Update: Here’s the show.
This week on Partisan Gridlock, Wednesday from 10:00 – 11:00 PM….
Right-wingers in Texas are busy trying to sneak their religious views into public schools. Aware that that annoying constitution of ours prevents them from actually teaching creationism, fundamentalists first tried to sneak their wacky views into your kids’ brains by rebranding their dogma “intelligent design.” Unfortunately for them, the federal courts saw through that nonsense and prevented ID from being taught in the public schools. (Here’s the opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover.)
Some members of the Texas Board of Education now want to force teachers to tell your kids about what they believe are flaws in the theory of evolution. They call it the “Strengths and Weaknesses” argument. This is, of course, nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to discredit science and fill the void (nature abhors a vacuum; does the lord god almighty?) with their religion.
Joining us this week is Court Koenning, chief of staff to Senator Dan Patrick and Joshua Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education. Also joining in will be repeat guest Dr. Ray Bohlin, president of Probe Ministries. Both Ray and Josh testified today at the Board of Education.
Update: Listener David sends along a link to this piece by Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute. Meyer argues that “intelligent design is not creationism,” contrary to the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover, above and what scientists call “logic.” And the Discovery Institute, of course, is a front group for religious extremists. It uses a “wedge” strategy:
The plan is straightforward: use intelligent design as a wedge to undermine evolution with scientific-sounding arguments and thereby advance a conservative religious-political agenda.
I must say that I’ve never spoken to an advocate of “intelligent design” who does not also believe in creationism. What a coincidence!
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on Mar 26th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I was on hold and didn’t make it on last night. What never ceases to amaze me is that when speaking of this issue of “Strengths and Weaknesses” the creationist/religious right is always under some strange presumption that it is THEIR story of creation that will fill the void. Do they not admit that other faiths/cultures have OTHER creation stories that they BELIEVE as strongly as Christians BELIVE theirs? Greg you yourself erroneously made the point of calling it “two sides” to the argument. And therein lies the rub, if we then have to fill up science class with multiple creationism stories then it’s a comparitive religion class.
Additionally, once people didn’t know about the atom. Then they thought there might be more, but they taught about the atom as they scientifically understood it at the time. Then they learned about protons, neutrons and electrons, and thought that’s all there was, so the scientific data was refined…and taught it in schools. Then we move to years of debate about quarks… Can anyone see where this is going? Science corrects itself as it’s refined and proven. Beliefs like Biblical creationism stay static. Ergo, beliefs are not science.
on Mar 27th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Obviously you haven’t been to the Creation Evidence Musuem on the banks of the beautiful Paluxy River outside Glen Rose, Texas, Man. It’s just upriver from the Dinosaur Valley state park where you can see like real dinosaur tracks in the bottom of the river, Man. And close to Dinosaur World where they have like 100 life size dinosaur models. Totally cool, except that they don’t have like Jesus or Moses riding on any of the dinosaurs like they must have done, Man. It’s an awesome weekend visiting this stuff, Man. Take your kids before it’s too late, Man.