Well, maybe this is a honest mistake:
Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed to reward students majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain foreign languages.
That absence apparently indicates that students in the evolutionary sciences do not qualify for the grants, and some observers are wondering whether the omission was deliberate.
It MUST be a mistake (and if you believe that I need to tell you about a nice, furry bunny that’ll hide eggs around your house this Easter). So let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, as the reporter does:
The question arises at a time when evolution has become a political hot potato at all levels of education. While the theory of evolution has overwhelming support from scientists, some conservative Christian groups argue for alternative explanations of the origins of life, including “intelligent design,” which holds that an intelligent agent guided the creation of life.
Even President Bush has weighed in, advocating teaching “both sides of the debate.”
The awards in question — known as Smart Grants, for the National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent program — were created by Congress this year, with strong support from the president. The grants are worth up to $4,000 and are awarded in addition to Pell grants.
Recipients must be college juniors or seniors enrolled in one of the technical fields of study that the Department of Education has deemed eligible for funds. Many different topics, as varied as astronomy and Arabic, qualify.
But evolutionary biology is absent.
When some members of the administration talk about “social engineering” or activists judges (if a ruling comes down that they don’t like; rulings they like aren’t done by activist judges but by good judges) they perhaps need to look in the mirror. It certainly seems this is a deliberate POLICY CHANGE done by omission.
Precisely when was there an official policy change by Congress or announced by the administration to downgrade the theory of evolution in regards to anything coming out of the Department of Education? There wasn’t. This is why this administration increasingly is being seen as less of a conservative than a radical one — and that’s just in the eyes of some Republicans.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.