The NY Times is reporting that evolutionary biology is no longer listed as a field of study for those students seeking federal education grants. While the official line is that the omission is unintentional the fact that it is missing raises some questions particularly given that the listing of acceptable majors is a “mechanical process”:

The list of eligible majors (which is online at ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/GEN0606A.pdf) is drawn from the Education Department’s “Classification of Instructional Programs,??? or CIP (pronounced “sip???), a voluminous and detailed classification of courses of study, arranged in a numbered system of sections and subsections.

Mr. Nassirian said people at the Education Department had described the omission as “a clerical mistake.??? But it is “odd,??? he said, because applying the subject codes “is a fairly mechanical task. It is not supposed to be the subject of any kind of deliberation.???

I’m going to side with the doubters that this is a purely clerical error since the current administration has a tendency towards sanitizing and scrubbing public materials.

Dr. Krauss said: “Removing that one major is not going to make the nation stupid, but if this really was removed, specifically removed, then I see it as part of a pattern to put ideology over knowledge. And, especially in the Department of Education, that should be abhorred.???

Gives me the warm and fuzzies.