Archives for December 2004

December 23, 2004

ID reading list

Here are some excerpts and links to some of the most thoughtful articles on ID and the attendant controversy I've found:

Michael C. Dorf, Columbia University Law School
Why It's Unconstitutional to Teach "Intelligent Design" in the Public Schools, as an Alternative to Evolution:

But given the social reality, "intelligent design" is different. It is an allegedly scientific theory that bears a striking resemblance to religious views. When the government mandates that students be taught such a theory, courts are rightly suspicious.

At that point, a court should ask whether intelligent design is, in fact, a scientific theory at all. It should do so, not because of any general obligation on the part of schools to teach science correctly, but simply because if intelligent design is not science, then the inference is almost inescapable that the state is impermissibly acting for the purpose of fostering a religious viewpoint.

Mark Terry, Seattle Biology teacher
One Nation, Under the Designer:

These people have money, political sophistication, experience, patience, and a wonderful user-friendly website.15 Their carefully orchestrated campaign is designed to leave the science establishment looking close-minded, as if it is attempting to hide some dirty linen. How likely is it, after all, that the public will consult the current scientific literature or contact major scientific organizations, which would inform them that evolution is alive and well - indeed, central to virtually all biology and medicine - and not in any crisis?

Media Matters for America
Religious conservatives tout "intelligent design" as a "secular," "scientific" alternative to evolution:

Robertson declared his support of "intelligent design" on the December 15 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club. After referring to the ACLU and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State as "crazies" and "extremists on the left who want to strip all vestige of religion from our national life," Robertson said: "There is no way to understand the universe unless we understand something about the fact that it could be 'intelligent design.'"

The Skeptic's Dictionary (also summarizes Dembski and Behe debunkings)
Intelligent Design:

ID isn't a scientific theory and it isn't an alternative to natural selection or any other scientific theory. The universe would appear the same to us whether it was designed by God or not. Empirical theories are about how the world appears to us and have no business positing why the world appears this way, or that it is probably designed because of how unlikely it is that this or that happened by chance. That is the business of metaphysics. ID is not a scientific theory, but a metaphysical theory.

posted by scott pilutik at December 23, 2004 09:39 AM

digg  |  del.icio.us  |  reddit
permalink

December 18, 2004

Amen Frank Rich

Frank Rich testifies on the fake controversy controversy. Rich does a great job deeper in the article of obtaining quotes from progressive Christian groups who are being loudly ignored by a news media hungry to capitalize on the alleged 'religion story' (see TIME and Newsweek covers this week). '[Rev. Debra Haffner] detects an overall "understanding" in the media that religion "is one voice — fundamentalist."'

How can those in this country's overwhelming religious majority maintain that they are victims in a fiery battle with forces of darkness? It is certainly not about actual victimization. Christmas is as pervasive as it has ever been in America, where it wasn't even declared a federal holiday until after the Civil War. What's really going on here is yet another example of a post-Election-Day winner-takes-all power grab by the "moral values" brigade. As Mr. Gibson shrewdly contrived his own crucifixion all the way to the bank, trumping up nonexistent threats to his movie to hype it, so the creation of imagined enemies and exaggerated threats to Christianity by "moral values" mongers of the right has its own secular purpose. The idea is to intimidate and marginalize anyone who objects to their efforts to impose the most conservative of Christian dogma on public policy. If you're against their views, you don't have a differing opinion — you're anti-Christian (even if you are a Christian).

posted by scott pilutik at December 18, 2004 11:40 PM

digg  |  del.icio.us  |  reddit
permalink

December 16, 2004

O Red and Green, O Red and Green

This is one of those stories where you can't really tell what's going on:

A religious liberties law firm accused Plano school officials today of violating students' constitutional rights by forbidding them to hand out candy canes and pencils with religious messages on them.

Attorneys with the Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute said they planned to file a federal lawsuit claiming the district has an unconstitutional censorship policy that victimizes students.

[...]

Last week, Plano school officials sent a letter home requesting that parents not send their children to school with anything green or red this holiday season, Sasser said. All cups, plates, napkins and icing must be white or the children violate the district's policy, he said.

"These government officials have lost all common sense. This Christmastime and religious censorship is not the law and this discrimination must stop," said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel for Liberty Legal Institute. "Our children are the ones suffering from this discrimination. Our schools are not zones of religious censorship."

These sue-happy Christian legal funds hype up these stories, and then when the truth comes out, it's considerably more ambiguous than the lawyers for Jesus Everywhere In Our Public Schools Legal Partners let on in the beginning.

