An Open Letter to the Kansas State Board of Education

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such education establishment, and to provide new guards for their future intellectual security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these red states; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of education. (underlined either altered or added to Declaration of Independence text)

I heard this quoted on the movie National Treasure and thought it appropriate.

Phil Skell is a well-known creationist gadfly on the Internet...

Phil Skell: Dingbat Emeritus

The Discovery Institute is such a haven for lying phonies. Their weird little blog has an article with this title: An NAS Scientist Breaks Ranks: Urges Kansas to Teach the Controversy over Neo-Darwinism
Who is this "NAS Scientist" who has broken ranks? None other than infamous crackpot Phil Skell, emeritus professor of chemistry at Penn State. No rank breaking occurred, of course; Skell has been in the loon brigade for years, with his johnny-one-note complaint that evolutionary theory is useless and has never helped any biologists…and yep, that's what he's doing again in his ridiculous letter to the Kansas State Board of Education.

Darwinian evolution is an interesting theory about the remote history of life. Nonetheless, it has little practical impact on those branches of science that do not address questions of biological history (largely based on stones, the fossil evidence). Modern biology is engaged in the examination of tissues from living organisms with new methods and instruments. None of the great discoveries in biology and medicine over the past century depended on guidance from Darwinian evolution—it provided no support.

Spare me. I've been all over his dishonest claim before. ...

Here's a good example of Skell's output.

And here's an eloquent essay on Skell's main argument that evolution is irrelevant to working biologists.

These are all sites controled by persons/organizations hostile towards ID proponents. This is hardly proof of some grand conspiracy. Your sources are the ones that have an interest in trying to descredit ID folks. Once again, you need to directly talk with pure ID folks and then pure creationists. You will find there is no collusion between them.

For instance, the flagship of creationists is ICR. They do NOT endorse ID. Also, I think you will find that mainline ID proponents think creationists to be extremists.

Try doing some personal/original research that can document your claims and stop listening to biased sources. Stop being so gulible. The MSM and liberals love your type.

Re:

http://www.public.asu.edu/~jmlynch/idt/wedge.html
http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weinshan/Intelligent%20Design%20Movement%20in%20Their%20Own%20Words.htm
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5582&abbr=cs_
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1188
http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cs_2005_02_special

Did you actually take the time to read these sites? I thought I'd give it a shot and found the first one to be written by some "anti-creationist". The second article likewise is from another anti-creationist who attributes the article to an anti-creationist organization. As au.org is Americans United for Separation of Church and State, I would not finding it the least bit surprising that they would be inclined to link ID with creationism.

Sadly, the only reasoned link appears to be: http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1188, which says:

FAQ: Isn't intelligent design just a movement trying to push a political agenda? The Short Answer: No, definitely not. Many people view intelligent design as forcing a political agenda upon science. There may be some individuals who would like to see public policy changes in light of intelligent design theory (many have also sought to make public policy changes in light of evolutionary theory), but that does not mean that intelligent design theory is not a bona fide scientific theory or that it is just a political movement. Intelligent design theory is trying to do neither of these, as it is a serious scientific research program. For those who want to see how the research of the ID movement is real science with a science-oriented basis and goal, visit the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID.org). At its heart, intelligent design is based upon science.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.