A new study of America’s high school biology teachers confirms that despite 40 years of court cases ruling that teaching creationism or intelligent design violates the Constitution, most teachers don’t embrace the scientific facts of evolutionary biology.

A new study by Penn State’s Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer says that only 28 percent of America’s biology teachers consistently teach the scientific evidence that evolution has occurred, while 13% only teach creationism. Sixty percent don’t teach much at all, omitting the subject because they don’t want controversy. via Science Daily

This evidence comes at a time when the Vatican embraces evolutionary theory for decades. Islam embraces evolutionary biology. The vast number of other religious denominations in America embrace evolutionary biology.

Intelligent design doesn’t deny evolution but insists that God started the big bang, which is the Vatican’s position and that of many US Christians.

As America’s students fall further behind the rest of the world in science, new research about the nation’s biology teachers dovetails with research about Americans in general. Gallup polled Americans on the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday and found that 39% of Americans believe in evolution; 25% reject it; and 36% have no opinion.

In the Gallup poll, 57% of America’s high school or less responders had no idea who Darwin even is.

Berkman and Plutzer conclude that “the cautious 60 percent fail to explain the nature of scientific inquiry, undermine the authority of established experts, and legitimize creationist arguments.” As a result, “they may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists.” via Science Daily

The Gallup research confirmed that people who correctly identified Darwin as associated with evolutionary theory believed in it, supporting Berkman and Plutzer’s argument that America’s kids aren’t being taught the theory of evolution in school, presumably because there’s always one parent who might be upset over the class plan, so nobody learns the science.

More high school students take biology than any other science course. For a quarter of America’s high school students, biology is their ownly science course.

Bottom line here is that American fundamentalists may be small in number but they have a big impact on America’s future and the education of our children. All American kids are being negatively impacted by the tyranny of the few.

America’s economic future and our ability to compete is seriously impeded by the pressure that high school biology teachers feel to ignore volumes of science about the history of life on this planet, as if it never happened.

Again, we publish the scores of America’s kids and how we rank against the rest of the world in science. No one wants a fight, but let’s be clear. America’s Fundamentalists put their perception of God’s interests above the future of our children.

We have no quarrel with the debate between believers in intelligent design and those who reject it. But to refuse to teach our children science is just mindboggling. Our problem in competing with the Chinese isn’t solely the fact that Chinese mothers are taskmasters.

The Chinese embrace science.

When Conservatives attack Liberals for being ungodly, it’s because we don’t agree with these statements:

Sarah Palin:

… from ‘Going Rogue’ , written with an assist from Lynn Vincent, a senior writer and former features editor of World, an evangelical magazine, the New York Times writes:

Elsewhere in this volume she talks about creationism, saying she “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: “My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over.”

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck thinks the theory of evolution is a bunch of monkey business. In October 2010, the deeply religious Beck denounced evolution, calling it “ridiculous”. He explained “I haven’t seen a half-monkey, half-person yet. Did evolution just stop?”

“I don’t know how God creates. I don’t know how we got here,” Beck said, reports the NY Daily News.”If I get to the other side and God’s like, ‘You know what, you were a monkey once, I’ll be shocked, but I’ll be like ‘Whatever.’”

Rush Limbaugh

“As far as I’m concerned Darwin is corrupt and everybody that believes in Darwinism is corrupt and they present a problem. “

Liberals love anything that allows them to say there’s no God. Liberals will go anywhere and support anything if they can use it to say there’s no God.Okay, fine.Then they come up and they say survival of the fittest, fine and dandy.Well, then why don’t they let survival of the fittest rule in American society?They love Darwin, and they love survival of the fittest except when it comes to America.Now they want equality of outcomes.They don’t want survival of the fittest. They want survival of the incompetents.In fact, they want the incompetents to triumph over the competent.They want the incompetent, the incapable, the stupid, to triumph over the genuine creators of wealth and the entrepreneurs, and that’s what’s wrong with these people.And if Darwin helps them get there, then they’ll use it.And man, I’m telling you, a guy called and asked me about Darwin, evolution or whatever, I told him what I think and my e-mail was just overflowing. I almost had to get a satellite account to handle the overflow, Snerdley, and every one of them was arrogant and condescending: “I can’t believe how stupid you are. I had so much invested in your intelligence, you really need to reexamine what you think about Darwinism.” These people that believe in Darwin are no different than people who have faith in Jesus Christ or Mohammed or what have you. It’s fascinating. (Note, we have left the incorrect spelling of Muhammad, as found on Rush Limbaugh’s website.)

Pope Benedict in Rome, Jan. 6, 2011

We repeat that large numbers of the liberals Rush Limbaugh is talking about agree with Pope Benedict that the science of the Big Bang is real.

Is Rush Limbaugh saying that Pope Benedict is a Liberal? Would someone send Limbaugh Pope Benedict’s official statements made two weeks ago in front of 10,000 people?

“Contemplating it (the universe), we are invited to read something profound into it: the wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible creativity of God,” he (Pope Benedict) said in a sermon to some 10,000 people in St Peter’s Bascilica on the feast day (Jan. 6, 2011)
The Catholic Church no longer teaches creationism — the belief that God created the world in six days as described in the Bible — and says that the account in the book of Genesis is an allegory for the way God created the world.
Benedict and his predecessor John Paul have been trying to shed the Church’s image of being anti-science, a label that stuck when it condemned Galileo for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun, challenging the words of the Bible. via Reuters:

It is this lack of any respects for facts that scares the wits out of me with these people. And I’m unpatriotic for not wanting to summarily reject the entire scientific wisdom of the science of biology.

American Conservatives and many members of the Tea Party movement have the future of America’s children in their hands. They blame America’s problems on Liberals who don’t believe that God will bail us out in our ignorance of the facts.

I think God will say you stupid idiots. I gave you a brain for a reason, so why in the world haven’t you chosen to use it for the good of humankind?

Meanwhile, here’s how America’s kids fare in their science scores, compared to other countries. Anne