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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
A majority of members on the Board of Education of Ohio are ready to dump "critical analysis," which is just another name for Intelligent Design, which is just another name for "Creationism." I'm always amazed at how crafty fundamentalists are at finding ways to shove their religion down the throats of normal Americans on the taxpayer's dime. When one scheme gets exposed as unconstitutional, they mutate their strategy and unveil something equally unconstitutional.
Fortunately, the whole Intelligent Design charade is imploding. Much of this has to do with a federal judge's ruling in December that teaching the theory in the public schools of Dover, Pa., was unconstitutional.
The New York Times reports that a rural school district in California last month swiftly abandoned plans for a philosophy elective on intelligent design after being challenged by lawyers involved in the Pennsylvania case. Also last month, an Indiana lawmaker who said in November that he would introduce legislation to mandate teaching of intelligent design instead offered a weaker bill requiring only "accuracy in textbooks." And just last week, two Democrats in Wisconsin proposed a ban on schools' teaching intelligent design as science, the first such proposal in the country.
All I an say is Thank God, Intelligent Design is on the ropes. However, we know it is only a matter of time before the fundamentalists come up with a new, equally disturbing plan to impose their beliefs at the expense of educational standards and sound science.
6 Comments:
Wayne, you sound like a great guy. However, intelligent design will be back up and KO'ing your side of the argument long after you and I have departed from this earth. (Forgive me for saying it this way, but it's impossible for me to believe that something as magnificent as a penis and testicles could have arisen (no pun intended) from random evolution.)
posted by Anonymous, at
2/14/2006 1:53 PM
Anon, I too believe in an intelligent meanful purposeful universe with a 'higher power'; *however* this does not fit within the parameters of science and can not be proven nor disproven. It therefore belongs in the realm of metaphysics and spirituality and *not* in a science class. Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
2/14/2006 2:37 PM
Evolution does not say that things came about randomly. I am far from an expert on the theory, but I believe it says that, over billions of years, that which didn't work died off, and that which did work survived. So the amazing design and function of the human body only came about after countless, more crude forms were eliminated by their lack of ability to survive.
posted by Anonymous, at
2/14/2006 2:51 PM
Chris L...are you aware of any mathematical calculations on how long it would have taken the human body to have evolved as speculated?
I once read where mathematicians ran such calculations for a one-celled animal such as an amoeba, and the result of that alone was millions of years.
posted by Anonymous, at
2/14/2006 2:59 PM
Anon: I am not sure. But I was just saying that I believe that evolution doesn't teach that things happened by accident or came about randomly.
posted by Anonymous, at
2/14/2006 3:19 PM
evolution does not teach that things came about randomly. It is more about adaptabilty than evolving towards some type of perfection of a species. All species must find ways to adapt to the natural environment. It is not about one species envolving into an entirely different species. The randomness in evolution is some members of a species may adapt and survive while others will not, they are not selected. Man, however being unique in his ability to manipulate his natural natural environment has insured his survive. In some instances man has become the element insuring the non-survival of other species in his minipulation of the environment
posted by Anonymous, at
2/17/2006 1:25 AM
