LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's an interesting Talk To Action article about the impact of teaching intelligent design is having in our scientific communities:

This war [against teaching evolution in schools] could decimate the development of U.S. scientific talent and erode whatever competitive advantage the United States enjoys in the technology-based global economy. Already, U.S. high school students lag near the bottom in math skills compared with students in other developed nations, and high school seniors are performing worse in science than they were 10 years ago.

These trends can only worsen if students come to regard evolution as questionable or controversial. Thirty-seven percent of the high school Advanced Placement biology examination tests knowledge of evolution, evolutionary biology and heredity, according to the College Board. Students who do not thoroughly understand evolution cannot hope to succeed on this exam; they will be handicapped in competitive science courses in college and the careers that may follow.

By teaching intelligent design or other variants of creationism in science classes at public schools -- or by undercutting the credibility of evolution -- we are greatly diminishing our chances for future scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations, and are endangering our health, safety and economic well-being as individuals and as a nation.

Kansas has become something of a bad example of what happens to scientific inquiry when the controversy jerks the state- and its students- back and forth between science and religion. They are having a hard time attracting scientists and professors to teach and study in their state. And the whole ID mess is also starting to wear on the US as a whole.

Houston, we have a problem.