Posted on 01/29/2005 6:54:41 PM PST by PatrickHenry
THE Republican “red states” that voted for President George W Bush in America’s Bible Belt are claiming their reward in an unexpected area: rolling back the teaching of evolution in schools.
Bold initiatives to introduce the concept of “intelligent design”, wrought by a god or higher being, into theories about Earth’s creation are being sponsored in towns and communities across America.
Religious fundamentalists — or “theocons” — opposed to Darwinism have adopted sophisticated tactics enabling them to pass under the political and legal radar that keeps church separate from state and forbids the promotion of religion in schools.
The champions of intelligent design, who are mindful not to specify a particular creator, are poised for victory in Kansas later this year after a new school board favouring the teaching of evolution as a theory rather than a fact was elected in November by a majority of six votes to four.
Jack Krebs of Kansas Citizens for Science said: “The re-election of Bush has emboldened the intelligent design movement. They feel they have the wind at their backs.”
The president, a born-again Christian, has proclaimed his own scepticism about Darwinism in the past. “On the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth,” he once said. A recent CBS poll found that 55% of Americans and 67% of those who voted for Bush do not believe in evolution.
This Tuesday marks the start of a series of public meetings in Kansas on the teaching of Darwinism and the battle lines are firmly drawn.
The prairie town of Salina, Kansas, in the centre of the United States is modern enough to have a two-mile airstrip. When it comes to religion, however, little has changed for some families since the pioneers rolled by on their wagons.
In a small diner on the outskirts of the town, Ruth Coleman, 58, the mother of a Baptist pastor, was treating her five-year-old granddaughter Kendra to lunch. “I am creationist,” she said stoutly. “I believe God made the Earth 6,000 years ago and he deserves the credit. If there was evolution, why are there still monkeys?”
A 14-year-old girl asked members of Coleman’s congregation last Sunday for guidance on how to answer exam questions about the origin of mankind. “Shall I give the right answer and fail the test or give the wrong answer and pass?” the puzzled teenager asked.
“We teach kids not to lie and if we believe in creationism, evolution is a lie, so the grown-ups were kind of stumbling,” Coleman said. “A mom said, ‘Just put the textbook says this, but I believe that.’ Everybody thought it was a really good idea.”
Educationists across the state arrived in Salina last week for a meeting of a science standards committee on rewriting the curriculum. The leading protagonists on each side traded barbs as they discussed changes that would open the door to challenging evolution.
“Darwinism is a non-theistic religion,” protested one supporter of intelligent design, “and you’re trying to give it to our kids even though they don’t want it.” An opponent retorted: “The alternative to natural causation is supernatural causation . . . and that’s what you are trying to open the door to.”
The well-funded, nationally based intelligent design movement is casting itself as the promoter of academic freedom. It is hard for opponents to write the group off as the American equivalent of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Taliban when it appears to be challenging received wisdom rather than stifling debate.
For Bill Harris, a 56-year-old scientist and a Christian, the question is: “Is it impossible that a god created the Earth? If it is impossible, then take it off the table, but if it’s possible don’t ignore it.”
He believes evolution should continue to be taught with important caveats. “There are definitely elements of Darwin’s theory that are well founded, but the origins of the universe, the origins of life and the origins of the genetic code are currently unknown. We can’t state frequently enough that science is still looking for the answers.”
Harris believes the finely tuned relationship between the planet and its living creatures point to the existence of a higher designer. “It’s not a religious debate,” he insisted. “It’s a scientific debate with religious implications.”
Krebs, 56, a veteran of skirmishes with anti-evolutionists, said his opponents had learnt from past mistakes. “It used to be easy to dismiss the views of young Earth creationists as an embarrassment, but the intelligent design movement is deliberately keeping them in the background. It is a cleverly designed strategy to say, ‘You guys are being dogmatic’, and we wind up looking like the ones who want to limit science.”
There are signs that the tactic is paying off, even among staunch supporters of evolution. In the same diner as Coleman, Doug Guenther, 48, had just finished a plate of fried chicken. His job for the Kansas rural water authority has led him to develop a passionate amateur interest in fossils.
