Despite heroic opposition, irrationality made headway in Louisiana with the passage of the impressive-sounding, Science Education Act.

This law will allow teachers to use “supplemental materials” to promote the “open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

That might sound pretty good, given the deplorable state of science education in the public schools, but it’s not. The purpose of this bill is to allow schools to teach Creationism in the science classrooms, a blatant violation of the separation of church and state.

People who believe in Creationism–the biblical explanation for the origins of the earth and life–are fighting against Darwin’s theory of evolution, a brilliantly-discovered thesis which ignores God in favor of actual facts.

There is no credible scientific debate against evolution. It is the unifying theory in all biology, and has been proven over and over again. The mere act of denouncing it in favor of “what the bible says” does not constitute a valid competing theory.

The bill’s stated goal of teaching “critical thinking” is a sickening offense to the human mind. It will critically shut off all rational thinking, exhorting young minds to accept on faith alone ancient mythical tales of our beginnings.

The Discovery Institute, a big promoter of teaching Creationism, deeply criticized the opponents of Louisiana’s law. They had the nauseating audacity to equate Galileo’s struggle against the church with their struggle against what they call, the “antichurch.” The author states: “But a funny thing about the truth is that no one can control it because sooner or later it reveals itself.”

This statement is a direct repudiation of our essence as humans: that we are beings who must discover the truths of reality by a process of reason in order to survive. The faithful have no more choice about this fact of our existence than the non-faithful.

Teaching the myth of Creationism, which requires faith, alongside the science of evolution, which requires reason, will cause confusion in students’ minds about what science is and why it’s important. It will impair–not enhance–the development of their ability to think.

Learning about evolution is a wondrous and fascinating experience. And it’s a crime that evangelicals are basically telling the next generation: “learning how to reason is irrelevant.”