Your end-of-year creationist/ID idiocy.

And because you just can't get enough pig-ignorant, fundamentalist Christian swill in your life, I give you a couple of links.

First, we have DKos' science blogger DarkSyde, taking it to wingnut Kent Hovind. Most people know Hovind as the creationist who has a $250,000 offer to anyone who can provide any evidence for biological evolution. Fewer people recognize Hovind as a lying sack of crap that even other creationists try to avoid these days.

Also, we have this tedious and hopelessly dishonest op-ed piece in the National Post from back on Dec. 1 by the Discovery Institute's Stephen Meyer. I'm not sure how I missed it but, if you read it, you'll see why Meyer and the Post truly deserve one another.

I can't wait to see what 2006 brings. Perhaps yet another re-labelling of creation science? We could call it, um, "unnatural complexity." Yeah, that's it. And it will in no way be related to Intelligent Design. Trust me.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: I should point out that I found that Post piece by following a link from here -- an ID site whose collective contributors are so unspeakably dense, it's a miracle they don't simply collapse in on top of themselves through gravitational contraction.

The first link there is the Post piece, while the second is a similarly asinine article hosted by (big surprise coming here) Fox News. I'm not going to bother disemboweling that bit of stupidity, except to slap around one annoyingly-common whine from the wingnut right:

We’re fighting because the institution of public schooling forces us to, by permitting only one government-sanctioned explanation of human origins.

Quite simply, that's crap. Biological evolution has no "government sanction" whatsoever. There was no Congressional or Parliamentary vote along the lines of, "All right, then, all in favour of inflicting evolution on the public school system at the expense of scientifically illiterate, whiny, religious wingnuts? Done. Right, then, lunch anyone?"

Evolution is not the dominant explanation for the diversity of life because the government gave its stamp of approval. It's dominant because it's good science and it works, nothing more.

It is safe to say, though, that creation science and intelligent design are government rejected points of view simply because they're fundamentalist nonsense, but that doesn't stop the religious right from whining that, somehow, they're the victims of government-enforced anti-religious discrimination. To take that position is like claiming that the NBA unfairly discriminates against me just because, well, I have no talent at basketball. That's not discrimination; that's life.

And if the IDers want to be taken seriously, they should stop crying about discrimination and start presenting some science. Just like, if I want to be taken seriously by the NBA, maybe I should learn how to play basketball.