Beam Up Kansas

This is what you get when you mix church and state.... Kansas.

Now mind you, Kansas is a perfectly fine state, full of perfectly fine, really wonderful, people... gosh, it's the "Sunflower State" after all. But a blight fell on those sunny flower folks many years ago called the GOP Religious Right. They succeeded in making Kansas an international laughing stock.

The Religious Right hijacked the Kansas Board of Education and changed the state science standards to question evolution and promote "intelligent design" .... a misnomer if there ever was one.

But what could you expect when their leader, our incurious, religiously-myopic President Bush, rejected the "stance of his White House science adviser when he told reporters last summer that 'both sides' should be taught." All one can advise Bush's religious lemmings as they plunge over his cliff of "decider" science.... better not buy ocean-front property, and keep air conditioners in good running order.

There is a ray of sunshine beaming on Kansas today, however, their primaries leading to November's elections. As the Washington Post reports in "Election Could Flip Kansas Evolution Stance," defenders of evolution are "working to defeat Kansas Board of Education members who oppose modern Darwinian theory," by challenging three incumbent Republican conservatives. It would take a shift of just two seats to lead Kansas out of their science-education wilderness.

If the challengers succeed, the educated electorate, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Scientific American.... and the Sunflowers.... will thank you.