In Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon Haunted World, he tells the story of Soviet biology post WWII.

The essential point is that political manuevering among Stalin’s advisors pushed out the scientists that supported evolution and replaced it with a more politically aligned explanation.  As a result, the Soviets were at a standstill in biological research for decades, falling way behind the curve of technology.

That is the ultimate result of allowing ideology of any form to replace research based on scientific method.

They are dooming the country in an attempt to “save” it.

People should email members of this school board, like i did, reminding them that teaching religion in the classroom is illegal:

http://www.dover.k12.pa.us/35987532114636/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=47179

...  never mind bad “science”.

Just a hint, email gets less attention than physical letters with a real name and address on it, particularly if the address happens to be local.

Wired Magazine’s cover story this month goes into detail about the ‘crusade against evolution’.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html

It is definitely worth reading. The creationists are deliberately trying to ‘crash’ science as we know it by hitting kids in school at a suggestible age. Getting their ‘hooks’ into them at this early stage gurarantees that it will destablize modern science as these kids get into the sciences.

They have a tactic called the “wedge”:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/barbara_forrest/wedge.html

If we understand our own times, we will know that we should affirm the reality of God by challenging the domination of materialism and naturalism in the world of the mind. With the assistance of many friends I have developed a strategy for doing this,...We call our strategy the “wedge.” --Phillip E. Johnson

Here is some more info about this creeping religious blight:

http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/idfront.html

Science encourages the art of questioning. Theory and hypotheses are some of the tools used. And science is always revising, updating, improving. It always questions, and does research. Intelligent Design does not. Even without the mention of a Creator, it is simply a tool of doubt and dissolution, meant to clear the boards for Dominionist takeover of science and a return to the Dark Ages.

Sunfell

Yes, TOTALLY read the Wired piece.  It’s great.
As they say, the plot is to teach the controversy, rather than the actual theory of this radical “intelligent design” theory.

This is why an educated populace is the best guard of democracy.  The scientific method matters.

P.S.  I don’t even think i own an envelope, much less a stamp.  Educators, at least here in the states, rely very heavily upon email both at the secondary and university level.  Paper is a bother to most of these people (having worked with public educators in the past).

The Dover School Board has a history of pushing their Christian Agenda. 

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/040939.htm

We have a long road ahead of us in the fight against superstition and ignorance.

-Matt

The Wired article is excellent.  They do a good job of capturing just how silly, and yet scary, the whole ID debate is. 

the Discovery Institute’s appeals to academic freedom create a kind of catch-22. If scientists ignore the ID movement, their silence is offered as further evidence of a conspiracy. If they join in, they risk reinforcing the perception of a battle between equal sides.

And this quote pretty much sums up the reason that scientists get furious with IDers. 

says Princehouse. “As a friend of mine said, it takes a half a second for a baby to throw up all over your sweater. It takes hours to get it clean.”

Gilder’s defense of ID, on page 5, almost made my head explode

In a self-refuting materialist superstition, teachers deny the role of ideas and purposes in evolution and hence implicitly in their own thought

Wow.  There’s a philosophical exercise in non-sequitur.  ‘If the cosmos wasn’t designed for a specific purpose’ [veers wildly] ‘then your own thought cannot be purposeful.’

Yeah.  Materialist philosophy sure is bad.  It’s the kind of thought that led humans to abandon lightning-gods, digestion as the “baking” of food in the stomach [although we still produce loafs], pregnancy as the growth of a male ‘seed’ in a female ‘receptacle’ and a thousand other “ooh, it’s the work of the little people!” explanations for observed phenomena.

If Gilder doesn’t like materialist philosophy, he should stop using any sort of pharmaceuticals, or any device that runs on electricity.  F’n Hypocrite. 

alright.  I’ve got my smiley fix.  I’ll stop regurgitating the obvious now.

My sympathy goes out to Mr. Neal.  Clearly, he’s ground his teeth over this issue more than once.

Man, I just hope I don’t have to put up with similar shit once I finally score a job.

My husband reads your blog regularly and sent me this link.  Very interesting.  I teach at a Jewish High School, so religion is very much a part of the curriculum; however ALL of my students have some hideous story in their background about some evangelical Christian trying to push their beliefs on them.  They’ve been pressured to read the New Testament by teachers (in public school) and told they were going to hell by neighbors.  It’s sick.  I am a Christian, myself, but I have a big problem with religion in public schools.  Whose religion?  Whose concept of intelligent design—because each religion that believes in Creation sees it differently.  For that matter, each movement within Judaism and each sect within Christianity has slightly different ideas about what Creation is.

