't even meet the less than rigorous standards of science fiction. It is simply pure fiction, codified millennia ago in a religious tome to whom no author can even be ascribed. And, by any other name - "Intelligent Design", I am looking in your direction - it still fails to meet the burden of proof that makes science what it is. Whereas evolution has been proven, beginning with the studies of Darwin in the South Pacific and continuing through this day, there is no way to prove or disprove creationist theory. There is no way to even test it through the scientific method.

Those who would demand that children learn the story of Adam and Eve are religious, nay Christian, zealots. In the United States, there is a precedent that church and state be separate. If, for instance, a Buddhist or Hindu student is sitting in a biology classroom and the teacher extols the class to turn to Genesis, we are infringing on that student's right to be spared dogmatic rhetoric which only has value as an instrument of faith. The church through whom this quaint theory was formulated is the same as that which would burn heretics at the stake and sit by idly as those of other faiths were cooked alive in Hitler's furnaces.

Religion has its place...within the home and during the Sunday sermon (or the Saturday service for Jews or the Friday faith meeting for Muslims). And, in a Catholic or other religious private school, there is nothing which states that this charming fiction cannot be foisted on gullible young minds. But to sanction theocratic thought in our public schools goes beyond mere irresponsibility. It goes against various legal decisions by the United States Supreme Court which uphold that teaching creationist theory is akin to sponsoring religious thought. A teacher does not have the right under the First Amendment to promote any of their personal religious beliefs in the classroom (Webster v. New Lenox School District #122, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1990). When attendance in school is mandatory for children, teaching creationism - even when giving equal time to evolutionary curriculum - is akin to "inescapable religiousity". As Federal Judge William Overton ruled in the 1982 case McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, "creation science has no scientific merit or educational value as science". Further, he announced:

"[Creationists] take the literal wording of the

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