What makes this seemingly stupid issue of creationism important is that most Americans DO NOT accept evolution, including teachers.
Down here in Dumbutt, Texas we are going through this as the evangelical Christian wing of the state school board is trying to allow teachers to push creationism in Public School science classes. And even more importantly, to remove evolution from Biology text books which mush of the rest of the nation will be forced to purchase.
This fundamentalist religious issue was originally called "creationism" from the day after Origin of Species was published in 1959 until the 1960, when for legal reasons they put a little lipstick on that pig and renamed it "Creation Science". A game of semantics. After the Supreme Court weighed in with the Louisiana case in 1987 that made it illegal to teach creation science, they changed the name again to "Intelligent Design". Again a semantic game putting even more lipstick on that pig. In 2006 came the Dover case where a Federal Appeals Court judge said Intelligent Design was religion and as such illegal to teach in public school science classes.
Well guess what? Name change! It is now called "Critical Analysis". An entire stick of semantic lipstick smeared all over the entire face of that pig. Over 150 years of the same crap pushed by the same people for the same reason.
There is a list by the Discovery Institute of about 650 "scientists" who believe in creationism by whatever semantic crap they playiat any one time. On the other hand 99.9% of scientists accept evolution and find no weaknesses, in fact, everyday that passes the theory is strengthened.
The reason for this belief that evolution is a lie is fairly simple as we discovered yesterday thanks to Houston Intelligent Design Lawyer Kelly Coghlan.
Here is the formula in classic logic:
Premise #1
If evangelical Christians accept evolution as a fact, then the first page of the Bible is a lie.
Premise #2
If the first page of the Bible is a lie then the entire Bible is a lie and evangelical Christians must then accept there is no God.
Conclusion
If there is no God, evangelical Christians would no longer fear retribution in the afterlife and there would be nothing to keep them all from become murdering cannibals. Jeffery Dahmer Proves Evolution a Lie
So the rest of us have to be careful with this. After all, what could be worse than the reality of a Night of the Living Dead movie where they may be just as stupid but they can walk fast!