Perhaps you've already heard the story of the Virginia schoolteacher who has been handing out his homemade creationism textbook to his students.

Booher handed out to each student the 500-page, three-ring binder titled "Creation Battles Evolution" at the start of each school year for his Biology 2 class, Lee said Booher told him. While optional, students received extra credit for studying the text.

"He told the students, 'You may read this. You don't have to. It has some Bible references in it,'" said Lee, who received an anonymous tip on Booher's text. "This teacher felt like he wasn't doing anything wrong. He said it was strictly voluntary."

"Optional", and "strictly voluntary", yet students get extra credit for studying it, huh? Right. Just like all of the exams in my classes are entirely optional—it's just that students get credit and grades for them. But I don't require them to take any tests.

So Booher has been told to knock it off—no more handing out ignorant trash to the students under his care. I've found one weblog that protests:

This aversion to Creation being taught is baffling to me. On every other issue these same people advocate rights and freedom of information. Why doesn't that ever extend to Creation or anything Christian?

Pity party time! Guess what: you can teach creationism and Christianity all you want, and it goes on all the time. There are these things called "churches" that infest every community in the land, like a rash of pimples, and people can assemble in them and practice almost any religious belief they want. They even get tax breaks! Even I, nasty ol' atheist that I am, advocate the rights of people to learn about creationism and Christianity, and would sic the ACLU on anyone who tried to crash a Sunday School and dictate that they must replace their copies of the Bible with The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

However, we're talking about the public schools…the places where everyone, no matter what their creed, are supposed to be instructed in the basic concepts necessary for informed membership in an educated, democratic society. In math class they should learn about math, not St. Augustine, and in science class they should learn about science, not religious myths. When we skimp on the science and have poor teachers who waste time on bible stories in the biology class, we get an incompetent citizenry who say foolish things like this:

I would dare say that creation has far more scientific evidence than evolution. There are many, but you really needn't look past the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics to prove not only Creation, but also a young age for the earth.

You see? That is why we should oppose science teachers who waste time with creationism—their students come out ignorant of the evidence and with heads full of nonsense. There is no scientific evidence for creationism, and the idea was discarded by scientists long ago because it contradicts the available evidence; the Talk.Origins archive is full of good stuff describing the support for evolution, or if you're a masochist, you can find thousands of current primary papers on the topic on PubMed. As for the thermodynamics argument, oh, please. Evolution does not violate the law of conservation of energy, nor does it decrease entropy.

This weblogger does say precisely one thing with which I agree.

The worst part of all this is that our children are the pawns in this debacle. It is truly very sad.

Think of all the kids coming out of high school thinking there is evidence for creationism, that the earth is less than ten thousand years old, and that evolution violates physical laws! It's tragic, I tell you.