Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
How many versions of this story must I read?
A school board that is requiring students to learn about alternatives to the theory of evolution voted to retain legal counsel for its defense against a federal lawsuit filed by eight families who oppose a new "intelligent design" mandate. Seven members of Dover Area School District board voted unanimously to retain a nonprofit law center that describes itself as a defender of Christians' religious beliefs, the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., despite the objections of most of the community members who spoke at the meeting. The board did not issue a comment on its decision.
The meeting came nearly a week after two civil-liberties groups filed a lawsuit against the south-central Pennsylvania district on behalf of families who objected to the teaching of "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some higher power.
Alternatives to the theory of evolution.* Color me cynical, but it sounds to me as though what is being learned is not "alternatives" but a single, preferred "alternative." You want to teach this silliness in a science class? Then you'd better cover the rest of the alternatives. It isn't as though they are any less plausible.
*Also known as "superstitious bullshit."
TrackBackHey ! I want a job travelling around to public schools teaching alternative creation theories ! The world is carried on the back of a giant turtle !
Posted by: owlmother at December 21, 2004 01:38 PMowl,
Yeah, and I heard it is turtles all the way down.
I support the rights of the local people to elect whoever they want for school board, but I wonder how much of the public's money will be spent on activist lawyers and Judges before the people say enough is enough.
Posted by: Tripp at December 22, 2004 12:20 PMNo, Tripp. The turtle is standing on four elephants, each of which is standing on four elephants, and it's elephants all the way down.
Unfortunately, the smarter we get, the more opportunity we have to be boneheadedly stupid. The greater the expanse of general human knowledge, the greater the degree of personal ignorance. So, yes it is elephants all the way down.
Posted by: luminous beauty at December 22, 2004 05:30 PM"Creationism" is mutating faster than our bombarded human genome -- variants, subvariants, and alternative alternatives. I feel sorry for today's students, who have to endure the country's cultural and economic schizophrenia. I'm waiting for the public schools to split into segregated charters: the William Jennings Bryan School of Physical Science on one side and the Enlightenment Won School on the other.
Posted by: Miss Authoritiva at December 23, 2004 10:58 AM