Of all the head-scratching whoppers delivered by presidential candidate Rick Perry this week — from the Fed chairman's potentially treasonous tactics to the myth of global warming - none was more shocking than this: Texas teaches religion as scientific fact.

That's what the governor seemed to say on Thursday when he responded to a child's question in New Hampshire. In a video of the exchange, the child's mother is heard goading the boy to ask Perry about evolution.

"It's a theory that's out there. It's got some gaps in it," Perry told the boy. "In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools."

So, let me get this straight, governor: Social Security and other federal entitlements are unconstitutional. But, suddenly, religious indoctrination in public schools is just fine?

Now, sure, there are plenty of people in Texas who would like this to be so. Don McLeroy, the former head of the State Board of mis-Education, for one. He also believes dinosaurs lived alongside humans. And he eventually lost his post in 2009 after leading an embarrassing, Kansas-style attack on science standards, attempting to weaken the teaching of evolution in Texas schools.

McLeroy and others in his far-right voting bloc lost their battle, but not before making Texas a national laughingstock.

We recently had begun to lick our wounds and take pride in the fact that, just last month, the education board with several newly elected members agreed to adopt science materials backed by real science, without the drama of a Scopes Monkey Trial.

Now come the governor's comments.

I didn't know what to make of them at first. I'm one of those who still overestimates Perry, still thinks he wouldn't have gotten this far if he didn't know more than he lets on.

But does he really believe that Texas science teachers instruct kids on creationism, a Christian-based belief that a divine being created the Earth?

Does he know that teaching creationism was deemed unconstitutional decades ago by the U.S. Supreme Court? And that that's why the creationists came up with something called "Intelligent Design" - to get around the whole constitutional thing by passing their belief off as a "scientific theory"?

Wading into culture wars

Is he aware that, just a couple of months ago, a federal judge in Austin threw out a lawsuit by a creationism think tank and school trying to force Texas to let it offer master's degrees in science education? The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board rejected the group's application in 2008, with Commissioner Raymund Paredes saying at the time: "Religious belief is not science. Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing."

Kathy Miller, at the Texas Freedom Network, called Perry's remarks "outrageous" and "irresponsible," saying that he again was wading "into the culture wars for political gain."

I thought the guy was just ill-informed. So I called the Texas Education Agency for confirmation. And I got an even bigger surprise.

First, spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson sent me a wordy statement: "Our science standards require students to analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations, so it is likely that other theories, such as creationism, would be discussed in class. Our schools can also offer an elective course on Biblical history and it is likely that creationism is discussed as part of that class too."

Only law stands in way

A short time later, I received an eerily similar statement from the governor’s spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, in response to my questions for Perry.

I called Culbertson to get a direct answer to my question: "Does the state of Texas teach creationism as scientific fact?"

Culbertson wouldn't say yes or no: "It could be part of the discussion," she said. "If it comes up, then it's in the classroom."

There you have it, science teachers of Texas. On the subject of teaching creationism in class, the education department won't say it's wrong, and the governor thinks you're already doing it.

There's nothing to stop you now but the law.

Clarification: Thank you to the astute reader who pointed out that, in Tuesday's column, Pete McRae's recollection of Rick Perry showing up at the capital in 1985 in an old jalopy with two kids in the back seat may not have been entirely correct. Neither of Perry's children had been born yet.

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com