Book-Learnin is for Latté Librulls

I've stated in this blog before that I believe the theocons look at the dumbing down of public schools as a goal. After all, it gives their silver-spooned private schoolers a leg up in the world.

Maybe that's wrong... maybe it's actually the "education" itself that is the target; to be replaced by Republican madrasahs:

Eschaton: Sciencey

"The Big Bang memo came from Mr. Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the 'war room' of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen's public statements.

In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word 'theory' needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is 'not proven fact; it is opinion,' Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, 'It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator.'

It continued: 'This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.'"