In an interview on NBC, Jindal, a Republican, said: “Bottom line, at the end of the day, we want our kids to be exposed to the best facts. Let’s teach them about the big bang theory, let’s teach them about evolution - I’ve got no problem if a school board, a local school board, says we want to teach our kids about creationism, that people, some people, have these beliefs as well, let’s teach them about ‘intelligent design.’”

He added that students should be allowed to question “controversial issues” like climate change and global warming. “What are we scared of?”

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With the money of wealth funders like Richard and Betsy DeVos (sister of Blackwater scion Eric Prince and daughter of Elsa and Edgar Prince of the Amway fortune) and the Walton, Koch and Scaife Foundations, simpatico politicians are hard at work bringing Dominionist [3] ideals quietly into the forefront of American education policy. While much of the country argues about budgets, deficits, and guns, a cleverly camouflaged package of School Choice and ”Bible-driven curricula“ make their way up the ladder.

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February has been a banner month for truly silly and anti-intellectual bills in state capitals across the country. Well, mostly across the South and Midwest. Some of these bills are based on the idea that birth control is poison, and that students should not fail for arguing in biology class that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. Others would stop gun control efforts by making it a felony to try to enact gun control.

This is not the Onion: Here are some of the actual proposals.

1. Let corporations vote!

In Montana, state Rep. Steve Lavin introduced a bill that would allow corporations to vote in local elections, taking the idea that "corporations are people" to new heights.

Think Progress reports that the bill was tabled earlier this month. But under the proposal, "if a firm, partnership, company, or corporation owns real property within the municipality, the president, vice president, secretary, or other designee of the entity is eligible to vote."

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Not only does replacing science with biblical literalism violate the separation of church and state, it leaves young people massively ill-prepared for higher education. Public universities teach evolution without qualification or apology. A poor understanding of what is considered to be the central organizing principle of science handicaps students from the first day they walk into freshman Biology 101.

In fact, a failure to understand evolution can make it harder for high school students to get into the best colleges. Try passing the Advanced Placement Biology exam when you know nothing of natural selection. A poor grounding in evolution can choke off entire career paths for young people.

Despite these high stakes, some states, school districts and individual teachers insist on doing students a disservice by promoting scientific illiteracy.

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"There is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old," Rubio told Mike Allen of Politico. "I was referring to a theological debate, which is a pretty healthy debate.

"The theological debate is, how do you reconcile with what science has definitively established with what you may think your faith teaches," Rubio continued. "Now for me, actually, when it comes to the age of the earth, there is no conflict."

Watch:

Rubio initially made the following comments to GQ:

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Here's the transcript and video, via Daily Intel:

Campbell Brown: If one of your daughters asked you — and maybe they already have — “Daddy, did god really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?

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From RedState:

Marco Rubio is getting beaten up by the press for not decisively and convincingly saying he thinks the world is billions of years old. It has become the new litmus test in the media. Believing what was believed to be literally true for a few thousand years is now nutty. Christian homeschool kids, often taught that the world is not as old as some believe and who routinely kick the rear ends of the ivy prep kids in academics, are considered stupid.

Truth be told, I think the world is billions of years old, but I have no doubt God created it.

But, Erickson continued:

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Second, he seems to have zagged to the right while the rest of his party is zigging (or at least head-faking) to the middle. While other national leaders in his party, almost to a person, have condemned Mitt Romney's postmortem "gifts" comments and the candidate more generally, Rubio brushed aside the comments and generously defended Romney. "I hope Mitt will stay involved in politics. I thought he was a great candidate, would have made a great president, and I hope he stays involved in our party," he said in Iowa.

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Science Magazine reports that Reps. Lamar Smith, Jim Sensenbrenner and Dana Rohrabachrer are three House Republicans who have so far announced that they are vying for the top spot on the committee, which focuses on science, space and technology.

Rohrabacher, R-Calif., wrote in a statement: "I intend to be a chairman who exemplifies the Republican philosophy that science, technology and innovation offer a pathway to a better, more prosperous future, and solve problems that bureaucracy and rampant government spending cannot."

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In protest, 4,000 voters in Athens-Clarke County wrote in the name of English naturalist Charles Darwin, making the pro-science opposition account for nearly one-fifth of all ballots registered in the county. Broun, who also believes that the earth is 9,000 years old, currently serves on the House Science Committee (alongside Rep. Todd Akin).

