"I love you crazy kids. I really do."

Paleoanthropologists are usually a bookish and well-behaved lot, so it's been a bit embarrassing to watch them going apeshit over the discovery of a new hominid species in Spain. Pierolapithecus catalaunicas is believed to be a common ancestor to all the big knuckle-dragging hominids, including us. The New York Times gives the blow-by-blow on the Miocene-era meltdown:

In the report, the researchers concluded that the well-preserved skull, teeth and skeletal bones promised "to contribute substantially to our understanding of the origin of extant great apes and humans."

Dr. David R. Begun, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto who is familiar with the research but not a member of the team, called the fossils "a great discovery," adding, "I am convinced it is a great ape".

These might seem like pretty cautious, mild-mannered comments. But remember, these are scientists we're talking about. These eggheads are the highest-evolved of our species, like something out of Edmond Hamilton's nightmares. For them, this level of excitement is wild-eyed, feces-throwing yahoo-ism.

So consider their level of excitement as another can of gasoline poured on the inferno of the evolution-in-the-classroom debate. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1980s that creationism was religious dogma, not science, and ever since the creationists have been trying to figure out a way to circumvent that ruling. The first attempt was to dress up creationism as science -- they dubbed it "intelligent design theory" and did their best to appear serious and scholarly.

The problem was the creationists had no practical knowledge, formal education or scholarly interest in science. So they have pretty much shelved their attempts to develop a competing scientific theory and are now trying to get warning stickers put in science textbooks.

Yes, warning stickers. More than anything, the stickers affixed to biology textbooks on Cobb County, Georgia resemble the warning label one might find on a pack of cigarettes. The text reads: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

This is ground-breaking stuff; it's probably the first time the phrases "open mind", "studied carefully" and "critically considered" have ever appeared in Georgia textbooks. At least the label doesn't claim that evolution causes headaches, nausea, vomiting, anal leakage, prolonged painful erection, seizures or death. Not yet, anyway.

Apparently students in Georgia will still be able to learn about the theory of gravity and the germ theory of disease without these sort of disclaimers (although I suppose cosmology and geology, scientific "disciplines" that teach that the Earth is substantially older than 6000 years, will be the next to go).

This being Georgia, the only people who are challenging the stickers are the pesky ACLU -- and we all know that nobody listens to them anyway.