HorsesAss.Org

As I’ve stated before, I tend to agree that a tunnel option for replacing the Alaska Way Viaduct is politically dead… but I can’t help but thinking. The state rejected Mayor Nickels’ recent four-lane hybrid tunnel-lite proposal, arguing that using the shoulders as exit lanes during peak traffic would be unsafe. So… why not just eliminate the exits altogether?

Stick with me here.

We keep hearing that 99 is a vital North/South thruway, and thus the governor insists that she won’t support any option that reduces capacity. Yet if the Viaduct is bounded by a surface street to the South and the four-lane Battery St. tunnel to the North, then obviously much of the traffic must be local.

So instead of talking about a “viaduct” why not consider a “bypass” — a two-mile, four-lane tunnel through the downtown waterfront that eliminates the northbound exits and southbound entrances at Seneca and Western? This way all that vital N/S traffic can continue to flow N/S, while local traffic is diverted to improved surface streets.

Without the need for extra wide shoulders, or the cost of building four ramps, the “hybrid bypass” solution would be even cheaper than Nickels’ tunnel-lite, while ensuring that thru-traffic travels along the waterfront faster than it does today. And local drivers that would have used the existing exits would be served by improved surface streets and transit options, unburdened by the need to accommodate existing N/S thru-traffic.

Yeah, maybe I’m just talking out of my ass. But one of things that has always annoyed me about the current debate is the total lack of imagination. Surface-plus-transit option? That’s just for hippy-dippy whackos. A “gold-plated” tunnel? It’s an unaffordable gift to developers. We’ve had a double-decker freeway running through our waterfront since the earth was created, and if it’s good enough for God then it’s good enough for me, by golly. Or at least, that seems to have been the intellectual process.

Ridicule me, a man with no engineering or traffic expertise, for suggesting a hybrid bypass. But at least I’m trying to think creatively.

Two months after John McKay was fired as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, the reason for his dismissal remains a mystery.

One of the most persistent rumors in Seattle legal circles is that the Justice Department forced McKay, a Republican, to resign to appease Washington state Republicans angry over the 2004 governor’s race. Some believe McKay’s dismissal was retribution for his failure to convene a federal grand jury to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the race.

Ohmygod… “persistent rumors.” Of course, the occasional time I base a post on rumors, I’m slapped down in the comment thread for being unserious, uncredible and irresponsible. But who am I (a wrong-headed, fatuous drunk) to question the journalistic rigor of the Seattle Times?

Truth is, that is the scuttlebutt buzzing through Republican circles, and it certainly is worthy of reporting in a major daily, for while I think it more likely the product of wishful thinking than actual fact, the rumor does provide a window into the mean-spirited, vindictive and Machiavellian mindset that permeates much of the GOP establishment and its right-wing base. Remember, this is a party that took its rhetorical cues from the likes of Evergreen Freedom Foundation president and aspiring-fascist Bob Williams (who throughout the controversy emphatically called for King County Elections Director Dean Logan to be summarily jailed,) and our good friend Stefan over at (un)Sound Politics, who when he wasn’t foisting his paranoid fantasies on an insufficiently critical press corps, chose to fan the flames of inter-party hatred by repeatedly comparing KC Executive Ron Sims to brutal African dictator Robert Mugabe. (A comparison, I suppose, that had nothing to do with their mutual skin color.)

Given the vehemence in which some in the GOP would brand all Democrats as crooks, thieves and enemies of the state, it becomes difficult to discern insincerity from sheer nuttiness. Take, for example Building Industry Association of Washington executive vice president Tom McCabe, whose organization financed and conducted much of the crackerjack detective work that misidentified hundreds of citizens as illegal felon voters, and then offered no apology for their victims’ public humiliation.

In a column titled “Good Riddance,” McCabe said McKay “had a disastrous six years as U.S. Attorney. Two years ago, he steadfastly refused to investigate voter fraud despite overwhelming evidence.” McCabe also said he had “urged the President to fire McKay.”

