A retraction: I’ve talked with Lanny Boswell, and he is most definitely NOT a creationist. I’ve edited the post below.

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Candidates are busy running for election to the Lincoln school board in Nebraska right now, and guess what’s been found? Creationists! Running for election! A newspaper story neatly summarizes the positions of many of the candidates, and here is a set you Nebraskans should not vote for.

• Kevin Keller “wished creationism was taught in place of evolution, but should at least be taught alongside evolution”…although now that he has been exposed, he is frantically backtracking.

• “Kirby Young, a candidate for the District 1 seat, and Andrew Ringsmuth, a candidate for the District 7 seat, said creationism should be taught as a theory alongside evolution.”

• “Gregory Wiltshire, a candidate for the District 1 seat, said he doesn’t believe creationism should be taught in science classes, but schools should give students the chance to explore their interest in creationism.”

• “Norman Dority, seeking the District 5 seat, said schools should present theories of creationism and evolution but should not dictate how they are taught.”

• “Andrew Ringsmuth: candidate for District 7 seat: Ringsmuth said, at the high school level, evolution should be taught as a theory that many, but not all, scientists support. He said teachers should be allowed to give students a chance to explore creationism, intelligent design and evolution and decide for themselves which theory they support.”

Keller is a particularly interesting case: he was endorsed by the Lincoln Education Association’s PAC. They’re trying to rationalize it away now, but I think they should send a clearer message and remove their endorsement. I’m sorry, but people as ignorant as the ones listed above have no place in managing a school system.

All is not lost — there are a few candidates with sensible positions. These are the ones you should vote for, Nebraska.

• “Kathy Danek: candidate for re-election to her District 1 seat: She doesn’t support incorporating creationism, which she considers a religious belief, in science curriculum. She said she could see creationism being used as a topic in a student debate class or activity.”

• “Barb Baier: candidate for District 3 seat: Baier said creationism should not be taught in science classes. She said she considers it a philosophy, not a form of science, but could see it being taught in a philosophy or literature course.”

• “Don Mayhew: candidate for re-election to his district 7 seat: Mayhew said neither creationism nor intelligent design is based on the scientific method and that he doesn’t support teaching either concept in science classes.”

• “Lanny Boswell, a candidate for the District 5 seat, said creationism shouldn’t be taught in science classes, but those classes should teach students to be critical thinkers and consider divergent viewpoints.”

Three Four people gave good answers, and four seats are open. It sounds like at least one useless dingleberry is going to get a voice in Nebraska education.

Hey, in addition to voting for pro-science candidates, maybe a few more of you scientifically minded Nebraskans need to start running for these positions. The kooks always seem anxious to rise up and poison education, but the sensible people always assume it’s going to be fine and that they don’t need to exert themselves.

Richard Dawkins did it again, clearly stating his opinion of the Pope’s policy on birth control and AIDS prevention. One problem: he left out another possibility. The Pope could be evil.

I tend to favor a combination of all of the above.

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I have received a communique from Richard Dawkins in which he protests that he was misquoted in the Telegraph. What he actually said was,

The Pope is either stupid, ignorant or wicked.

Much better.

Your ornamental function must be your important asset — never mind those degrees and skills and various non-superficial attributes. I can imagine how Sheril must feel, but have never experienced it myself. Strangely, I’ve never met a distinguished stranger and had them compliment my looks or ask after my marriage status.

It’s the Western complement to the burka: women aren’t hidden away overtly, but instead every one is seen as if they’re wearing a beauty queen/cheerleader costume.

The Pope, under the spell of infallibility and religious delusion, recently declared that condoms “increase the problem” of HIV transmission in Africa. This would be news to the CDC.

Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing heterosexual sexual transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Research on the effectiveness of latex condoms in preventing heterosexual transmission is both comprehensive and conclusive. The ability of latex condoms to prevent transmission has been scientifically established in laboratory studies as well as in epidemiologic studies of uninfected persons at very high risk of infection because they were involved in sexual relationships with HIV-infected partners.”

Now the Lancet speaks out.

But the London-based Lancet said the Pope had “publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine on this issue”.

It said the male latex condom was the single most efficient way to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV/Aids.

“Whether the Pope’s error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear,” said the journal.

But it said the comment still stood and urged the Vatican to issue a retraction.
“When any influential person, be it a religious or political figure, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record,” it said.

“Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics, who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/Aids worldwide.”

Another revelation in the tragic Montanaplane crash endorsed by anti-choice freaks: one of the women on the plane was five months pregnant. If their deity is responsible for these deaths, not only is their god an abortionist, he’s one of those hacks who butchers the mother in the process…but apparently, Gingi Edmonds is alright with that.

One of our more popular commenters now has a couple of more letters he can tag on the end of his name in addition to the Order of the Molly. You can cheer loudly here — I don’t recommend going up to his place in Boston and ringing the doorbell, since he might be recovering from the celebration still.

There is an undersea volcano erupting right now — and a fantastic photo set is showing the event.

It’s another long travel day for me, I’m afraid, and this after a long night of trying to keep up with a lively mob of 20 and 30 year olds at a bar in Champaign-Urbana (and giving a talk yesterday that I think went over fairly well — I even had protesters outside! For a talk on the history and philosophy of embryology!) So I’ll leave you with a link to Wesley Elsberry’s summary of Richard Dawkins’ talk in Michigan. That’ll give you something meaty to argue over until I get back to calm, quiet Morris.

And then, next week…Spring Break! We’re just going to have wild parties every day here on Pharyngula! Bring sun screen and swimming suits.

Tune in to KPFT for some stem cell talk sometime in the next few minutes!

How do you think the Rabid Right is reacting to Obama’s enlightened stem cell policies? This comic isn’t far from the truth.

Here’s Glenn Beck, always the representative of Idiot America.

So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research, and then some, fundamentally changing – remember, those great progressive doctors are the ones who brought us Eugenics. It was the progressive movement and it was science. Let’s put science truly in her place. If evolution is right, why don’t we just help out evolution? That was the idea. And sane people agreed with it!

And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don’t know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. That came from people in white coats. That came from the best and brightest because they were unhinged from any kind of ethics. They were unhin… they believed in evolution. It came from the scientific consensus. We’re headed back down there again. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up.

Man, he sounds like Ben Stein. Science is evil, science is indistinguishable from Nazis, evolution is the same thing as amorality. What a maroon. If anyone is unhinged, it’s Beck.

Well, we get to have some fun with that kind of mentality. Tomorrow night, Wednesday, at 10:00pm Central time, I’ll be on KPFT radio with Ray Bohlin to talk about the stem cell story. Tune in and call in. It should be…entertaining. I probably won’t kill and eat any babies on the air, but you never know.