Last night Mr. Blue Gal read a science book to Young Master Blue Gal called What Makes Day and Night. (BTW the book is part of a children’s science series…highly recommended by the Blue Gal clan if you have a child in grades 1-3.) Mr. Blue Gal was so impressed with this book he looked through the whole thing, and exclaimed, “Wow! This book is part of a series! We need to get more of them!”
So I looked at the list and in my best June Cleaver impersonation, said, “But honey, there isn’t a book here on Intelligent Design.”
Mr. Blue Gal: “Of course not. These books are written by actual scientists.”
It is not up to the courts to convince individual Americans that intelligent design isn’t intelligent. Freedom means, in part, freedom to be wrong. You don’t have the freedom to ACT on wrong information if you’re just being bull-headed, especially about big things like traffic laws or invading sovereign nations.
But back to ID: Those of us who treasure the separation of Church and State fight intelligent design in the courts because it is only the latest not-too-subtle attempt to inject Christian theology into the public school curriculum.
The court cases have nothing to do with the fact that intelligent design isn’t intelligent. Although it isn’t.
I’m no Karl Rove, folks, but the talking points here are important. Don’t get into a debate with an ID’er about whether or not it is good science. ID’ers clearly don’t give a monkey’s thumb whether it’s good science or not. They wouldn’t follow it if they cared about empirical evidence.
Intelligent Design is religion. It is a perfectly acceptable subject for debate in a philosophy class, an (elective!) comparative religion class, or a political science/sociology class. Issues of religious faith must not be taught as empirical fact in a public school science classroom.
More on the issue of academic integrity, of which ID is only a part, here. Class dismissed.
Alicia Bay Laurel 