Follow the Yellow-Brick Road
It must be that number 66 that fundamentalist Christians fear so much, that old Devil at work again during this 66th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz and Kansas has gone nuts. The Scarecrow, in the incarnation of William S. Harris told an ‘approving’ Kansas State Board of Education on May 5th that ‘DNA is the work of an intelligent being.’
It’s another step up to the plate for the Kansas board, reaffirming its 1999 vote to remove evolution as a subject matter in standardized tests. Observers at the time believed that move effectively meant teachers would not teach evolution because students wouldn’t be tested on it. Are these people for real? If Harris believes DNA is the work of an intelligent being, the only thing that proves beyond a doubt is that being could not possibly be a member of the Kansas State BOE.
In our trip backwards through Kansas-time and Kansas-truth, predating the Wizard of Oz movie by fourteen years brings us to the John Scopes ‘monkey trial’ within which no less tha…