The ICR, which wants permission from the coordinating board to offer a master’s in science education, believes, contrary to a mountain of indisputable scientific evidence and God-given common sense, that a few thousand years ago the good Lord took six literal days to create the sun, moon, plants, people, dinosaurs and the apes we didn’t evolve from.(For those now wondering if dinosaurs coexisted with humans - yes, ICR says, Noah had compact baby dinos on the Ark and after the Flood people hunted them into extinction. This explanation, IMO, is an improvement over the one I heard as a kid - that dinosaur fossils were planted by God to test our faith.)
Evolutionary thinking is not only a falsehood, according to ICR, but also causes abortion, promiscuity, drug abuse, and homosexuality, according to their irony-free Web site. The Institute requires all faculty members and students to accept a “limitation to academic freedom” - an oath to Biblical Literalism and a pledge of allegiance to Jesus.
When my son was in elementary school in a small town in Missouri, after having spent a few years in Seattle and the Davis, California, school systems, he would frequently come home frustrated with his "science" teacher. One of the proofs the man had given the class as an argument against claims of "evolutionists" was the proof that dinosaurs and men were on the earth at the same time: wagon tracks beside dinosaur tracks. Somewhere in Arizona, if memory serves me.
Unfortunately, scientists do have a bias against creationism, as Loving points out. And rightfully so. Science is biased towards empirical reality and testable hypotheses; creationism is biased towards the diktats of religion. It seems unfair - if not a little Orwellian - to ask professionals with scientific training to set aside the cornerstone, time-tested theory of modern biology in order to give pseudoscience a fair shake.What if I wanted to offer a science degree and my school largely consisted of teaching credulous students that the earth is flat, the sun is really God’s flashlight, and - what the heck - gravity is a trick played on us by the Devil? Under McDonough’s logic, the coordinating board would check to make sure my campus had working smoke detectors and a good student-to-faculty ratio but not bother to see if what I taught made any sense whatsoever.
Still, I wouldn't rule out the State of Texas giving the ICR their accreditation for a science degree.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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