America's Dumbest Wanker™ and pre-emptive stupidity. Part 1.

You're just going to have to trust me on this one -- I really was all set to blog on this as part of my ongoing series on evolution, creationism, Intelligent Design and really, really stupid people, so the fact that Weasel Boy brought it up first is just a delightful bonus. (Well, OK, I was going to blog on the second part of this post -- the first part is just bonus idiocy. At no extra charge, I might add.)

Over here, we have ADW™ once again tracking my droppings around the Internets, getting all cranked up over a recent article on the Catholic Church and their passing acquaintance with fact. Whatever. Here's the entertaining bit, as Weasel Boy clarifies the terminology:

The "literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis" is Creationism ...

Fair enough, let's go with that definition, shall we? It makes sense. But then, how to make sense of this followup from the Weasel himself? (Emphasis added.)

Also, most Christians actually don't want the schools teaching students about what they think the Bible says. The schools have screwed up just about everything else they've been teaching, so why would we want them teaching our religion to kids?

Um ... huh? Most Christians don't want the schools teaching what the Bible says? That bizarre claim would no doubt come as a huge surprise to, say, the folks at the Pew Research Center who, in a recent survey, found that:

Nearly two-thirds of those in a Pew Research Center poll, 64 percent, say they believe “creationism” should be taught alongside “evolution” ...

So ... if we accept WB's definition of "creationism" as the literal interpretation of Genesis, and 64 per cent of the public wants creationism taught in the public schools, why ... that means that "most" Americans actually do want the schools teaching what the Bible says. Is that amazing or what? Weasel Boy turns out to be completely full of shit. Again.

(In all fairness, WB refers to most "Christians" while the Pew survey talks about the percentage of the general public, to which we can respond in two ways. First, it would be hard to believe that the percentage of Christians who want creationism taught in public schools would be somehow less than that same percentage of the general public. That just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. However, we don't even need to make that assumption.

According to this 2002 survey, a full 82% of Americans describe themselves as Christians. If we accept that value, then we can combine it with the above statistic so that, if 64% of the general public wants creationism (the Bible) taught in public schools, then we can use as a working hypothesis that 82% of that 64% per cent would be Christians who want the same thing. That number is 52.5% -- still a majority, making America's Dumbest Wanker™ look even dumber than usual. If that's even possible.

NOTE: What you just saw was the application of a pernicious, Godless, left-wing conspiracy known as "arithmetic." Children and wankers should not try this at home. Remember, I'm a professional.)

But that was only the warm-up. Part 2 coming shortly.