Overwhelming evidence of voter fraud, huh?

We had two recounts under extraordinary public scrutiny, five months of hearings and depositions, and a two-week trial before a cherry-picked judge in a Republican county… that ended with all allegations of fraud being “dismissed with prejudice.”

Overwhelming evidence? Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed repeatedly vouched for the integrity of the election and election officials, while KC’s own Republican County Prosecutor Norm Maleng not only failed to find enough evidence to launch a local investigation, he had his own representative on the Canvassing Board vote to certify the election results.

We had a gubernatorial election that ended in a statistical tie, but which Chris Gregoire won fair and square under the bipartisanly adopted statutes that govern elections and election disputes. But some Republicans were willing to take the governor’s mansion by hook or by crook, and when McKay, Reed and Maleng refused to abuse the power of their offices to steal this election on behalf of Dino Rossi and his corporatist patrons, McCabe, Williams and others set out to purge their party of the traitors, and destroy both their reputations and careers.

The celebratory rumors surrounding McKay’s departure — unsubstantiated as they are — present an unsavory image of a party seeking solace in retribution. And the propensity for threatening opponents and heretics alike with criminal, civil and vigilante justice provides a revealing glimpse into the psyche of a party whose Manichean world view quickly devolves even the most stolid policy debate into a battle between good vs. evil. I suppose it might have been merely a feeble attempt at a jest when during the heat of the gubernatorial election controversy my good friend Stefan twice accused me via email of “abetting a government cover-up,” but his use of a legalistic term clearly implied wishful thinking, if not an actual threat, that I should be criminally punished for exercising free speech. That is the sort of vengeful spirit that welcomes McKay’s departure.

Was McKay really fired for refusing to misuse his office to pursue trumped up allegations of election fraud? I’ve got no idea. But the very fact that so many local Republicans clearly wish the rumor to be true is both disturbing and revealing.

Joel Connelly, a Horse’s Ass “Friend of the Blog” and Drinking Liberally attendee, absolutely savages Mayor Nickels’ tunnel in today’s column. It’s not a surprise; Joel’s been pro-rebuild for a long time, but I can’t help thinking the anti-tunnel trash-talking is played-out.

Why? Simply put, the tunnel isn’t going to happen. It’s going to lose at the polls. Plus, we don’t have the money. We have projected money, but we don’t have cash money. And Frank Chopp hates the tunnel, so it’s “game over.” Joel’s column is titled “It’s time for Nickels to bury tunnel,” as if the thing isn’t already politically buried.

I’d like to see columnists from every paper realize that we’re down to two choices. Do you want an elevated rebuild? Yes or no. The incessant hacking at Nickels and his dead tunnel just short circuits the debate. However, Joel Connelly does address the “surface plus transit” option:

The crowning consequences will come if there is no tunnel, no new viaduct and the tear-down, don’t-replace folks win out.

It’ll send thousands of cars toward Pioneer Square, which in the ’70s was the first place downtown rescued from highway culture. (Garages were to replace historic buildings.)

And, if the predicted 12 hours of daily gridlock comes to pass on Interstate 5, thousands more cars will crawl along the freeway, belching greenhouse gases into the air shed of America’s greenest city.

While cars would go through Pioneer Square on a the new Alaskan Way surface boulevard instead of a Viaduct, lots of people would be able to use new transit investments. That’s a good thing for the historic district. As for cars on I-5 and their greenhouse gases, I’m confused. Do cars somehow emit no gases when their cruising at 40 mph on the waterfront? Oh well… I patiently wait for the column in which Joel interviews Cary Moon or Ron Sims, two prominent “surface plus transit” supporters.

Lastly, I can think of no better way to fight the highway culture than to not build highways.

