Painfully Obvious: Wedgies and Wedges

In the march of continuous progress on the front of scientific knowledge, we come to the continual realization of the individuals with ideological stances preventing the proper instantiation of knowledge and education within the public sphere.

In fact, this can come in what has been termed, rather bluntly, a wedge strategy. If you pay even marginal attention, this will continue to arise again, and again, and again and again.

This time; it has arisen as a strategy in South Carolina. This is, in essence, a creation ‘science’ bill in South Carolina intended for export to the general public.

If enacted, House Bill 3826 would make permissible the elective courses on religion in public school districts in order to “require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science[,] as part of the course content.” In short, this would permit the wedging of creationist theories into the curricula in addition to the standard curriculum of evolution via natural selection.

As reported, “The teaching of creation science in the public schools was ruled to be unconstitutional — a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause — by a federal court in McLean v. Arkansas (1982) and by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987).”

The bill, not so quietly, would require the displaying of “In God We Trust” in classrooms. The sponsors are Dwight A. Loftis (R-District 19) and James Mikell “Mike” Burns (R-District 17).