Via aTypical Joe…  That new federal grant program for students majoring in science, engineering, mathematics, and some foreign languages…?  Heh…well if your major is in the evolutionary sciences…forget it…

Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed to reward students majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain foreign languages.

That absence apparently indicates that students in the evolutionary sciences do not qualify for the grants, and some observers are wondering whether the omission was deliberate.

The question arises at a time when evolution has become a political hot potato at all levels of education. While the theory of evolution has overwhelming support from scientists, some conservative Christian groups argue for alternative explanations of the origins of life, including "intelligent design," which holds that an intelligent agent guided the creation of life.

Joe explains that the grants are worth up to four-thousand dollars, and are awarded in addition to the Pell Grants.

The [Department of Education] has an index of classification numbers — referred to as "CIP codes," for the Classification of Instructional Programs — for all academic areas of instruction,

Under that classification scheme, there is a heading for "Ecology, Evolution, Systematics and Population Biology," under which 10 biological fields are defined. For instance, ecology is 26.1301, and evolutionary biology is 26.1303.

But on a list that defines majors eligible for the grants, issued by the department in May, one of those 10 is missing. On that list, the classification numbers rise in order from 26.1301 to 26.1309 — with the exception of a blank line where 26.1303, or evolutionary biology, would fall.

Tell me that’s not deliberate.  Go ahead.  Tell me that some Bush gang religious right policy wonk didn’t redline evolutionary biology from the list of eligible majors either because God told them to, or because Karl said it would keep the base happy.  I have a modest proposal.  If these kooks are that dead set against the study of evolution, they should all be willing to sign pledges stating that they will not partake of any medication or treatment of any kind, nor life enhancing technology, that was developed using evolutionary biology in some way, even if their doctors tell them it would mean saving their own lives.

But then…they don’t keep their own marriage or virginity pledges very well do they…