Roman Holiday

As creepy as Pope Ratzinger might be and as backwards as the Roman Catholic church remains on certain public health issues, when the Vatican's chief astronomer (really?) comes out and says

Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.

you know the IDers are going to cry foul. Of course, some of more radical of America's heartland zealots believe that the Pope is actually Satan incarnate, so they may actually see this as a vindication of their convictions.

Nonetheless, what I most enjoy is just watching two groups of crazies go at it. I quite enjoy seeing the Vatican smack down religious fanaticism, because they sure know all about it. Having had their own dust ups with science before, which may explain why the Vatican actually has a chief astronomer, they know well that they can't beat reality.

In any event, I sure enjoyed reading this. I hope you did, too.

Please, IDiots, move away from the science classes. His Holiness commands you.