“Record for hottest January isn’t broken … it’s smashed“

Huh. Our good friend Stefan takes every report of a snow flurry or a chilly breeze as an opportunity to derisively mock incredibly stupid people like me for believing the overwhelming consensus of the world’s climatologists. So I suppose if he’s intellectually consistent, we should be seeing a post from him today acknowledging that January’s weather proves beyond a shadow of a doubt — and entirely on its on, in isolation of all other evidence — that the earth is warming, and that man-made carbon emissions are a contributing factor.

I look forward to reading that post.

• The new show meant to compete with “The Daily Show” is awful. I’m not a player-hater: I laugh at Clinton jokes, Kerry jokes, and PJ O’Rourke. But “The 1/2 Hour News Hour” is unwatchable garbage.
• Nick Beaudrot really nails the situation with the Sonics.
• Go skiing with your congressman! Really!
• Rep. Dave Reichert fundamentally misunderstands the war in Iraq:

The Iraqi insurgents aren’t the Wehrmacht, they aren’t Johny Reb and they aren’t the Hessians. Geez, it’s like Reichert deliberately picked every non-relevant example from American history and threw it in a blender. Threw in a reference to Osama bin Laden for good measure.

But he’s soooooo moderate!!

• Remember the four foot tall Labor Secretary? He’s got a blog. Here, he explains why balancing the budget isn’t such a great idea.
• Olbermann: Four! More! Years!
• Here’s a less Seattle-centric Viaduct post. One note: it’s really, really unlikely that we’ll find Native American artifacts. It is likely, however, that we’ll find Doc Maynard’s house keys.

FoS is advocating a ‘No-No’ vote on the pointless and stupid (and expensive) vote this March. From a press release:

Friends of Seattle announces that it will recommend to its members that they vote NO on Measure 1 to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel and NO on Measure 2 for an elevated replacement.

[…]

After the state’s two intolerable choices are voted down by the voters, our political leaders, at all levels, must work to find a solution that accounts for the goals and values of a livable and sustainable urban community. Friends of Seattle urges the city to work with the county and state to develop a real solution that:

(1) replaces the Viaduct with a pedestrian-friendly Alaskan Way surface boulevard;

(2) expands bus, vanpool, carpool, and water taxi services;

(3) accommodates the movement of freight;

(4) preserves city-owned land on the waterfront for public use as a park;

(5) minimizes the environmental impacts of major construction on Puget Sound; and

(6) accords with City and County commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I wasn’t sure Friends of Seattle had the balls to take a stand against the tunnel. I’m glad they did. What is Governor Gregoire and Speaker Chopp going to do when BOTH measures fail?

I can’t wait for election day, when we can send two bad ideas (the gigantic rebuild and the tunnel) to the dustbin of civic history.

WSRP Chair Luke Esser

There’s a press release on domestic violence up on Attorney General Rob McKenna’s web site that isn’t all that interesting in itself until you scroll down to the bottom and read the contact information: “Luke Esser, AG Outreach Director.”

Um… exactly how long is Washington State Republican Party Chair Luke Esser going to continue to collect a state paycheck while also being on the payroll of the state GOP? How long does it take to finish up his existing business in the AG’s office, and how hard would it be for the office to temporarily function without an Outreach Director? I mean, either way he reports directly to McKenna, so I’m pretty sure McKenna could still get his job done while only paying Esser once.

And doesn’t Esser’s double-dipping — a state party chair also receiving a state paycheck — raise the eenciest bit of concern?

I dunno. Just askin’.

Statement by Rep. Adam Smith

H. Con. Res. 63 – Disapproving of the decision of the President announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

February 15, 2007

Madam Speaker:

“It has been nearly four years since the war in Iraq began — four-and-a-half since President Bush and his team in the White House started the effort to launch our nation on the path to this war. We learned a lot during that time frame, but two things stand out. First, the war effort has failed to achieve the outcome the President hoped for, instead creating problems he clearly felt would not come to pass. Even he admitted that he is dissatisfied with the way the war has gone. Second, at every step along the way, beginning with the way the President got us into the war, right up to the President’s latest plan to once again increase the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad, President Bush and his administration made mistake after mistake — failing to an almost incomprehensible level to learn from past errors or to demonstrate even a modest level of competence in prosecuting this war. Countless books from all points on the political spectrum lay out in painful detail all the mistakes this administration made in Iraq.

