Some ill-informed members of the Florida House of Representatives voted this week to pass a bill that would bring creationism into schools. A different version in the Senate would have to be reconciled for any new law to be made.

The evolution bill (SB2692) would require that alternatives to evolution be taught in public schools.

Here’s the core of the problem: There are no viable alternatives. Yet Florida Governor Charlie Crist has tacitly bought into the naiveté. Asked whether he believes in evolution, Crist said: “I believe in a lot of things. We should have the freedom to have a good exchange of ideas, right?”

That’s a stupid answer and an even stupider question, and Crist fuels irrational creationist flames by failing to give a square answer. Evolution is not something to believe in or not believe in. It is something to realize (or dismiss or perhaps not understand).

Religion is something one believes in. The rightness or wrongness of the Iraq war is something you can believe in. The certainty of a pay raise next year is something you can believe in.

The theory of evolution is one of the most well-established scientific theories, rooted in facts and observations from multiple tests and investigations on several scientific fronts over many decades. There’s absolutely zero credible evidence to support any other explanation for the incredible diversity of life and the changes that we see happening right before our eyes.

Do you “believe” that deadly superbugs are evolving to resist antibiotics? The question is irrelevant to the rapidly evolving bugs, but ignorance of facts could leave you just as dead.

According to the Sun-Sentinel, the bill is likely to die for lack of action anyway, as the legislative session ends Friday But don’t be surprised though to see the bill re-emerge in the future. Like organisms, bad legislation on this topic has a habit of evolving into new forms and surviving like a superbug.