Actually, score two.
Not only did Mike Huckabee finally bow out of the race for President last night (so I won't have to move to Canada), but a creationist was defeated for a spot on the Texas school board also. Barney Maddox, an avowed creationist, would have tilted the board of education towards insanity (see Time for more details), but his challenge was held off by the moderate incumbent, Patricia Hardy, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram:
Social conservatives failed in their attempt to take control of the State Board of Education on Tuesday when incumbent Pat Hardy of Fort Worth retained her seat against a challenge from Cleburne's Barney Maddox.
Hardy, a career educator, has been a moderate voice on the board. The 15-member body still shows a close ideological split, but Hardy has helped keep it on a straight path.
Maddox's entry in the race had set the stage for debate over the scientific theory of evolution, which he has described as "fairy tales." Hardy took a better course: Teach kids about all theories, she said, from creation to evolution, and give them enough information to make up their own minds about what to believe.
She's wrong about teaching all theories especially where one has no evidence to back it up and one has the full support of the entire scientific community, but it does preserve the teaching of evolution in the state, which had been under fire, and it's better than the alternative.
