i wonder if, in alabama, they put stickers on religious studies textbooks warning children that the existence of any kind of higher being is a controversial theory. i wonder if the physics textbooks tell children that the existence of black holes or subatomic particles are only theories that scientists make up to explain the evidence we can see. i wonder if the history textbooks explain that everything we know about what’s happened in the past is based on hearsay. i wonder if the maths textbooks start with basic axioms and derive everything else from them.

i hope they teach their school pupils that the ability to weigh up the evidence and decide for themselves is one of the most important things that they can learn and that teachers, and school boards, are not always correct. teaching children to question what’s written in their textbooks is a good thing. however the way the alabama school board picks out one topic to question above all others not only makes it look stupid but also makes it look as if it accepts the rest of its syllabus as fact.