August 24, 2006 1:00 PM PDT

Evolutionary biology going extinct?

by Harry Fuller

I would never accuse any political appointee of letting religious fervor trump public service, but... The Chronicle of Higher Education disclosed that the field of evolutionary biology has disappeared from a list of subjects approved for students getting federal grants. You can still study marine or aquatic biology it seems, but subject No. 26.1303 evolutionary biology has been deleted.

Apparently the political operative who deleted the line: 1) did not know how make the blank space go away, or 2) wanted the deletion to stand out so it would get noticed. You can check the listing online.

The New York Times chased the story and got an Education Department statement saying there was no explanation for how that one single subject was deleted. So now we can all watch and see what happens to 26.1303. Is it extinct? Is evolutionary biology unfit for survival? What would Darwin say?

Topics:: Science,; Politics

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