Tennessee is a very active front (but not the only one by a long shot) in the Republican Party’s all-out war against science. As we noted last week, Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives passed an absurd anti-evolution bill deceptively labeled as “academic freedom” — the latest tactic of the creationist right.

And as we’ve seen many times, creationists very often tell outrageous lies to prop up their Dark Ages magical thinking. Here’s GOP state representative Frank Nicely during the debate on this anti-science legislation, telling the House that Albert Einstein, as a “critical thinker,” would have been in favor of teaching creationism.

Why isn’t the audience laughing?

Brad Johnson notes that Einstein never said this (which is what you should always assume when creationists quote scientists, because they routinely lie). In fact, Rep. Nicely butchered a quote by Francis Bacon.

Nicely falsely attributed his quotation to Einstein, a Jewish humanist and professed agnostic, who never argued that scientific knowledge leads one to Jesus Christ. The statement is actually a mangled paraphrase of the 16th century philosopher Francis Bacon, who argued that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”

The 16th century lives on in the minds of people like Frank Nicely.