Trouble in Arizona

Okay, time to get back in the saddle.  The Arizona Republic is running a story out of Arizona that is very disconcerting:

Here is a bit of instruction from a guy Superintendent Diane Douglas tapped to help review Arizona’s standards on how to teach evolution in science class: The earth is just 6,000 years old and dinosaurs were present on Noah’s Ark. But only the young ones. The adult ones were too big to fit, don’t you know.

“Plenty of space on the Ark for dinosaurs – no problem,” Joseph Kezele explained to Phoenix New Times’ Joseph Flaherty.

Flaherty reports that in August, Arizona’s soon-to-be ex-superintendent appointed Kezele to a working group charged with reviewing and editing the state’s proposed new state science standards on evolution.

From the Phoenix New Times story:

Kezele teaches biology at Arizona Christian University in Phoenix. He advocates teaching his version of “established, real science” in classrooms.

Evolution, he said, is a false explanation for life and should be taught so that students “can defend against it, if they want to.”

“I’m not saying to put the Bible into the classroom, although the real science will confirm the Bible,” Kezele told Phoenix New Times in an interview on Wednesday. “Students can draw their own conclusions when they see what the real science actually shows.”

He argued that scientific evidence supports his creationist ideas, including the claims that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs were on board Noah’s Ark.

ADE spokesperson Stefan Swiat said that Kezele was selected because of his position at Arizona Christian University. Swiat was unaware if Douglas knew that Kezele was a creationist when she selected him.

It is good bet that Diane Douglas knew exactly what Kezele thinks about evolution. If not, then she is extremely derelict in her job, managing to overlook a critical area of science education. She has expressed a desire that both creationism and evolution should be taught.   Depending on how this is handled, however, there are two sides to this.  One is that evolution will be taught but that the teaching of it will be severely hampered by the Arizona school board.  The other possibility is that it will provide science teachers with an opportunity to show evolution’s strengths and creationism’s weaknesses.  Not sure how this one is going to turn out.