Bill Nye the Science Guy calls on parents who believe in creationism -- the Bible-based view that the world was created a mere 6,000 or so years ago -- to resist teaching that fable to their children. It's not science in any way, Nye says, and kids need to learn real science.

"Don't make your kids do that because we need them," Nye says.

Nye is right, of course, which should not need saying. But it does. Too many American schools controlled by religious fundamentalists continue to push creationism or intelligent design or whatever the going euphemism is for religion dressed up as rational, evidence-based and predictive science.

A terrific book on the subject -- carefully reported and highly readable -- is "Monkey Girl," by Edward Humes, published in 2007. It is a fascinating account, as one critic said, of a "modern day 'holy war' being waged by American fundamentalists in the schoolyard battle over Darwin's dangerous idea."

That idea, one of the most brilliant and important ever worked out by mortals, is evolution.