If there were a Mount Rushmore of Tea Party Ignorance, surely we would find the likeness of Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell carved there, fashioned by Christian conservative chiselers, who not only defend her know-nothingness, but celebrate it.

Her performance during a debate with Chris Coons this morning at Delaware’s Widener School of Law (where she got some laughs) is just the latest example of why O’Donnell is so wildly popular among a disturbingly large slice of the electorate, among those who put more faith in Iron Age narratives than in 21st century science.

According to CBS News:

In a discussion over the whether or not public schools should be allowed to integrate religion-based ideas into science curricula, O’Donnell argued that local school districts should have the choice to teach intelligent design if they choose.

When asked point blank by Coons if she believed in evolution, however, O’Donnell reiterated that her personal beliefs were not germane.  “What I think about the theory of evolution is irrelevant,” she emphasized, adding later that the school of thought was “not a fact but a theory.”

Everyone knows by now that O’Donnell confessed years ago on Bill Maher’s show that she really does believe, “Evolution is a myth.”  When she was ridiculed for that comment, she blurted out:

Why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?

Now, this is all very funny in a funny sort of way.  But when you think about it, it isn’t so funny.

There are millions upon millions of Americans who believe evolution is “only” a “theory” or, worse, a “myth.“

And some may say, so what?  If these folks want to believe such nonsense, it’s a free country.  Nobody’s hurt by it.

But these folks don’t just confine their beliefs to themselves.  They often want to make them public policy, as the ongoing fight over textbooks in Texas make clear. As David Waters commented about the Texas board of education on washingtonpost.com:

Remember, this is the government body that opened its May session with a Christian prayer on behalf of “a Christian land governed by Christian principles,” a prayer made “in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

When earnest evangelical Christians like O’Donnell say, “local school districts should have the choice to teach intelligent design if they choose,” they are really saying that religious views should be taught as scientific ones.  And their basis for such statements is not a misplaced faith in the Constitution’s alleged preference for local governance, but a misplaced faith in the Bible as a guide to all human thought, especially ideas about how we came to be.

In our times, such thoughts are not just part of harmlessly quaint and curious belief systems. If allowed to proliferate without challenge, they wouldn’t just lead to a paralysis in understanding our true origins, but they would lead to a larger cultural paralysis that could jeopardize advances in medicine and technology and other fruits of scientific inquiry.

That’s why Christine O’Donnell’s doomed campaign to become 1/100th of 1/2 of 1/3 of the federal government, although entertaining, isn’t all that funny.  There are still many more Christine O’Donnells out there who need to be defeated.