It is way past time for this Congress to stand up and say enough. We disapprove of what President Bush is doing in Iraq.

But our friends on the other side of the aisle claim that such a statement in meaningless. This is an astounding assertion. The United States House of Representatives — the elected voice of the people of our nation — stating clearly and on the record how they feel about the single most important policy issue of our time is meaningless? This opinion, expressed by the minority party, perhaps explains the utter lack of oversight and accountability that they employed when they were in charge — standing by and acting as mere cheerleaders for the President’s actions in Iraq as he made mistake after mistake. The other side of the aisle at least has a consistent record of believing that the opinion of Congress, a body our Constitution set up as a coequal branch of government with the Executive, is meaningless.

As much as I disagree with this conclusion as to the proper role of Congress in expressing its opinion on the Iraq War, I do understand this initial reluctance to pressure President Bush to change course. In a time of war we all want to stand behind our Commander-in-Chief as a first option, and the powers of the presidency make it difficult for Congress to, in a clear-cut straightforward manner, direct the President in the conduct of war. But the President’s record of mistakes in Iraq makes it clear we can no longer cling to this first option, and, difficulties notwithstanding, the cost of continuing down the same path the President has been pursuing in Iraq has reached the point where Congress must at least try to force a change in direction.

This effort should logically begin with a clear statement from the House that we disapprove of the way the President is conducting the war in Iraq. That is what this resolution does. With this vote members can no longer hide behind, “on the one hand, but then again on the other” statements. We can all mutter about things we don’t like in Iraq, but an official on the record vote is required to make that disapproval clear. Do you support the way President Bush is conducting the war in Iraq? Yes or no.

And make no mistake about it the President’s plan to increase the number of U.S troops in Baghdad represents no change in policy. It is stay the course, more of the same. In the last year we made large increases in the number of our troops in Baghdad twice already. Both times violence went up in the city, and as we have begun the current increase in troops that violence has once again increased. The lesson should be clear at this point — United States military might will not stop or even reduce the violence in that city.

Listening to the arguments against this resolution helps to understand why our President insists on making some of the same mistakes over and over again in Iraq. We are told that our fight in Iraq is a clear-cut battle against the same type of Al Qaeda-backed extremists who attacked our nation on 9/11 and that we are defending a worthy Iraqi government against these evil forces. If this were true, I would support whatever increase in troops was necessary to defeat that evil force.

But it is not even close to true — it is instead a dangerous attempt to paint a black and white picture on a situation that is far, far more complex. Baghdad is caught in a sectarian civil war. Both Shia and Sunni militias are battling each other as well as United States forces and the Iraqi government. It is a complex web of frequently changing alliances and interests that makes it impossible for our troops to separate good guys from bad guys. This is why our troops cannot stop or even reduce the violence. And the Maliki government we are being asked to support spends as much time acting like they are supporting the Shia side of the civil war as they do acting like they want to bring Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds together to form a stable Iraq.

Al Qaeda is in Iraq and we should continue to target them, but that effort will require a far, far smaller U.S. military presence than we have there today. Currently we are expending an enormous amount of resources in Iraq, most of which is going towards putting our forces in the middle of a chaotic civil war where our efforts do not advance and may even retard our fight against Al Qaeda. That massive military commitment reduces our ability to pursue Al Qaeda in the dozens of other nations where they have influence — most glaringly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This larger, more important fight is not solely or even primarily military. Diplomacy and other efforts to move disaffected Muslim populations away from joining Al Qaeda are a huge part of our battle, and we need to enhance those efforts. But we can’t, because we’re hamstrung both by a lack resources — financial and strategic — that are tied down in Iraq, and because our open-ended occupation of Iraq continues to undermine America’s standing in the world.

