Yeah, I ran into some YECs recently. It has REALLY freaked me out. I was polite and listened (and kept my mouth shut tight) to this mother of 9 explain to her kids about rain “Yes, God did a good job with that, but you know, there was no Rain before the flood, only mists coming up from the ground”

Not only was that scientifically stupid, it was a grammatical misreading of Genesis! (Warning YEC site, but it makes the point: answersingenesis.org)

A few weeks ago they were back (Neighbor’s reletives) and my daughter went out to play with them. I went out to. They’re friendly and all, and they asked what we were doing the next day. I told them we were going down to JPL for the open house. They didn’t know what it was, so I told them it was the Jet Propulsion Lavatory where they develop robots for Space missions they launch from Rockets. Suddenly I’ve gone from 3 or 4 enthusiastic boys in the 6-9 age range to 3 or 4 kids with the most frightened looks on their faces! WTF?! Boys+Rockets =? FEAR?!

It is my opinion we need another Moon mission. No, a MARS mission, to shut these people up. The US prior to WWII and the Cold War was shutting down science in the class room, successfully banning Evolution in the class room. Then BAM! The Russians get Sputnik up there and suddenly we’ve gotta have a Space Program too. We were turning out Scientists and Engineers like it the most important thing in the world. There were no Oil companies advertising that we needed to solve the American Math/Science education “Problem,” there were no Gov’t programs to encourage people study Science and physics. The need was Self Evident. Kids were inspired. Who here hasn’t wanted to be an astronaut? Those that couldn’t ended up being Engineers or scientists (and from that pool they pick Astronauts these days!). Science was cool.

Science needs to be cool again. Watch NASA TV August 5th, 10:31pm PDT.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about:

Youtube Video

Dare Mighty Things.

(I’d also recomend watching everything you can find of Neil deGrass Tyson, he makes the best case for Space anyone can make. He also rips into the ID crowd good on a 30 minute presentation Youtube Video)