And so it begins: a petition to Mike Pence to ban the teaching of evolution

I swear that the ignorance of Americans sometimes astounds me, not that I think we’re all ignorant. But I have to question the rationality of people who started the petition below (click on screenshot to go to petition, but for god’s sake don’t sign it!). Lots of biologists and scientists were sent this link by a creationist whom I’ll leave unnamed to protect the benighted.

I won’t reproduce the whole thing, but you can get its tenor from the first two paragraphs:

To Mike Pence, Vice-President of the United States of America:

We the undersigned note that, when you were a member of the U.S House of Representatives, you spoke out on the subject of science education and for presenting students with all available information. Recently, we have seen the passage of academic freedom bills in Louisiana and Tennessee which have allowed for critical evaluation in the classroom and improved educational standards. However, whilst an important development, they were only enacted owing to the need to protect students from indoctrination. We object to the teaching of the very controversial theory of evolution as part of the K-12 science curriculum which we regard to be unnecessary and unhelpful.

It is obvious to us that Evolutionism-Darwinism is an anti-Christian atheistic dogma masquerading as science. According to renown philosopher of science, Professor Michael Ruse, himself an ardent evolutionist, there is no doubt that the theory of evolution represents a philosophical worldview: “Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity.”

The usual blather follows: evolution denies a creator and thus is an atheistic “religion,” we’ve changed our minds on some scientific issues, therefore evolutionists are fallible (Christianity, of course, never changes), etc. etc. And there’s this old claim:

Of course, it is absolutely necessary to teach observable limited biological change, generally termed “microevolution” or “adaptation”, such as the acquisition of antibiotic resistance in bacteria through loss-of-function mutations. However, this can be effectively taught as part of a course on ecology without reference to the wider theory and the distraction of its flawed historical narrative of origins which includes telling students that humans are walking sarcopterygian fish!

Well, the petition isn’t going to go anywhere, or so I hope, but when Trump appoints another conservative justice to the Supreme Court, that will make a 5-4 majority, one that could overturn the existing federal ruling banning the teaching of creationism and its subspecies in public schools as a violation of the First Amendment.

There are only three signatures on the petition to date, and here they are:

I tried adding another humorous one like the above, but for some reason (LOL) they apparently aren’t accepting signatures. You might want to try one.

h/t: Joseph