Anti-Evolutionists Tying Curriculum Efforts To Global Warming Skepticism

Today's New York Times reports that critics of evolution who want alternative theories taught in public schools are beginning to tie that effort together with a similar push to encourage teaching of alternative theories about global warming. The strategy, being pursued in various states, builds on growing numbers of conservatives who have doubts about the science of climate change. Rev. Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network, a group that agrees with the science of global warming, says that many religious opponents believe "it is hubris to think that human beings could disrupt something that God created." As a legal matter, those tying the two issues together are reacting in part to a statement in a 2005 federal district court opinion finding that Cobb County, Georgia's singling out of evolution as a questionable theory in textbook stickers had the effect of advancing religion.