Did anyone catch the Nova special on PBS last night? It was about the case of the Dover school board in Kansas and whether or not to include Intelligent Design as an alternative to the Evolution part of the high school biology cirriculum. The teachers stood together against doing so, and when the school board pushed their way through, the teachers took them to court. The case was reenacted in parts, with commentary from figures on both sides interspersed.
I couldn't believe the lengths to which the ID people went to disguise their religion as "science" so as to get it in public school classrooms, but in the end, the judge (someone who actually believes in ID as a possibility) decided that it was not appropriate. Basically, ID was born out of simply changing the terminology of Creationism to remove "god" and replace "intelligent agent." One of the ID people perjured himself in the trial, and their star "expert" (the author of "Darwin's Black Box" which I've actually read) had all his "proofs" of ID knocked down by scientific literature and counter testimony. The whole thing looked laughable to me, but scary in the sense that there is such a powerful force trying to dismantle science education so as to reinforce religion.
Within some of the internal ID propaganda was a statement that the world's moral values have been in decline since the publication of Darwin's theories, and that to reverse the trend, we need to reverse the 150 years of science since then. Yes, this is where the ID movement wants to go.
In the end, what I found most ironic were the "Christian" sentiments about losing this case. The judge and plaintiffs received numerous death threats in mail and email, and nasty remarks by local townspeople in-person. Pat Robertson went on the air and said "Should a natural disaster befall the people of Dover, don't pray to god for help...you already kicked him out of your schools." Yep.
My opinion is that the truth doesn't need to be shoved down someone's throats to be believed because of overwhelming evidence and logic. That's why there isn't such a megafunded body of scientists trying to gain supporters. The whole ID movement has one central goal -- to dismantle any aspect of science that goes against its Christian beliefs.
Anyway, I anticipated watching this special after reading about it in the NY Times, expecting to see a small group of bible-thumpers arguing against a body of scientists. What I saw frightened me, because these bible-thumpers are far more organized and funded than I previously believed, and it angers me that the scientific community has let things go this far without a similarly strong counter-movement to remind people that religion is a faith-based traditional culture, something that doesn't belong in a science classroom.
I couldn't believe the lengths to which the ID people went to disguise their religion as "science" so as to get it in public school classrooms, but in the end, the judge (someone who actually believes in ID as a possibility) decided that it was not appropriate. Basically, ID was born out of simply changing the terminology of Creationism to remove "god" and replace "intelligent agent." One of the ID people perjured himself in the trial, and their star "expert" (the author of "Darwin's Black Box" which I've actually read) had all his "proofs" of ID knocked down by scientific literature and counter testimony. The whole thing looked laughable to me, but scary in the sense that there is such a powerful force trying to dismantle science education so as to reinforce religion.
Within some of the internal ID propaganda was a statement that the world's moral values have been in decline since the publication of Darwin's theories, and that to reverse the trend, we need to reverse the 150 years of science since then. Yes, this is where the ID movement wants to go.
In the end, what I found most ironic were the "Christian" sentiments about losing this case. The judge and plaintiffs received numerous death threats in mail and email, and nasty remarks by local townspeople in-person. Pat Robertson went on the air and said "Should a natural disaster befall the people of Dover, don't pray to god for help...you already kicked him out of your schools." Yep.
My opinion is that the truth doesn't need to be shoved down someone's throats to be believed because of overwhelming evidence and logic. That's why there isn't such a megafunded body of scientists trying to gain supporters. The whole ID movement has one central goal -- to dismantle any aspect of science that goes against its Christian beliefs.
Anyway, I anticipated watching this special after reading about it in the NY Times, expecting to see a small group of bible-thumpers arguing against a body of scientists. What I saw frightened me, because these bible-thumpers are far more organized and funded than I previously believed, and it angers me that the scientific community has let things go this far without a similarly strong counter-movement to remind people that religion is a faith-based traditional culture, something that doesn't belong in a science classroom.