I like the idea of forcing the teachers to run the gamut on the creationist/evolution scale (as compiled in a Skeptic article):

Flat Earthers
Geocentrists
Young Earth Creationism
Old Earth Creationism
Gap Creationism
Day-Age Creationism
Progressive Creationism
Evolutionary Creationism
Theistic Evolution
Materialistic Evolution

Perhaps the infighting will keep them busy.

They’re trying to get Ohio schools to teach ID too.  The whole thing is completely ridiculous.  I always get mad and have to keep myself from yelling at students when they spout off that evolution is ‘just a theory’.  Learn what the difference between a scientific theory and a load of crap is before you tell me that.  The whole thing is just scary, and it’s one of the reasons that American kids are dumber than the rest of the world.

To be honest, I hope that Intelligent Design is REQUIRED teaching in Science Class, because then they would have admit that Intelligent Design, if it exists, is ruled by the laws of science. Meaning, even God is ruled by the laws of science.

If not, then Intelligent Design doesn’t belong in a SCIENCE class.

We have a long road ahead of us in the fight against superstition and ignorance.

Lol! When I first read that, I read ‘we have a long blog ahead of us’. Well, that I guess is fitting too.

If we can find someone to ‘debate’ us. So far its all evolutionists here, if I tally it right.

Captcha = southern

To be honest, I hope that Intelligent Design is REQUIRED teaching in Science Class

Just make sure to teach your kids real science. Think of the competitive advantage and the emigration potential.

Well, how do you think I feel. I know some of those teachers in Dover, and not all of them want to have ID taught there (my cousin is a teacher at the high school). I grew up in the Harrisburg-Metro area, comprising Harrisburg, York (Dover is like 5 minutes away from this city), Lebanon and Lancaster, PA. Depending on where you go in these areas, you will find “True Believers” trying to sneak in, and in other parts of the area they are kept at bay by sane people

For the most part, ID is only mentioned as a theory in schools, along with evolution, etc. It is not stressed upon, but the school I attended allowed students to study many different theories (ID, evolution, big-bang, etc) and come to their own conclusions, usually by presenting several oral and written reports/thesis on the subject along with pro and con evidence for each theory. No single theory was held above any of the others, as they didn’t want to offend anyone by saying “Your choice in theories is wrong.”

But yeah, as for Dover, they are a rather conservative small (decidedly Pro-Life, Pro-Bush, Right-Wingers) town, with more churches than houses I think. This might explain such antics on behalf of the local “True Believers”.

Ok, this is only my second post and seeing as I have become hooked on this site (thanks to all who commented on my last post, I got an “A") I’ve decided to stick my neck out for a comment.

I have just completed a quick read of the ID web site.  I see pros and cons to this whole argument.  I’ll be nice and list the pros first:

1) ID’s claim of evolutionist concepts based in non-objective origins.  No biggy here, most physicists will agree that it is relatively impossible to establish true objectivity when studying empirical evidence. 

2) Uh...ok I am out of pros.

Cons:

1) Isn’t ID basing itself upon subjective assumptions as well?

2) ID claims there is no empirical proof of evolutions.  What about viruses?  They should be the poster-child of natural selection and, depending on the vectors, evolution. 

3) Can ID be empirically proven? If so why hasn’t it? (In fairness, can ID be empirically disproved? If so, why hasn’t it?)

4) Doesn’t the concept of ID more properly belong in a philosophy classroom?

5) Lastly, assuming ID allows for the possibility extra-terrestrial origins to life on Earth as an explanation, how did these supposed aliens develop (evolve?). And while their at it, would they mind disproving relativity so we could surpass that whole speed of light barrier and start implementing some ID of our own on some other planet?

Ok, done ranting.

Just wondering. Did you read Wired magazine August edition? It details steps taken to promote biotechnology.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.08/singapore.html

While the US is still the leading place for research even biotech research. Do you think the promotion of such education coupled with regulation on stem cell may eventually allow others to overtake the US? Or perhaps not so much overtake as to reduce US hold on being the place for research, development and innovation in the field of biotechnology?

I’m waiting, not so patiently, for the next age of enlightenment. I could be waiting for centuries!

