It was hardly a surprise when Israel’s minister of education, Gideon Sa’ar, fired his ministry’s chief scientist, Gavriel Avital, on Monday. Avital has taken vocal stands against evolution and global warming since he was appointed in December 2009. An aeronautical engineer and a politician – his name appeared on the ruling Likud party’s slate in 2006 elections, though he did not win a seat in parliament – Avital was an unusual choice for the post, whose previous occupants have come from the field of education.

Avital’s job as chief scientist in the education ministry was to oversee studies of education issues, and the choice of textbooks. (Several ministries in Israel have chief scientists: the industry ministry’s is the most important, as he oversees the bulk of the country’s research funds, which are for applied research. The job of representing the views of Israel’s scientists to the government is done by the science minister, and by the president of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities).

In February 2010, the daily newspaper Ha’aretz reported that Avital had published articles decrying the theory of evolution and the claim that human activity contributes to global warming. For example, in an article he published on the Israeli Hebrew website “Basheva” in October 2009, he claimed that world temperatures were higher in the early twentieth century and called the efforts to restrict carbon emissions the actions of “the Green religion.”

He continued his campaign after his appointment, Ha’aretz reported, telling the audience at a religious seminary that Israel’s science textbooks should provide pupils with alternative views to evolution, which he said is “only a theory.”

Avi Blizovsky, editor of the Israeli science website Ha-Yad’an, welcomed Avital’s dismissal but regretted that the minister did not take action earlier. In a blog post today he noted, however, that even so, “We still need to be bothered by the fact that in Israel, ostensibly an enlightened Western country, high school students can still major in biology without learning a single unit on evolution—the choice of whether to teach it is up to schools and teachers.”