Patience and Absurdity: How to Deal with Intelligent Design Creationism

Butterflies and Wheels ^ | November 8, 2004 | Paul R. Gross

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Physicists Matt Young and Taner Edis are the editors of a new volume whose contributors are working scholars in the sciences touched by the newest expression of “creation science”: Intelligent Design (ID) Theory. Why Intelligent Design Fails is a patient assessment of all the scientific claims made in connection with ID. The half dozen science-enabled spokesmen for ID are the indispensable core group of an international neo-creationist big tent. Goals of the American movement are sweeping: they begin with a highly visible, well-funded, nationwide effort to demean evolutionary science in American school (K-12) curricula. ID is offered as a better alternative. The hoped-for result is the addition of ID to, or even its substitution for, the teaching of evolution. Which would mean substituting early 19 th-century nature study for modern biology. [snip]

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This is a review of the book Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism, Mark Young and Taner Edis (Editors)

[qam1]

Wow, A Crevo thread that doesn't have 1000s of replys.

But to the question "How to Deal with Intelligent Design Creationism"

The best way is to suck them into Newsgroups and hit them with hard facts, Not that they will ever believe them but instead they will run out a spend hours upon hours quote mining and searching creationoid websites and posting nonsense. This is effective because the more time creationoids are spending doing the above, the less time they are out there in the real world scaring rational people away from the Republican party.

Sure they might get an occasional isolated foothold in places sometimes, But even if they win they lose because 1)They are always overturned (even by the most conservative of judges) and 2)They turn more people off to religion

[eagle11]

This is why education must be privatized. We waster alot of time and energy having these debates, only because the activist judges and NEA, and PTAs stand in the way of privatization, using public money.

[eagle11]

On second thought, the persecution of Christianity in our public institutions is the real issue here. If the courts could respect religious expression in public schools to a reasonable degree, I think alot of tension between the two sides would be difused.

[snarks_when_bored]

Sorry for not having replied earlier.

I'm pretty sure that religious expression is best left in the hands of religious organizations, not public schools. If religious expression were to be allowed in public schools, what sort of limits might be imposed? For example, ought muslims to be allowed to engage in muslim prayers in special prayer rooms paid for by taxpayers? Issues such as this make me think that it's for the best if public schools stick to non-religious topics.

This is not to say, though, that all mention of 'God' is to be expunged from school discourse. That would be absurd and a mis-construal of history.