Okay, I have a plan… An evil plan, so what better place to post it?
First, we create our own version of ID, based on impossible theories, non-sense half-truths, and an amalgamation of every religions, except Christianities, take on the creation of the universe.  Then we put it all in a textbook format.
Next, we push it on the Dover School System as one of the ‘alternative theories of evolution’. 
Finally, we allow the angry Christians in the community to drive the ID out of the schools.
Who is with me!?!?!?
-Matt
p.s. funny, the word I have to submit for this posting is ‘low’… how appropriate.

No single theory was held above any of the others, as they didn’t want to offend anyone by saying “Your choice in theories is wrong.�

That is still totally incorrect.  What they need to do is differentiate between what is considered a scientific theory (and all the steps an idea has to go through to get to be a scientific theory) and what we mean when we say theory in everyday conversation.  Because it isn’t the same thing.  A scientific theory is testable, verifiable, and has to be discarded or modified if new contradicting evidence is discovered.  ID is none of those things, creationism is none of those things, but evolution is.  Evolution is testable to a certain extent (i.e. drug resistant viruses, etc.), it is verifiable, and it is subject to modification and/or trashing if new data is found.  Therefore the only one that should be taught in a science class, or even mentioned as an alternate to anything in a science class, is evolution.

Actually, ID doesn’t qualify as a scientific theory because it flunks an all-important test: It can’t be falsified.

Scientific theories cannot be exhaustively verified, but instead there has to be a test that decisively proves them wrong and this is where ID cops out. IDiots basically assert that there is such a thing as irreducible complexity, but if any example they care to name is refuted, they simply turn around and say “But wait! There’s more!”

The scientific conflicts in Genesis alone are astounding. It amazes me that people seriously and sincerely believe in ID. I wonder how many of them still do not realize (or believe) the Earth is not flat.

The Genesis account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In this account the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. From science, we know the true order of events was just the opposite. 1:1-2:3

Jacob displays his (and God’s) knowledge of biology by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats. 30:37-39

Source: The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible

Genesis was NOT written as an attempt to explain Creation.  Modern society often places this meaning on the text—but the purpose of the text is anything but an attempt to explain how the Universe came into being.

First off…
Genesis contains THREE entirely different account how the Universe came into being, and these accounts sometimes conflict with each other.  When Genesis was written the Hebraic religion was made up of several very different branches.  The people/person who redacted Genesis was attempting a grand compromise between three disctintly different oral traditions.

If you read the start of Genesis you will see that three different stories of Creation are told in rapid sucession, one right after the other.

It’s as if Americans had three different stories of Plimoth Plantation—and as some national compromise we always told the 3 different versions together, one right after the other.  That is how the start of Genesis was written.

People often make the mistake of reading the Hebrew Bible’s various books as singular pieces.  In fact, they often contain multiple (oft conflicting) accounts of the same events.

Lastly, the oral traditions of Genesis were designed to teach or high-light spiritual and philosophical ideas—not science.

Our ancestors simply did not think in those terms, until much, much later.  Reading Genesis as a scientific attempt is like reading Jonathan Livingston Seagul as a political treaty.

While the US is still the leading place for research even biotech research. Do you think the promotion of such education coupled with regulation on stem cell may eventually allow others to overtake the US? Or perhaps not so much overtake as to reduce US hold on being the place for research, development and innovation in the field of biotechnology?

Not in the foreseeable future.  Many countries have more stringent religious underpinnings than the US.  India is our main supplier of technology labor and even though they will become the largest English speaking country in the world in 2010, they fundamentally lack the religious freedoms to pursue some of the medical studies that we have in the US.  It definitely isn’t going to do us any good though.

Actually, ID doesn’t qualify as a scientific theory because it flunks an all-important test: It can’t be falsified.

Exactly.  ID has no place in the scientific classroom.  Save it for philosophy or creative writing classes.  ID Theory breaks the most fundamental rules of scientific research by allowing the researcher to presuppose the unknown and work forward instead of the studying the known and proving it backward.

I have a theory that aliens from the planet Jamazar built the earth and are we are something of Realistic Sims for their entertainment and they tune in to each one of us on their own private APods. 

Oh, and let’s not forget Smee!  I ask again, WTF is wrong with these people?

I never said what they did in my school was right, just that that was how they did it back in the early 90’s in my old stomping grounds. I’ve heard alot has changed since then, such as junior and senior class projects required to graduate and whatnot…