With mounting opposition brewing in his district, many anticipate someone will step up to challenge Broun in 2014. But -- as witty as the Darwin protest vote was -- perhaps they can choose someone living next time?

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Nye also said "since the economic future of the United States depends on our tradition of technological innovation, Representative Broun’s views are not in the national interest."

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Now Freshwater has appealed the case to the Ohio Supreme Court. As Raw Story reports, secular and science groups in the state and beyond are urging the court to uphold the school board's decision.

"Freshwater’s pedagogy serves no legitimate educational purpose in a public school science class, is scientifically unsound, and serves only impermissibly to advance a sectarian purpose, namely, to teach creationism in its tradition version of ‘creation science’ or its modern incarnation of intelligent design,” National Center for Science Education told the court last week.

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Bill Nye, a mechanical engineer and star of the popular 1990s TV show "Bill Nye The Science Guy," has waded into the evolution debate with an online video that urges parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolution on to their children.

Christians who view the stories of the Old Testament as historical fact have come to be known as creationists, and many argue that the world was created by God just a few thousand years ago.

"The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old," Nye said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs."

Millions of Americans do hold those beliefs, according to a June Gallup poll that found 46 percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago.

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The experiment demonstrates natural selection at work. And because samples are frozen and available for later study, when something new emerges scientists can go back to earlier generations to look for the steps that happened along the way.

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On Thursday, Dr. Pepper posted a new ad on Facebook explaining the "evolution of flavor" with a riff on the famous evolution of man illustration that shows how homo got sapien. The ad traces the path from a knuckle dragger through the "Pepper discovery" to the final silhouette of a happy, naked Dr. Pepper drinker. Possibly Prince Harry.

It's not the cleverest or most original concept the soda brand could have come up with – that evolution trope has been used to sell everything from alcohol to hair removal cream to sound systems to Whoppers. Yet it was shocking enough to the folks who still haven't read the memo from Darwin to cause an uproar on Facebook.

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The article, written by reporter Tim Murphy, adds:

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I've long been a critic of HuffPo's "Living" section, where fake doctors peddle snake oil cures and vaccine conspiracy theorists spread their poisonous misinformation. Those who read the Huffington Post solely for its (usually good) political content often don't even realize that a couple verticals away is a den of quackery and pseudoscience.

The HuffPo has, they claim, a specific editorial policy against promoting "conspiracy theories." It is selectively enforced.

But publishing the new agey holistic naturopath crystal-healing Beverly Hills quack-to-the-stars bullshit of Arianna's good friend's nutritionist is one (stupid, potentially dangerous) thing. Giving a platform to the anti-science creationist dingbats at The Discovery Institute is a step in a darker direction.

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Yes, evolution. Being open to possibility of allegory. And in the 21st century, no less! Now, in some parts of the world, a candidate's response to such scurrilous attacks might be something along the lines of, "Screw you, mouth breathers." Instead, Byrne has gone on the defensive, stating that his remarks at a Piggly Wiggly appearance last November ("I believe there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be literally true and parts that are not") were taken out of context. On his website he's quick to insist, "I believe the Bible is the Word of God and that every single word of it is true" and that, "As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books."

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But unlike most of these attacks, "What Darwin Got Wrong," a new book by Jerry Fodor, a professor of philosophy and cognitive sciences at Rutgers University, and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona, comes not from the religious right, but from two atheist academics with -- surprise -- a nuanced argument about the shortcomings of Darwin’s theories. Their book details (in very technical language) how recent discoveries in genetics have thrown into question many of our perceived truths about natural selection, and why these have the potential to undermine much of what we know about evolution and biology.

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Was this stunt shrewd or moronic? From the first it's been hard to tell. The plan, innocuously named "Origin Into Schools," was announced this September in a video featuring Kirk Cameron, a former television child star who co-founded a ministry called Living Waters with Comfort. There's something almost pitiable about the way Cameron crows over the scheme; he truly seems to find it ingenious. He points out that the University of California at Berkeley cannot prevent the action because "their own Web site" dictates that "anyone is free to distribute noncommercial materials in any outdoor area of the campus." "Besides," he gleefully adds, "what are they really going to do? Ban 'The Origin of Species'? That would be big news! Especially when their own bookstore sells it for $29.99!"

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