Some people don't get it.

[Roadtoad]

From a press release from the Campaign for Children and Families:

There was a big victory Tuesday as evolutionist lawyers abandoned their lawsuit against California's only public-school "intelligent design" class. While the media is claiming a loss for intelligent design, the opposite is true: California school districts have a GREEN LIGHT to teach intelligent design of the universe in social science or philosophy classes. Act now to get your local school district to provide this life-origins course to children who dearly need to know they didn't come from primordial goo. Campaign for Children and Families (CCF) and Liberty Counsel will help. Here is CCF's Jan. 17 news release:

Sacramento, California – The legal dispute over a California public school’s philosophy class that discusses the intelligent design of the universe as an alternative to the universe evolving by chance has been settled out of federal court. Today’s agreement between the El Tejon Unified School District in Lebec, California and Americans United for Separation of Church and State allows the intelligent design class to continue, even allowing the class to be taught again next year under a different name.

“This is a victory for critical thinking that opens children’s minds, instead of shutting them closed,” said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, a leading California-based pro-family organization which supports rigorous academics as part of family values. “The closed-minded evolutionists lost this round. They’ve shown their scare tactics are nothing to be afraid of. This settlement was actually their way out of their legal bluff. Now they're trying to bluff everyone that intelligent design cannot be taught, when the facts of the matter show just the opposite."

"The evolution-only folks knew they didn’t stand a chance of defeating intelligent design when it was in philosophy class, instead of science class," said Thomasson. "This settlement is good, not bad news, for intelligent design. Public schools have a green light to teach intelligent design as a legitimate origin-of-life philosophy that benefits students’ critical thinking skills.”

Tuesday’s out-of-court settlement means the “Philosophy of Design” elective will continue at Frazier Mountain High School through January 27, which is only one week short of the school district’s original plans for the month-long class offered between semesters. The agreement also allows a future class that discusses intelligent design, but doesn't promote it as the only theory of origins available.

“This out-of-court settlement shows all of California that intelligent design as a philosophy class can’t be beat,” said Thomasson. “Campaign for Children and Families encourages every school in California and across the nation to jump into action and begin teaching intelligent design, either as a philosophy course or as part of the science curriculum. Even Jack O’Connell supports allowing intelligent design in a social studies setting. Children deserve the opportunity to discuss and seek answers to ultimate questions about how the universe, earth, human beings, and the ecosystem came into existence, and what that means to them.”

Offering free legal services to California schools that wish to offer an intelligent design class is Liberty Counsel, a national public interest law firm that has expertise on defending parental rights and religious freedom. “Liberty Counsel will offer free legal advice to any California school district that wants to properly teach intelligent design,” Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver told CCF today. “We will be available to provide pro bono services to school districts in defense of good courses like this.”

California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell recently said, “There is an appropriate place in public education for discussion about divine creation, ultimate purposes, or ultimate causes — in history-social science or English-language arts courses.” (California Department of Education news release, Dec. 20, 2005)

Regarding the El Tejon school district, O’Connell said teaching intelligent design as a philosophy class was “no problem.” “In a true philosophy class, if it's one of many concepts being discussed, I have no problem," O'Connell said. ("Calif. school offers intelligent design," Associated Press, Jan. 7, 2006)

Once more: this is NOT about atheism, it's about SCIENCE!

Dammit, why don't they listen?

 

[Bone_Vulture]

Once more: this is NOT about atheism, it's about SCIENCE!

Dammit, why don't they listen?

But this is about evolution, which is all about atheism! This goes against freedom of religion, meaning the freedom of indoctrinating children with a handpicked religion in the guise of science. Er, which is atheism!

 

[H'ethetheth]

This still makes me wonder though, what it is you actually learn in an intelligent design class. Dembski's bogus statistics? Behe's fallacious and transparently idiotic irreducible complexity? What is there to teach that cannot be said in three sentences?
"Evolution theory can't be right because it's very hard to imagine that it is, especially because the bible says it isn't. Evolution is wrong because it doesn't have all the anwers. God did it.

How? What do you mean: how? He just did, okay?

Thank you, Goodbye!"

Really, the day that someone proposes to teach ID in highschools here in the Netherlands is the day that I become a militant sceptic.

 

[brodski]

This still makes me wonder though, what it is you actually learn in an intelligent design class. Dembski's bogus statistics? Behe's fallacious and transparently idiotic irreducible complexity? What is there to teach that cannot be said in three sentences?
"Evolution theory can't be right because it's very hard to imagine that it is, especially because the bible says it isn't. Evolution is wrong because it doesn't have all the anwers. God did it.

How? What do you mean: how? He just did, okay?

Thank you, Goodbye!"

Really, the day that someone proposes to teach ID in highschools here in the Netherlands is the day that I become a militant sceptic.

I doubt that ID would ever be necessary in the Netherlands, unless you have a legal separation of church and state. ID was dreamt up as a way to take explicit mention of god out of creationism, its a second best for fundamentalists and appears to have evolved due to a specific legal requirement in us schools. In the UK where we have no separation of church and state, state funded schools can (and some do) teach 6 day creationism. UK Government policy appears to support an increase in the number of schools teaching fairytales instead of science.

 

[bjb]

if it's one of many concepts being discussed, I have no problem," O'Connell said

Does this include the Flying Spaghetti Monster?


