Science on side of evolution, not 'ID' [View All]

[question everything]

Monday, May 23, 2005
Science on side of evolution, not 'ID'

By RONALD BAILEY
Reason magazine

Who needs to make monkeys out of the Kansas Board of Education when its members are doing such a good job of it themselves?

(snip)

Today, opponents of evolutionary theory know that they can't teach religion in public schools. If they're going to smuggle religion in, they need to be sneakier. So they strip off any part of their "intelligent design" theory that might sound like it is religious and pose as simple scientists asking "hard" questions of narrow-minded evolutionists.

The anti-evolutionists affect not to know who or what the "intelligent designer" of their theory may be - he, she, it or they could be little green men or purple space squid or a race of intelligent supercomputers, or maybe, just maybe an omnipotent God. Who knows? We're all just innocently asking "scientific" questions here.

However, away from the glare of media attention, this pose of scientific objectivity cracks. "ID has theological implications. ID is not strictly Christian, but it is theistic," admitted board member Martin. The intelligent design proponents in Kansas, ask why not let children in public schools hear arguments for intelligent design in biology classes? Schools could "teach the controversy."

(snip)

Intelligent design theorists and their claims to scientific legitimacy aside, the only reason the vast majority of people who want intelligent design taught in public schools do so is because they believe it will undercut the corrosive effects of evolutionary biology on the religious beliefs of their children. They don't know and couldn't care less about the scientific details of the evolution of species or the origin of life - they just want Darwinism kept away from their kids.

What they don't understand, however, is that religious belief and evolution are compatible. In 1996 no less a religious authority than Pope John Paul II declared, "New knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis."

(snip)

http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/05/25/sections/commentary/commentary_columns/article_528012.php