Kansas Joins The 11th Century

Just in case anyone missed it, the Kansas Board of Education voted to allow intelligent design to be taught in the schools there. The actual decision is left to local schools whether to pollute their science courses with rhetorical bull. No word on whether Flying Spaghetti Monsterism made the cut.

I want to make it clear that the varied attacks I make on intelligent design being taught in the schools on this blog are not attacks on people with religious views or even on the idea of having a religious viewpoint. Specific to the decision of a school board to include such teachings in a science class, my problem is that ID does not, in reality, represent science. Proponents find things about evolution that they can't grasp and package them together in what they believe is a critique of the theory. But that "critique" does not pass scientific muster. Their points are usually without merit (they often describe espects of evolution as unexplained, when, in fact, they are explained). And the whole mess is not based on scientific principles, even though its proponents would have you believe they are.

That's where the problem lies with scientists attacking intelligent design. There's nothing there to attack. It doesn't come from any rational basis, so rational argument doesn't work. ID proponents inevitably must fall back on faith and their own misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. When that happens, anyone trying to reason with them comes up against a brick wall. There's simply nothing more that can be done.

And that is why it is so imperative that this is not taught in the schools. It represents irrational, non-critical thinking. Rather than being simply "another point of view," as the president would have you believe, it is a set of half-truths, lies and faith. It allows for the dumbing-down of our schools and is a recipe for disaster.

Unlike Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, of course, which has pirate-related data to back itself up.