The problem with the class in the first place was that it only presented the pro-ID point of view. A truly balanced discussion would present the ID side, then the scientific reasons why ID is religion, not science. A properly designed philosophy class would show what science really is, and would actually be quite devestating to ID.

 

[H'ethetheth]

I doubt that ID would ever be necessary in the Netherlands, unless you have a legal separation of church and state. ID was dreamt up as a way to take explicit mention of god out of creationism, its a second best for fundamentalists and appears to have evolved due to a specific legal requirement in us schools. In the UK where we have no separation of church and state, state funded schools can (and some do) teach 6 day creationism. UK Government policy appears to support an increase in the number of schools teaching fairytales instead of science.

Actually we do have legal separation of church and state. But what we don't have a lot of, is religious fundamentalists or the obsession about the constitution that some Americans have. One seldom hears the dutch phrase for 'unconstitutional' for instance.
Only private schools teach religion, with the exception (I just looked it up) that if you ask a public primary school for a classroom for religious education for children, they're bound by law to provide a 'lit and heated room': no more, and only primary schools.

Another thing about ID in the Netherlands is that our current minister of education has expressed that she likes the idea of ID, probable because she's a christian and ignorant in general. So it pops up now and then, but luckily no effort has been made to get it into school curricula.

 

[ysabella]

I bet some teachers will sneak it in. I grew up in California and I had a great science teacher when I was 13, but when it came to discussing how the universe was created, he very much de-emphasized the scientific theories and talked about Jesus ("And then there was the big bang theory, that says there was a big explosion and matter started...oh, you guy's don't look like you believe that"). Other than that one day, the class was great. I will say, it didn't harm me, although I'm hardly in favor of it.

H'ethetheth: Bueno estente! Chris Waddel!

 

[Ohmer]

Act now to get your local school district to provide this life-origins course to children who dearly need to know they didn't come from primordial goo.

This pretty much says it all right there. What next, a couse on the stork theory of reporduction for children who dearly need to know they didn't come from ... umm ... goo?

 

[Bone_Vulture]

This pretty much says it all right there. What next, a couse on the stork theory of reporduction for children who dearly need to know they didn't come from ... umm ... goo?

Also, numerology should be offered as a fair alternative to statistical math. So if 9% of annual airline inspections result in mechanical failure findings, and 11% of all airline crashes could've been avoided with proper inspections, then... 9/11!!!!!!

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This still makes me wonder though, what it is you actually learn in an intelligent design class. Dembski's bogus statistics?

Sure, they'll teach Dembski's bogus statistics. It's based on the idea that the flagellum is a discrete combinatorial object that fell together from a pile of amino acids. Who's to argue? To argue, you'd have to know what really happened. But that's evolution, and Dembski's statistics show that evolution is wrong.

~~ Paul

 

[H'ethetheth]

Sure, they'll teach Dembski's bogus statistics. It's based on the idea that the flagellum is a discrete combinatorial object that fell together from a pile of amino acids. Who's to argue? To argue, you'd have to know what really happened. But that's evolution, and Dembski's statistics show that evolution is wrong.

~~ Paul

You can't argue with the numbers.

 

[Achán hiNidráne]

There was a big victory Tuesday as evolutionist lawyers abandoned their lawsuit against California's only public-school "intelligent design" class.

Errrr... no, that's not what happened. The lawsuit was dropped when the district agreed to drop the course. This hardly constitutes a "victory" or a "green light" for the Creationists.

Then again, I never credited the fundies with either honesty or an abundance of brains.

 

[Ladewig]

“This is a victory for critical thinking that opens children’s minds, instead of shutting them closed,” said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families,

"shutting them closed"? Isn't that unnecessarily redundant?

 

[CFLarsen]

Once more: this is NOT about atheism, it's about SCIENCE!

No, no, no. You have it all wrong.

To them, science is atheism - or, at least, leads to atheism. Every progress science makes, their god becomes smaller.

Creationism is an all-out attack on science.

 

[Melendwyr]

"shutting them closed"? Isn't that unnecessarily redundant?

No, it's a redundant redundancy. Which may or may not be redundant.

Rather like ID itself...

 

[ungoliant]

what country can one goto to completely get away from these religious fundamentalists who are determined to return us to the stone age?

russia used to be, but now it has religion.

how about china?

the netherlands?

where are people NOT religious idiots?

 

[jj]

I so, so want to run a class on "creationism vs. philosophy". Oh, I'd teach about creationism, I would. Yessir.

 

[tsg]

But what we don't have a lot of, is religious fundamentalists or the obsession about the constitution that some Americans have.

The absence of the former likely makes the latter unnecessary.

People will tend to obsess about their rights when they are constantly being attacked.

 

[tsg]

Isn't that unnecessarily redundant?

"unnecessarily redundant" is unnecessarily redundant.

 

[brodski]

Actually we do have legal separation of church and state. .

I learn something new every day (and mostly from this forum)

But what we don't have a lot of, is religious fundamentalists or the obsession about the constitution that some Americans have. One seldom hears the dutch phrase for 'unconstitutional' for instance.
Only private schools teach religion, with the exception (I just looked it up) that if you ask a public primary school for a classroom for religious education for children, they're bound by law to provide a 'lit and heated room': no more, and only primary schools.

Another thing about ID in the Netherlands is that our current minister of education has expressed that she likes the idea of ID, probable because she's a christian and ignorant in general. So it pops up now and then, but luckily no effort has been made to get it into school curricula.

Is your education minister a member of "Opus dei" like ours is?