Monday, January 31, 2005
Pandora's box
The Kansas State Board of Education, with a 6-4 majority supporting intelligent design, may well vote soon to replace existing, naturalistic definitions of science with what ID proponents like to call a "traditional" or theistic definition. ID proponents who are a minority on the science standards writing committee told the board in a letter last December that cause-and-effect laws such as physics and chemistry aren't adequate to account for all phenomena.
It may well be impossible to reason with the board -- all of the six members who support intelligent design, including many who supported so-called creation science in the 1999 go around -- accepted large campaign donations from the Free Academic Inquiry and Research political action committee that funnels money to anti-science right-wingers, but Kansans may well want to reflect on at least two of the possible outcomes of that vote:
It may well be impossible to reason with the board -- all of the six members who support intelligent design, including many who supported so-called creation science in the 1999 go around -- accepted large campaign donations from the Free Academic Inquiry and Research political action committee that funnels money to anti-science right-wingers, but Kansans may well want to reflect on at least two of the possible outcomes of that vote:
- With the courts having already ruled that Kansas schools are grossly underfunded, do we really want to spend money defending this ruling against the inevitable court challenge, or would we rather spend it on our kids and their education?
- Having opened the door to non-naturalistic science teaching, how will the board prevent other groups, such as the Kansas witch, wiccan and pagan community with 19 covens in the state -- ranging from Atchison's Northwest Pagan Group, Orbis Nox in Hays, Church of the Coven of the Wolf in Hutchison, and the Circle of the Silver Cord, in Whicita -- from demanding equal time in the science curriculum.
We may all laugh, but spend a minute trying to elaborate a principle that differentiates between the teleology of the biblical literaliststs and the beliefs of the witches and wiccans. The truth is, adopting the revisions proposed by the ID proponents who are a minority on the standards committee but a majority of the board will open a Pandora's Box of unforseen, and unintended consequences.