“I’ve dug up shark teeth that go back 67m years to the Cretaceous period when the sea spread from Texas all the way to Canada,” he said proudly. “I’ve seen mammoth teeth, camel teeth and large arrowheads belonging to early man. It would be pretty hard to explain that in the Bible.”
Yet Guenther has no problems with teaching children about intelligent design. “Evolution is definitely not a theory — it is a fact. But you can fit in it with the Bible as long as you don’t believe everything it says literally.”
Evangelical Christians, such as James Dobson’s influential Focus on the Family movement, are delighted by the success of intelligent design as a “wedge” issue to challenge and undermine Darwinism.
Changes to the science curriculum are being sought by religious conservatives in Wisconsin, Missouri, Mississippi, South Carolina, Montana and Pennsylvania, where one educational district has already placed stickers in biology textbooks with the warning that evolution is a theory rather than a fact. It plans to appeal against a recent court decision ordering the schools to remove them.
LOL! The creationists can discount it with a handwave, along with all the supporting evidence and research. They have this ability even though most of them have little idea of what the TOE actually says, how it works, what it predicts, and the nature of the evidence.
Really? In what?
This guy writes for the bottom of the barrel. He explains the origins of light using a radio antenna analogy? Has anyone ever seen light come out of a radio antenna?
Did you also teach your daughter that Islam officially endorses Creationism? Most Islamic countries forbid the teaching of evolutionary theory.
I don't recall a single debate or speech during the campaign in which evolution was mentioned. Did I miss something?
I looked at his site and googled. There are about a gadzillion sites out there debunking him. Have you read his book? It's crapola. One guy debunked him by showing how he was referencing his son's school project!
BUMP
Apparently, he has.
I don't have three doctorates. Can you explain to me what this has to do with changes in the genetic make-up of a population over time--a phenomenon commonly known as evolution?
You have a nice day as well. Glad to hear that BBT resonates with you now and in the past. When will you leap? And where are you leaping to?:-}
I think getting to all corners of the earth in just 6000/8000 years, putting so many different people on the world with such distinct different appearances inbetween all the plagues, floods and dinosaurs. I'm truely impressed.
Beats me. The linked author seems to be a kook, whether he has the PhD's or not. I just guessed he sees light coming from an antenna; I do not know if he hears the broadcasts, though.
No we didn't discuss that. But I agreed that giving to the poor was good. And then I explained how Islam could have many things that were good, such as a moral code, but still be based on a lie. And when that lie is a rejection of God's plan of salvation, it very bad.
And I walked her through how we know who is a prophet and who isn't. From the miracles that confirmed Moses, to the tests of a prophet that Moses laid down.
She was 5 at the time and seemed to understand it well. But then her IQ was measured at 147 and she accepted Jesus at age two. And not because of pressure, she was asking questions. And she's never looked back. She's 8 now and wants to be a missionary. She comes and looks over my shoulder sometimes when I'm posting on FR. And takes a vivid interest when it's about religion.
Why are you bearing false witness like that?
Did you check out the Iraqi election threads? I'm hoping and praying I might add for a nice turnout.
Yup. I don't see bodies voting much on Fox News video. Let us hope that they do. This is really a rather seminal event in so many ways. A lot is at stake.
If you look up historical population growth, you want be that impressed. Even during the plagues and crusades, the population still grew.
The bigger question, is if man existed a million years ago and possessed tools, what happened that kept his population in check so dramatically for the first 990,000 years.
ROFLMAO.
The Grand Canyon sediments being laid down in a variety of oceans and seas, isn't an "evolutionist" theory, it's geology. Universally agreed on eoglogy by every sane geologist on the planet.
I don't believe there happen to be any in the Grand Canyon, but Angular Unconformities throw a monkey wrench of colossal proportions into silly "all sedimentary rock everywhere laid down by the Great Flood" theories.
My view, hopefully they come out and the snipers dead end them. :-}
Yeah, right. It is "despicable" to teach science. Rather we should teach creationism or ID fairy tales that no one with more than a high school education could possibly believe.
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