Michele Bachmann wants your children to be ignorant

Michele Bachmann (R-Mars), rising star of the 2012 GOP presidential contest, absolutely epitomizes the anti-science, theocratic wing of today’s Republican Party. Not only does she totally reject the voluminous scientific evidence for climate change, she’s also an open, unapologetic creationist.

And she doesn’t just want to teach creationism to her Quiverfull of kids.

She wants your children to be ignorant too: Bachmann: Schools should teach intelligent design.

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann explained her skepticism of evolution on Friday and said students should be taught the theory of intelligent design. Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, also proposed a major overhaul of the nation’s education system and said state administrators should be able to decide how they spend money allocated to them by the federal government. “I support intelligent design,” Bachmann told reporters in New Orleans following her speech to the Republican Leadership Conference. “What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don’t think it’s a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.” … “I would prefer that students have the ability to learn all aspects of an issue,” Bachmann said. “And that’s why I believe the federal government should not be involved in local education to the most minimal possible process.”

Bachmann is hauling out the long-discredited zombie of “intelligent design” again purely for cover, because it gives a pseudo-science sheen to her hooey.

The only real difference between “intelligent design” and creationism is that ID is deliberately deceptive.

Young earth creationists aren’t trying to fool anyone; they really believe that everything in the Bible is literally factual, and they’re completely up front about it. They may be goofy and determinedly ignorant of science, but they’re usually not liars.

But the hucksters who promote intelligent design claim a scientific rationale that’s completely unsupported by evidence; they have no peer-reviewed papers, no studies, no scientific data at all. And their “scientist” masks often slip, in embarrassing moments that reveal their hidden religious fanaticism.

The most famous example of this was the Dover trial, in which the creationist roots of “intelligent design” were conclusively proven, and biologist Michael Behe, star of the ID public relations campaign, was humiliated on the witness stand. Anyone interested in this subject should read the decision by Judge John E. Jones, a Republican appointed by George W. Bush; it’s highly readable and utterly scathing in its criticisms of the charlatans who promote ID.

Of course, none of this matters to Michele Bachmann or her reactionary religious fanatic supporters. They’ll continue parroting “intelligent design” talking points, even though they know it’s discredited non-scientific nonsense, for a simple reason: they’re using this scam as a Trojan Horse to sneak creationism back into public schools.