Phil Plait makes some good points about Canadian Science Minister Gary Goodyear, and why it matters if Canada’s chief science guy is a creationist: Canadian Science Minister update: kinda.

As I pointed out in my post yesterday, religion is irrelevant only if it doesn’t affect the job. But as we have seen over the past 8 years in the US, religion does indeed have a tendency to affect people’s decisions, especially, critically, if they are a creationist. Then it colors everything they do, including trying to overthrow the Constitution.

Of course, this is Canada and not the United States we’re talking about here, so the ground rules legally are different. But tell me, how would you feel if the head of your federal science department told you he believes the Earth is flat? Or the Sun revolves around the Earth? Or that he thinks the sky is a great crystal sphere, and he lies awake at night worried that the Voyager probes will smash it and let all our air out?

Those beliefs have just as much basis as young Earth creationism: they are faith-based only, and have no evidence for them, and about a billion solid pieces of evidence against them. If your science advisor told you any of those things, you’d think he was crazy and you’d look for a replacement.

So yeah, you’re darn tootin’ this is a relevant question. And for him to say otherwise is a denial of reality both politically and, well, realistically.