A federal judge on Tuesday banned the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution by Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District, saying the practice violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.
Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said. Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives, he said.
I'm agnostic and the idea of intelligent design doesn't really bother me so long as they teach that it could just as easily have been aliens that did the design as "God" was. With the pace at which science is evolving, it is certainly possible that we will be able to custom tailor organisms to our specifications within the next 50-100 years.
I still don't think it should be a science curriculum though. It should be a broad based religious studies sort of topic that discusses not only christian beliefs but other religious theories as well. I firmly believe in teaching kids everything and letting them decide how they want to believe.
The fact this stupid fucking waste of time got off the ground in the first place to become such an issue is a testament to the retarded quadraspazzed brainwrongs in positions of power in America.
'teaching them everything' is great if you have unlimited time, resources, and all 'things' are equally valid.
Since none of those three things are the case, you have to make decisions about what to teach.
This however is more about a religious operation, organizing a political operation to insert material INTO the curriculum.
Teeny to your point. The various operations which are not attached to but draw support from and exist symbiotically with the Republican Party powerbase, owe their existence to the fact that religion is the most time tested and reliable political tool in the history of our species (save the point of the bayonet - or technological equivalent). The GOP powerbase has struck a deal in exchange for power. They fund and continue to move forward on various issues that are important to fundamentalist Christians. In turn those persons vote for them. The GOP doesnt really mind, as their core beneficiaries dont send their kids to public schools, and make a lot of money off of the continued ignorance of the rural, white, Evangelicals patroning Wal-Mart and lowering the value of their own labor. So in other words, its a small price to pay for the elite to stay...well elite.
Deward wrote: I firmly believe in teaching kids everything and letting them decide how they want to believe.
this is how I feel -- too bad ignorance is the norm
The kids that have the capacity to study the array of religions and decide which one suits them, or none of them, don't need to have their hand held in grade schools and "diversity" thrust down their gullet. They will research alternate theories on their own.
Your basic C student doesn't have time for another competing theory *within the school system* they're already having enough trouble.
Science isn't the type of field that has time for these kinds of shenanigans either; they'll readily accept a new theory that disproves an old one, if it doesn't have giant gaping holes in it's logic that you could march Alexander and his elephants through.
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
I'm Christian, but render unto Darwin what is Darwin's. Good to see not everyone's lost their minds. Science should be taught in science class. Duh.
Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all. - Douglas Adams
Moreover, Defendants’ asserted secular purpose of improving science education is belied by the fact that most if not all of the Board members who voted in favor of the biology curriculum change conceded that they still do not know, nor have they ever known, precisely what ID is. To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous."
The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.
With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.
Owned. Talk about a smackdown... This judge should start posting on VV.
if i were the judge i would have gone the terse route and said
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
