This bears repeating for emphasis: the woman in charge of Texas’s science curriculum got shitcanned for announcing a lecture by someone critical of Intelligent Design.

Now, University of Texas professor Daniel Bolnick has collected the signatures of more than a hundred of the finest minds in biological science that Texas has to offer – every last one a PhD – attached to a letter that contains one of the finest supports for evolution that I’ve ever read. You can read the full text of the letter here. Among the highlights: the theory of evolution is as widely supported and accepted within the biological community as heliocentrism is within the astronomical community, and asking teachers of biology to remain neutral in the ID/evolution debate is akin to asking astronomy professors to remain neutral in the debate of whether the sun revolves around the Earth or vice versa. (Clever that – he simultaneously underscores the fact that evolution is all but scientific fact, and manages to place so-called “Intelligent Design” in the same category as Dark Ages era church dogma.) He then quantifies the scientific support: by searching the database of articles posted in peer-reviewed journals – the gold standard of scientific merit – and reveals that the “score” between evolution and ID is 29,639 to zero.

This, again, bears repeating, for the sake of those knuckledraggers still clinging jealously to the lie that there are great numbers of scientists that support Intelligent Design: twenty nine thousand, six hundred thirty nine to zero.

He also mentions the now-famous decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover which dismissed Intelligent Design as disguised religious dogma, and very rightly puts teaching Intelligent Design in the First Amendment territory explored in Edwards v. Aguillard – that is, clearly unconstitutional territory.

But the killing blow is the ultimate bottom line for the scientific community: sooner or later, the kids in these classes will become the future of the state’s (and this country’s) biotech industry. Evolutionary principles have driven most of the last century and a half of medical, biological, and genetic advances – it is, in fact, the linchpin of modern medicine and biology – while Intelligent Design has produced a grand total of zero scientific advances – it is, in fact, incapable of producing a single major breakthrough because it is the intellectual equivalent of permanently giving up on trying to find any answers to anything. When those biotech firms scout out the future PhDs as potential researchers, grantees, and partners, they will not be searching for doctors schooled in the art of giving up. They will be looking for the brightest minds with the best education and the highest standards of scientific efficacy. And if Intelligent Design is taught in American schools, that means they will be looking on foreign soil.

With more than 100 doctors in biology signing this statement, it is tremendously significant. It represents the unanimous support of evolution by the biological community – while Intelligent Design carries the weight of a few disgraced professors and pseudo-journalists.

For the sake of everyone who needs those classes to succeed, may this letter not fall on deaf ears.