#25167: Les Lane — 05/17  at  09:13 AM
Krauss annotated.

#25169: — 05/17  at  10:03 AM
Sad.

#25170: — 05/17  at  10:17 AM
The NYT has a nice editorial today. They do a pretty good job of explaining how the 'wedge' strategy is being used, and make a few other good points while they are at it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/opinion/17tues2.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Her is the whole thing, so you dont have to log in.

The Evolution of Creationism

The latest struggle over the teaching of evolution in the public schools of Kansas provides striking evidence that evolution is occurring right before our eyes. Every time the critics of Darwinism lose a battle over reshaping the teaching of biology, they evolve into a new form, armed with arguments that sound progressively more benign, while remaining as dangerous as ever.

Students of these battles will recall that in 1999 the Kansas Board of Education, frustrated that the Supreme Court had made it impossible to force creationism into the science curriculum, took the opposite tack and eliminated all mention of evolution from the statewide science standards. That madness was reversed in 2001 after an appalled electorate had rejected several of the conservative board members responsible for the travesty.

Meanwhile, Darwin's critics around the country began pushing a new theory - known as intelligent design - that did not mention God, but simply argued that life is too complex to be explained by the theory of evolution, hence there must be an intelligent designer behind it all.

The political popularity of that theory will be tested today in a school board primary election in Dover, Pa., where the schools require that students be made aware of intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinism. The race pits those who voted last year for that rule against those who oppose it.

Now the anti-evolution campaigners in Kansas, who again have a state school board majority, have scrubbed things even cleaner. They insist that they are not even trying to incorporate intelligent design into state science standards - that all they want is a critical analysis of supposed weaknesses in the theory of evolution. That may be less innocuous than it seems. Although the chief critics say they do not seek to require the teaching of intelligent design, they add the qualifier "at this point in time." Once their foot is in the door, the way will be open.

The state science standards in Kansas are up for revision this year, and a committee of scientists and educators has proposed standards that enshrine evolution as a central concept of modern biology. The ruckus comes about because a committee minority, led by intelligent-design proponents, has issued its own proposals calling for more emphasis on the limitations of evolution theory and the evidence supposedly contradicting it. The minority even seeks to change the definition of science in a way that appears to leave room for supernatural explanations of the origin and evolution of life, not just natural explanations, the usual domain of science.

The fact that all this is wildly inappropriate for a public school curriculum does not in any way suggest that teachers are being forced to take sides against those who feel that the evolution of humanity, in one way or another, was the work of an all-powerful deity. Many empirical scientists believe just that, but also understand that theories about how God interacts with the world are beyond the scope of their discipline.

The Kansas board, which held one-sided hearings this month that were boycotted by mainstream scientists on the grounds that the outcome was preordained, is expected to vote on the standards this summer. One can only hope that the members will come to their senses first.

#25172: coturnix — 05/17  at  10:33 AM
Ellen Goodman had an excellent op-ed in WaPo last week, similar to the one above.

#25174: Mark Nutter — 05/17  at  10:38 AM
"What controversy?" is right. What's next? Will the KKK offer school libraries free copies of "The Bell Curve," claiming they're not out to promote racism, they just want to "teach the controversy" over whether some races are mentally inferior to others? This "teach the controversy" stuff is a pretty transparent sham.

#25176: — 05/17  at  10:56 AM
And for those who need an emetic, see Dembski play the Darwin race card at

http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/70

#25177: manju — 05/17  at  11:09 AM
Okay. Looks like you guys are in trouble. We Indians, even if we are religious, might end up taking over your jobs. There are four things going against you.

1. Indians notorious for their total indifference to history, hardly remember anything from theory of Evolution once they leave the school. After all, isn't it human history from the beginning. So actually, evolution is irrelevent for Indians.
2. State run schools and majority of Hindu run private schools don't have religious studies since India is a secular country.
3. Hindus, who form the majority of the population don't have any organized religious study centres that indoctrinate you from the childhood. Study of the religious doctrines is left to personal interest.
4. Unlike other religions that assert that there is only one truth and the road to attain is also one(generally taught by them), Hinduism claims there is only one truth, however there might be thousands of ways to achieve it. As long as, evolution is one such way, it is happy to accept it completely.
Still more than 90% of the population is religious.Hmmmm....

#25178: — 05/17  at  11:21 AM
SKR, Are you just trying to annoy us with that Dembski drivel !! Dembski is more disingenuous than ... well I cant think of an appropriate comparison that would even be close.

#25180: Gregory — 05/17  at  11:46 AM
Let's just go all the way and just say science = magic, and be done with it.

If memory serves me right, Arthur C. Clarke already said so. ;)

#25182: — 05/17  at  11:57 AM
Of course that proves it since technology is designed, it must all be magic! This all started when they figured out how to push people through little wires and have them show up on your TV ....

#25207: tony g — 05/17  at  08:44 PM
these couple o'pages have been most instructive for me as they show that even the IDers are not fooled themselves:

http://home.comcast.net/~vanandel1/index.htm
http://home.comcast.net/%7Evanandel1/renamingcomp.htm
http://home.comcast.net/%7Evanandel1/engage.htm

tg

#25209: coturnix — 05/17  at  09:02 PM
tony g:

Wow! The last page (Strategy #3) - they obviously come to Panda's Thumb. Do you think they regularly do it here? Their problem is - there is far too many more biologists than Creationist for such a strategy to wok for them. Not to mention that this activity does not take many hours a week, and much time remains for writing school teaching syllabi.

The middle one: Did you notice that almost all of the suggestions contain the word "creationism" in them? The exceptions are "Deism" which has a pretty precisely defined meaning that has nothing to do with science, and "Theistic Evolution" which is also precisely defined ("God got everything started in the beginning, then watched the Creation proceed by itself, evolution being the mechanism that produces diversity of life") and I have no problem if belief in it helps people accept evolution.

#25211: Virge — 05/17  at  09:15 PM
tony g,
I enjoyed that. Particularly the "Delay evolution instruction until 12th grade":

...And then, at the time when evolution is being taught in school, they are almost completely distracted by other impure thoughts characteristic of teenagers. It is very unlikely that anyone is listening to their science teachers in 12th grade, and very unlikely that anyone would remember the content if they were.

#25212: — 05/17  at  09:21 PM
That site is a spoof, btw:
http://home.comcast.net/~vanandel1/misc.htm

Not that the tactics aren't real...