Lt. Killer M
27-03-2009, 14:05
I guess by now all posters at CDZ know about the drive religious extremists in the US have been organizing to undermine the US constitution and create a theocratic country.
no, I am not exaggerating, they really demand that the government runs the country (union, state, and community) on the basis of religious conviction. This includes many aspects, e.g. defense policies, but is at this time mainly a drive to bring religion into the classroom, especially science class.
The creationist movement has developed a strategy that aims at hiding their religious motives behind a smoke-screen of pseudo-science, called 'Intelligent Design'. Although the main proponent, Mr. Dembski, admitted in court and under oath that his hypothesis was not significantly different from Christian creationism, it is still being applied a lot.
A second smoke-screen is 'teach the controversy', combined with 'don't censor science'. The first implies that there is a controversy, which is simply untrue, the second tries to turn the facts on their head by pretending that science censors itself for the sake of keeping out religiously motivated science. Interestingly, they proponents always leave out the inconvenient fact that religiously motivated science either fails to adhere to scientific standards, or supports evolution, not creationism. Therefore, we can conclude that this is not a matter of facts, but of rhetorical devices to further an agenda. An agenda, I may add, that is apparently without any factual merit - otherwise, why is it not being presented?
The latest instance of this lunacy is currently occurring in Texas. The Texas State Board of Education upheld a long overdue change in policy, by a marginal 7:7 vote LINK (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/032609dntexevolution.72be216f.html), not to retain the so-called "strength and weaknesses" curriculum rule, that mandates teaching about the supposed strength and weaknesses of any scientific theory. However, fair as this may sound, in fact the rule was never applied to anything but evolution. No teacher was ever forced to debate 'weaknesses' in the theory of gravity, nor was electricity questioned. Rather, the 'weaknesses' to be discussed were exclusively the creationists' arguments against evolution.
I am glad that the board managed to uphold the change, but quite shocked how blatantly ignorant and deceitful people are members of such boards in the US. Seven people were FOR keeping the rule, despite the huge amount of evidence that
- evolution is a sound scientific theory
- creationism is not a scientific theory
- the criticism brought for about evolution is religiously motivated and plain counterfactual
- creationism in school is unconstitutional (ruling Kitzmiller vs. Dover, e.g.)
I can only conclude that not only the head of the board, Don McLeroy, is pushing his personal religious agenda, but that all other six are doing that, too. How can such overtly intolerant and unqualified people get such positions?
no, I am not exaggerating, they really demand that the government runs the country (union, state, and community) on the basis of religious conviction. This includes many aspects, e.g. defense policies, but is at this time mainly a drive to bring religion into the classroom, especially science class.
The creationist movement has developed a strategy that aims at hiding their religious motives behind a smoke-screen of pseudo-science, called 'Intelligent Design'. Although the main proponent, Mr. Dembski, admitted in court and under oath that his hypothesis was not significantly different from Christian creationism, it is still being applied a lot.
A second smoke-screen is 'teach the controversy', combined with 'don't censor science'. The first implies that there is a controversy, which is simply untrue, the second tries to turn the facts on their head by pretending that science censors itself for the sake of keeping out religiously motivated science. Interestingly, they proponents always leave out the inconvenient fact that religiously motivated science either fails to adhere to scientific standards, or supports evolution, not creationism. Therefore, we can conclude that this is not a matter of facts, but of rhetorical devices to further an agenda. An agenda, I may add, that is apparently without any factual merit - otherwise, why is it not being presented?
The latest instance of this lunacy is currently occurring in Texas. The Texas State Board of Education upheld a long overdue change in policy, by a marginal 7:7 vote LINK (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/032609dntexevolution.72be216f.html), not to retain the so-called "strength and weaknesses" curriculum rule, that mandates teaching about the supposed strength and weaknesses of any scientific theory. However, fair as this may sound, in fact the rule was never applied to anything but evolution. No teacher was ever forced to debate 'weaknesses' in the theory of gravity, nor was electricity questioned. Rather, the 'weaknesses' to be discussed were exclusively the creationists' arguments against evolution.
I am glad that the board managed to uphold the change, but quite shocked how blatantly ignorant and deceitful people are members of such boards in the US. Seven people were FOR keeping the rule, despite the huge amount of evidence that
- evolution is a sound scientific theory
- creationism is not a scientific theory
- the criticism brought for about evolution is religiously motivated and plain counterfactual
- creationism in school is unconstitutional (ruling Kitzmiller vs. Dover, e.g.)
I can only conclude that not only the head of the board, Don McLeroy, is pushing his personal religious agenda, but that all other six are doing that, too. How can such overtly intolerant and unqualified people get such positions?