One thing you have to keep in mind about Plano, Texas, is that it is a suburb of Dallas full of fairly conservative and well-off people. Most of the residents of that suburb would probably self-identify as some sort of Christian (and the vast majority of those would be evangelical Protestants), and at the very least suggest that they go to church on a regular basis. The school district personnel come from a similar milieu. They're not in the business of smashing Christianity out of the schools.

But the one thing that the Liberty Legal Institute probably knows but is deliberately ignoring here is that not every kid in the Plano ISD is an evangelical Christian. In fact, I'll suggest that one very possible reason for the de-emphasis on Christmas at school is that there are children from other religious traditions at school who neither celebrate Christmas or in fact are hostile to the celebration of Christmas.

One of the ugly little secrets of holiday celebration in the public schools is that Jehovah's Witness children have to sit out due to their religious beliefs. One of my sister's kids was in a class where all the Jehovah's Witness kids in that grade at the school had been placed: it made for an interesting school year as the teacher tried to work around the fact that there were four 2nd graders in the class who could not acknowledge holidays. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that Plano ISD was trying to be accommodating to kids who could not celebrate any holidays whatsoever, or holidays not of their religion.

But the other thing that is not clear from the article is what exactly the hardcore Christian parents were sending to school with their kids. Candy canes with Bible verses and Jesus pencils sound innocuous, but these are not things that you can just pick up at the grocery store; you have to make a special trip to Family Christian or Berean Books or Zondervan to buy these. And I rather doubt that the kiddies were suggesting to their parents that they hand out Jesus pencils; rather, the parents were giving the kids the pencils and telling them to hand them out in school.

Ultimately, this is not about pencils or candy canes, but pencils and candy canes are being used as wedges to prop open the door of the schoolhouse for proselytising. The Liberty Legal Institute is looking for a way to open the door for students proselytising other students where the parents of the target ("non-Christian") students can't complain because it's been legally approved by a judge. So, red and green napkins are a ruse to distract from a more disturbing agenda.

posted by mirele at December 16, 2004 02:40 PM

digg  |  del.icio.us  |  reddit
permalink

December 10, 2004

Pharyngula

University of Minnesota biology professor PZ Myers has a great blog which he updates daily - Pharyngula - and covers the current ID debate from a far more informed place than ours here. He also posts on his ongoing projects, and even his students' projects. For instance, this post about the Birth of a Maggot even includes a short video. His site is also where we first found our ancient fish logo.

posted by scott pilutik at December 10, 2004 04:22 PM

digg  |  del.icio.us  |  reddit
permalink

December 09, 2004

Two Solitudes (Jesusland revisited)

On the same day that the Supreme Court of Canada clears the way for same-sex marriage in the northern half of our shared continent, the Bush administration takes up the torch carried by supporters of crackpot Alabama judge Roy Moore, and urges the U.S. Supreme Court to allow courthouses to display the Ten Commandments.

posted by sangwyn at December 9, 2004 11:07 AM

digg  |  del.icio.us  |  reddit
permalink

christianophobia?

Yes, that's right. Christianophobia. In an ongoing campaign to have its hallucinatory persecution complex nurtured, the Vatican has proposed that the term be "recognized as an evil that is equal to hatred of Jews and Muslims."

"It should be recognized that the war against terrorism, even though necessary, had as one of its side effects the spread of 'Christianophobia' in vast areas of the globe," [Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo] told a U.S.-organized conference on religious freedom in Rome.

Hmm. Perhaps that's because this administration, along with its Generals, have pitched the current Iraq war as a "crusade". Might that have anything to do with it?

And what if the UN *doesn't* agree to it, is it yet more evidence of Christophobia? Indeed, it's actually just more evidence that 'religious tolerance' is seeking to become 'religious immunity'.

posted by scott pilutik at December 9, 2004 08:51 AM

digg  |  del.icio.us  |  reddit
permalink

December 01, 2004

Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?

From the Washington Post:

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

In providing nearly $170 million next year to fund groups that teach abstinence only, the Bush administration, with backing from the Republican Congress, is investing heavily in a just-say-no strategy for teenagers and sex. But youngsters taking the courses frequently receive medically inaccurate or misleading information, often in direct contradiction to the findings of government scientists, said the report, by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a critic of the administration who has long argued for comprehensive sex education.

Several million children age 9 to 18 have participated in the more than 100 federal abstinence programs since the efforts began in 1999. Waxman's staff reviewed the 13 most commonly used curricula -- those used by at least five programs apiece.

The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, gender traits and when life begins. In some cases, Waxman said in an interview, the factual issues were limited to occasional misinterpretations of publicly available data; in others, the materials pervasively presented subjective opinions as scientific fact.

Read the whole depressing article here

posted by sangwyn at December 1, 2004 11:06 PM

digg  |  del.icio.us  |  reddit
permalink