Instead of sending more troops to Baghdad the United States policy in Iraq should be to instruct our military leaders there to put together plans to as quickly and responsibly as possible reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. We need our troops to focus on Al Qaeda and its supporters, not to be bogged down in a sectarian civil war that is only tangentially related to the larger fight against Al Qaeda.

The first, critical step in this process of changing our policy in Iraq is this resolution. Congress must make its disapproval of the President’s policy in Iraq clear and on the record.”

Just kidding about the headline. I like David Postman. I think he’s a great reporter. And I don’t even know if he drinks. In fact, hypothetically, if I were developing my own online news venture to compete with our city’s two dailies, and I raised enough venture capital to do it right, Postman would be one of the first reporters I’d attempt to hire away from the Seattle Times.

But man can he be sensitive.

Yesterday I critiqued our two dailies’ coverage of the Sonics hearing in Olympia, posting the two ledes side-by-side. I thought it instructive that two papers covering the same hearing should come away with such different story lines. And to some extent, I think that Postman agrees:

I think it’s a good day for journalism when the Times and the PI take different angles or dig up different facts. That’s what makes having two papers important.

Absolutely.

So I’m not really sure why Postman understood my post to be a “baseless attack” on his colleagues, or why he felt the need to characterize me as “wrong-headed”, “fatuous” and, well… drunk?

David Goldstein crows about how he has no pretense toward objectivity. That’s the only way to explain his fatuous bit of journalism criticism today. Goldstein read stories about the Sonics in the Times and the PI, and as he often does, decides that the Times is showing bias.

Actually, I decided that both stories were biased. No doubt I prefer the P-I’s bias, but I never singled out the Times. Indeed, I thought I was rather specific:

I’m not implying any intentional bias on the part of the various reporters, just that bias inevitably exists, and inevitably seeps through every journalist’s work, no matter how hard they try to suppress it.

Um… how is this a “baseless attack” on the Times?

Postman is clearly offended, and goes to some length deconstructing my rather brief post in an effort to show how little I understand the facts reported, or the business of journalism in general. His main point?

But Goldstein just isn’t paying attention if he thinks the financing plan was the news of the day.

As for the Renton vs. Bellevue angle, that was, in fact, news. It wasn’t known before yesterday. It was new.

Actually, the “Renton vs. Bellevue angle” wasn’t exactly news either. The choice of the Renton site was leaked way back in December, and widely reported at the time. (I spent an hour on it while filling in for Dave Ross.) If you’re going to say that it is only news when Clay Bennett confirms it, then you might as well just reprint Sonics press releases.

Given the fact that the details were already widely known, I’d say that the news of the day was the hearing itself, and how legislators reacted to Bennetts demands. But then, that’s just one man’s opinion.

Which once again is my point. I don’t know how many times I need to explain it on my blog, or say it to Postman’s face: I love newspapers and admire his profession. But I simply don’t believe that objectivity is humanly possible. I repeat:

The “journalism generally practiced in America” today is an historical anomaly that grew out of the media consolidation that shuttered the vast majority of dailies early in the twentieth century. “Objectivity” was a necessary sales pitch required to reassure readers that one or two dailies could adequately replace the many different voices to which they had grown accustomed. It is also a wonderful ideal, though unfortunately impossible to achieve in reality, for as Woody Allen astutely observed, even “objectivity is subjective.”

