( P ) Pronunciation Key (m
m
-r
n
dm)n. pl. me·mo·ran·dums or me·mo·ran·da (-d
) - A short note written as a reminder.
- A written record or communication, as in a business office.
Posted on 05/06/2005 7:15:23 AM PDT by 26lemoncharlie
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
This week, the leading lights of the Intelligent Design movement – Drs. Jonathan Wells and Michael Behe among them – will make their way to Topeka, Kan. There, they will make an appeal to the state's elected school board to allow in-class criticisms of Darwinism and its derivatives, which are now taught not as theory – not even as fact, actually – but as something close to dogma.
The ID advocates may very well succeed. The school board now has a 6-to-4 majority sympathetic to a rational challenge to Darwnism. What is more, in the six years since the evolution controversy first exploded in Kansas, the ID movement has done an impressive job refocusing the debate on science and logic and undoing the crude stereotypes under which all opponents of naturalism have had to labor since the Scopes trial.
The pro-Darwinian forces in Kansas, however, are not about to roll over. These forces have come together under the aegis of the not-for-profit Kansas Citizens For Science and have mounted a systematic and effective resistance since 1999 when the issue first surfaced. This year, in response to the leveling of the playing field, KCFS has opted for hardball.
On Feb. 10, in its typically hyperbolic style, KCFS posted on its website a series of attacks against the "the six-member anti-science majority" and the ID advocates and threatened a "staged re-enactment of the Scopes trial."
Behind the scenes, the language was less tempered still. The KCFS discussion board lit up that day. And although most of the comments are not particularly relevant, those from the KCFS Secretary and Media Contact Liz Craig bear scrutiny.
My strategy at this point is the same as it was in 1999 ... notify the national and local media about what's going on and portray [the school board majority] in the harshest light possible, as political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rules, unprincipled bullies, etc.
The "target" for Craig's propaganda, as she freely admits, are "the moderates who are not particularly well educated about the issues." In 1999, the KCFS strategy was to scare the uninformed into thinking that any official resistance to Darwin would cause the state great embarrassment. To assure the desired outcome, the KCFS then prodded the media to portray the state school board – and by extension its citizens – as evangelical activists, ignoramuses and the like.
Craig is openly boastful about her success in this regard. The uninformed – dressed up by Craig and the media as "moderates" – responded by voting out school board members from vulnerable districts, particularly the suburban districts where citizens were most concerned about what the rest of the world thought. The hostile media coverage had, in fact, caused these citizens great "embarrassment."
Thomas Frank upped the embarrassment ante in his specious best-seller, "What's The Matter With Kansas," a book whose take on the "barking idiocies" of the school board and the "cranks, conspiracists and calamity howlers" who comprise the state's citizenry almost perfectly mirrors Craig's.
Despite Frank and the media, conservatives regained the majority on the school board in 2004. When first apprised of the school board's intentions, KCFS spokespeople immediately contacted the Kansas City Star, and the Star obliged KCFS by publicly wringing its hands and fretting about new national humiliations to come. "Kansas science classes should not get sidetracked into issues that belong in religious education," thundered the Star editorial, fully misunderstanding the issue.
"There may be no way to head off another science standards debacle," adds Craig in her Feb. 10 posting, "but we can sure make them look like asses as they do what they do."
"I believe the right game plan can make their lives in the spotlight a living hell," responds KCFS member Robert Madison, a former high-school science teacher. "There is nothing wrong with doing what worked in 1999."
"We've got national and international coverage for our issue," answers an upbeat Craig. "London Guardian, Time, NPR, Newsweek, USA Today, National Review, Toronto newspaper, to name a few."
Readers of those publications – and Frank's book – might get a second opinion before believing that political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rules and unprincipled bullies are destroying the state of Kansas.
Truth is often the first casualty when paradigms shift.
Here 'ya go, mate.
Ping
My strategy at this point is the same as it was in 1999: notify the national and local media about what's going on and portray them in the harshest light possible, as political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rules, unprincipled bullies, etc.There may no way to head off another science standards debacle, but we can sure make them look like asses as they do what they do.
Our target is the moderates who are not that well educated about the issues, most of whom probably are theistic evolutionists. There is no way to convert the creationists.
-Liz Craig
FYI…Parent Sues Evolutionist, Claiming She Defames Him in Anti-Creationist Article
They are Neo-Muslims out to destroy the Christian laws that this country was founded upon. If you have been reading and take a very broad view the Christian World has been under attack for quite a while.
Our Schools, churches, Courts and any reference to God in public places have come under attack. The Soldiers of Christendom must answer to call to protect and defend the Laws of God and this Country and the Laws instituted by Christian Men using the Holy Bible as a guideline.
The Big NON-Argument that there is a seperation between Church and State has NO Basis!! On the Contrary, the Bible and the Laws of God were used to establish this country. Every Article can be found or referenced in the Bible. The Secularist/Socialist have corrupted the menaing of our Laws and the US Constitution, to fit the EU Socialist Constitution.
The Hate Crimes Laws are nothing more than the implementation of the Values set forth in the European Socialist Manefesto. They undermine our Gurantee of Freedom of Speech by the Constitution. The Hate Crimes were put into law to do just that. We have the right to Hate just as we have the right to Love. The Constitution of the United States is slowly but surely being replaced with the Socialist Version of the European Constitution, read it for yourself:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318061/posts?page=6#6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318038/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318034/posts
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=954
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1254190/posts
Judging from some of the evolutionists in this web site, "wacko" can be applied to them too. Just my experience. Wacko or gun-shy possibly but irrational in any case.
Now, regarding this ‘wacko-extremism’ claim…The National Association of Biology Teachers [NABT] in their 1995 Official Statement on Teaching Evolution stated the following:
"The diversity of life [all life] on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments."It took seven years of prodding from conservative groups before they revised the statement. According to the NABT's executive director, the change was made "to avoid taking a religious position" that might offend believers. The two words that were removed from their statement were; 'unsupervised' and 'impersonal'. Their statement boldly claimed that there was no intelligent cause (force, etc.) behind mankind and all existence.
Did conservatives do the right thing here or were they just ‘wacko-extremists’?
Education Board will make its final vote with their prehensile tails.
I'm glad to see the scientists are fighting back.
We're already behind many other countries in our support of science and research and our basic defense infrastructure.
I must have missed it - where was the "explosive" memo?
I thought the scientists decided they were not going to fight back and were boycotting the meeting.
So what is new?
( P ) Pronunciation Key (mm-rndm)) I notice that the writer equates conservative with anti-science; the same view is expressed by most of the liberals I know, too.
Ping-a-ling to self and all
self for later, y'all right now!
ID?
Of course.
When you don't have the evidence, pound the table!
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