Saturday, October 18, 2008

Why Don't You Want to Teach ID in the Classroom?

The latest versions of the Big Lie over at Evolution News and Views have Robert Crowther and Casey Luskin shocked, shocked I say that not only are the media not treating legitimate science authors with the same skepticism they treat the DI hacks, and Anika Smith dumbfounded that they aren't buying the DI talking points:

"Immediately after Dr. Seelke said that he unequivocally does not want to teach ID in the classroom, the news reporter frames his position as something else entirely, that students should look at 'all theories on how life came about and not just evolution.' Did reporter Joe Robuck even listen to Seelke when he interviewed him?"

Yes, and he's also no doubt researched the DI's evasive and disingenuous tactics and was prepared for that bit of flubdubbery. To illustrate how implausible that line is, just ask yourself this: if ID is indeed scientific, and causing a revolution in science, a and a better fit to the evidence than is MET, they why don't they want to teach it in schools. After all, that is the mainstream scientific position: evolution is science, ID isn't, so we should teach evolution in the schools. How does it make sense to say "ID is science, but we shouldn't teach it in science class".

Answer: it doesn't. It's a lie. They most certainly do want to teach ID in the classroom, they just know they have to pretend they don't to get the pseudoscience camel's nose in the classroom tent. ID is, after all, nothing more than classic creationist criticisms of evolution dressed up in sciency garb. Teaching "the scientific evidence for and against" evolution IS Intelligent Design. That's the genie that has been let out of the bottle, and the DI can't put it back in. Once the crowd learns the magician's tricks, no one is going to be fooled again [cue the Who].

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