Monday, November 19, 2007

Judgement Day for "Intelligent Design"





So,for those of you who might have missed it,the Nova special "Judgment Day intelligent Design On Trial" recently aired on PBS and it did not disappoint!

This program was a telling of the 6 week District Court case of Kitzmiller v. Dover area School District,in 2005.The basic premise of the case was that the Dover School Board voted in the reading of a one minute statement,to be read at the beginning of 9th grade Biology class,saying that evolution was not a fact and that there was gaps in the theory and that students should critically consider the facts. It also let students know that copies of the creationist Biology text book "Of Pandas and People" were available in the library for students to use as a companion book to their regular Biology texts. Eleven parents signed on as Plaintiffs contending that this new policy was in direct violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment,and that the boards motivation to pass this was a religious one.

The statement read as follows:

"The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin's Theory is a theory,it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered.The Theory is not a fact.Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence.A theory is defined as a well-tested-explanation that unifies a broad range ot observations.

Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book,Of Pandas and People,is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.

With respect to any theory,students are encouraged to keep an open mind.The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standard-driven district,class instruction focuses upon preparing students to acheive proficiency on Standard-based assessments."


Of course ,as most of us already know,"Intelligent Design" is the exact negation of knowledge and scientific inquiry and is just a re-packaging of good old Creationism,which basically says "God did it". Of course the creationist play stupid by saying its not creationism because it never mentions God directly,but anyone with half a brain knows that "intelligent agent" means God.

The best thing to come out of the case was the discovery of a transitional "fossil",or missing link,between Creationism and Intelligent Design,discovered by Barbara Forrest,while sifting through old publications of the Pandas book . When Creationism in public school was shut down in the courts in the 80's as being Unconstitutional, it didn't stop the creationists,so they simply replaced all mention of God or Creationism with more secular sounding words.Sadly for the creationist,the word processor wasn't working quite well and instead of "creationists" being fully replaced with "design proponents" they ended up with "cdesign proponentsists". OOOOPS!

Any ways,you guys don't need me to write about it when you can view it on the Nova site for free. Also,take the time to read the Judges Decision,as it is very entertaining.

Enjoy!

1 comment:

David Garrett said...

"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID
Policy."

That has to be my favorite quote from the decision.

I always find it amazing how incredilby deceptive and dishonest Christians are when it comes to trying to get an agenda across. How completely willing they are to lie, cheat and deceive just to get someone to "believe in Jesus."

This case is no different. More Christians trying to force their religion on everyone. Kind of reminds me of a little kid who keeps begging for a toy at the toy store. Directly asking for it over and over again doesn't work, so he tries a different tactic. Cry. Scream. Annoy.

That's all these Christian leeches are doing. Annoying people.

I mean, how dirt-baggish is it... you can't force someone to accept something when it's called "Creationism," so you change the name to "Intelligent Design" to try to trick someone into accepting it?

Obviously they don't have enough evidence for people to believe it in its original form. So they try to sugar-coat it, to make it sound "more scientific." Yet, there's no science behind it at all. It's just the Bible. And we all know how scientific that book is.