I’m not one of those bloggers who long for the extinction of the legacy media, nor do I think this modern American model of an objective, fair and balanced press will ever perish at the hands of us advocacy journalists. But there’s certainly more than enough room for both models to coexist, and to some extent, converge. Both models can be equally honest and informative, as long as the practitioners remain true to themselves, and to their slightly divergent ethical principles…

But in the end, how is my openly biased blog really any different from the op-ed section of any major daily? Facts are facts, and when I get them wrong my readers abrasively taunt me in my comment threads. The rest of what I write is nothing but personal spin and opinion…

Postman writes that “alleging bias in a newspaper reporter is a serious matter,” and he spiritedly defends his colleagues from what he assumes to be a personal insult. But I didn’t allege bias in a reporter or a newspaper or even his profession. I alleged bias in our entire species. That is the human condition. We are all biased. Each and every one of us will experience the same event somewhat differently, shaped by our own unique personal histories and perspectives. Two different ledes were written off the same hearing, and yes I do think it instructive to highlight the difference.

Postman refers to my Tuesday night Drinking Liberally festivities and jokingly implies that I should have slept off my hangover before writing. In truth, the post was admittedly rushed as I was late for a meeting. Perhaps Postman would have been less offended had I taken the time to pen my intended closing: an attack on Times publisher Frank Blethen for his efforts to make Seattle a one-newspaper town.

I apologize, David, for not being more thorough.

As consumers struggled to cope with rising prices at the pump, the oil industry pulled in a record $101 billion in profits last year — about $11.6 million an hour — and according to Barb Flye of the Washington Tax Fairness Coalition, taxpayers are picking up the tab… twice.

“Individuals have to dig deeper to fill the gas tank and heat their homes, and collectively, all taxpayers will be covering the higher gas and heating costs for a host of publicly-funded services and institutions,” Flye said. “We’re paying more for heat at public schools and colleges, hospitals and nursing homes, courts and other government buildings, not to mention the higher cost of running school buses and public transit.”

This has prompted state Rep. Steve Conway to introduce HB 2128 a tax hike on excess oil industry profits. The bill would put a 3% B&O tax surcharge on gross receipts of companies with a refining capacity in excess of 10,000 barrels a year, whenever retail gas prices exceed $1.75 a gallon. The Washington Tax Fairness Coalition will be holding a press event at noon today in Olympia, in support of HB 2128.

The Seattle P-I editorial board gives credit where none is due:

Still, principal owner Clay Bennett deserves credit for sincerity in his efforts to work out a deal that keeps the team in the Seattle area.

Um… okay, let me get this straight. After failing to secure $200 million in public funding for a $220 million expansion of Key Arena, a frustrated Howard Schultz sells the team to Clay Bennett, a prominent Oklahoma City businessman. Then, fully aware of the cold reception local icon Schultz received from lawmakers, and only months after 74-percent of Seattle voters rejected a public subsidy by approving I-91, the Sonics’ new owner — hailing from a city famous for its basketball jones — asks taxpayers to contribute $400 million towards what would be the most expensive arena in the entire NBA, but with no public vote.

And I’m supposed to believe this effort is sincere?

Call me a cynic, but I never believed Bennett ever intended to keep the team in Seattle. Even the most casual observer of Washington politics could have told Bennett that his $530 million hoop dream would be D.O.A., so I can’t help but view it as a disingenuous con game intended to fill Key Arena with gullible fans until the lease expires in 2010. But it’s hard to keep fans in the seats when you put such a crappy product on the court, so now Bennett is hinting that he may not even honor the last couple years of the lease.

“I would expect we would stay, but I’m not so sure a lame duck franchise is good for anybody.”

Whatever.

I suppose it is possible that our Legislature could foil Bennett’s plan by being stupid enough to give him what he’s asking for. But I’m guessing not even Bennett thinks it likely.

Al Franken explains what it means to be a progressive. (And oh yeah… why he’s running for the US Senate.)

Since daily newspapers are fair and balanced institutions staffed entirely by objective journalists who merely report the facts, one might expect that our two dailies, covering the same public hearing on the same day, would pretty much report the same story.

Hmm. Interesting thesis. But how does it work out in practice?

Seattle Times: OLYMPIA — Sonics owner Clay Bennett ended a long-running mystery Tuesday when he told state lawmakers he prefers Renton over Bellevue for a new $500 million basketball arena.

