Here we see the consequences of social promotion; no, not the practice of advancing students who haven't demonstrated competency in their subject matter, but of inappropriately advancing a concept that hasn't attained scientific credibility.
When said concept, in this case Intelligent Design, is shown to be scientifically vacuous, we send it back to the drawing board. We don't push it along into textbooks and classrooms.
"All of us are smarter than one of us," Hamm said.
In the case of a schoolboard filled with creationists, clearly this does not hold.
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Does your local schoolboard look like this?
Meet Don McLeroy
For those who don't know, Texas is very important in determining what is found in U.S. textbooks due to its large purchasing power. While keeping anti-science wackaloons off of school boards is a good thing anywhere, it goes double in Texas.
In the wake of recent public meetings by the Texas Schoolboard, Russell Shorto has written an extensive piece for the New York Times Magazine.