Seattle P-I: OLYMPIA — The Seattle Sonics want the public to pay for most of a new $500 million multipurpose arena in Renton, they want most of the proceeds from that facility and they want the money without a public vote, owner Clay Bennett told lawmakers Tuesday.

According to the Times, the big story was the stunning, plot-twisting conclusion to the Bellevue vs. Renton “mystery.” According to the P-I, the big story was the Sonics intention to fleece $400 million out of taxpayers to build them the most expensive basketball arena in the nation.

Both articles report that the proposed arena would cost about $500 million, and that the Sonics are requesting $300 million in “state-authorized” taxes — but only the P-I spells out that the tax money would come from King County residents, not the state. The Times reports that the remaining $200 million would be “split among private investors and the city of Renton,” whereas the P-I is more specific:

Bennett told the Senate Ways and Means Committee that he expects the public to provide most of the financing — $300 million from the state, about $100 million from the city of Renton — and that most of the money from the facility should go to the team.

And only the P-I points out that the 22-acre site the Sonics have chosen is probably not for sale.

One hearing, two newspapers, two ledes. And two very different story lines coming out of yesterday’s events. I’m not implying any intentional bias on the part of the various reporters, just that bias inevitably exists, and inevitably seeps through every journalist’s work, no matter how hard they try to suppress it. (And sometimes, because they try to suppress it.)

While South Dakota continues to marginalize itself, Kansas is stepping back from the precipice of kookiness by taking an important step to restore proper science to their education standards:

The Kansas state Board of Education on Tuesday repealed science guidelines questioning evolution that had made the state an object of ridicule.
[…]

The board removed language suggesting that key evolutionary concepts are controversial and being challenged by new research, and approved a new definition of science that limits it to the search for natural explanations of what’s observed in the universe…

What is the reaction from the fringies?

John Calvert, a retired attorney who helped found the Intelligent Design Network, said under the new standards, “students will be fed an answer which may be right or wrong” about questions like the origin of life.

“Who does that model put first?” he said. “The student, or those supplying the preordained ‘natural explanation’?”

Mr. Calvert picks an interesting case—the origin of life—because that is truly an elusive, intriguing area of science. We currently don’t have great answers to how life originated on earth. Rather we have several competing theories, each with strengths and weaknesses. The fact of the matter is, all of them may prove to be incorrect (and it is a lot easier to show a theory is wrong than it is to show any given theory is approximately correct). But no scientist is claiming to have unequivocally solved the “origin of life” question.

Mr. Calvert asks who is served by teaching the ideas about the origins of life? I would strongly argue that the students are served. They are served by being introduced to science at the edge of knowledge—something that scientists should neither avoid nor be ashamed of. Science has made progress at different rates across differing areas. Some areas are ripe for innovative ideas and empirical testing; other areas stubbornly resist the best scientific minds. Origin of life studies falls on the stubborn side, and students should know that. After all, the stubborn, poorly developed areas of science offer the greatest and most exciting challenges for young potential scientists.

The students are also served because they receive a proper science education. The “theory” of intelligent design is to evolution what a theory of angels holding up airplanes on strings is to aerodynamics. In my opinion, students who believe airplanes fly because angels sweep them across the sky like puppets have no place in higher education. Likewise, students whose school system forces them to learn that “intelligent design” is a valid scientific theory of evolution, really shouldn’t be allowed into college.

Many colleges have prerequisites for admission that include things like coursework in a foreign language, algebra and trigonometry, English, etc. I think all respectable colleges and universities should add coursework in “scientific biology” to the entry requirements—and they should keep track of school systems that fail to provide courses in scientific biology. That way, school boards that foist anti-science curricula on their students would be excluding their children from qualifying for college. Of course, the students would likely be able to make up the deficiency through night courses, etc., but such school boards would be starting their graduates off with a hefty economic disadvantage.

A harsh policy, to be sure, but nobody said stamping out inter-generational transmission of ignorance was going to be easy.