Friday, June 03, 2005
Utah's Divine Design
Sen. Chris Buttars, a Republican from West Jordan, "backed by a powerful conservative lobby, wants Utah public schools to teach 'divine design' side by side with evolution, allowing students to decide which theory is more valid," reports Matt Canham of the Salt Lake Tribune.
It will be interesting to see how the Discovery Institute reacts to Buttars initiative. As most RSR readers already know, the public stance of DI is that they don't want to teach intelligent design in the public schools, they only want to "teach the controversy" over evolution.
RSR believes that the intelligent design general staff in Seattle is waiting until after the next Supreme Court justice is appointed -- and that may come sometime this summer -- to see if the court is ready to overturn past rulings that currently stand in the way of including ID in the science curriculum.
One problem that Discovery must finesse for the time being is the impatience of their creationist foot soldiers to move too precipitously -- as they may conclude Buttars is now doing -- to bring the "science" of Genesis into science classrooms.
No word yet on whether Buttars also wants to teach comprehensive sex education side by side with abstinence only sex education and allow students to decide which is more valid.
Buttars "plans to lead the fight for instruction of divine design in Utah public schools. He wants to defuse some of the expected controversy by avoiding the term 'creationism' altogether. Instead, he favors 'divine design,' sometimes called 'intelligent design,' which 'doesn't preach religion,' he said. 'The only people who will be upset about this are atheists.'"
It will be interesting to see how the Discovery Institute reacts to Buttars initiative. As most RSR readers already know, the public stance of DI is that they don't want to teach intelligent design in the public schools, they only want to "teach the controversy" over evolution.
RSR believes that the intelligent design general staff in Seattle is waiting until after the next Supreme Court justice is appointed -- and that may come sometime this summer -- to see if the court is ready to overturn past rulings that currently stand in the way of including ID in the science curriculum.
One problem that Discovery must finesse for the time being is the impatience of their creationist foot soldiers to move too precipitously -- as they may conclude Buttars is now doing -- to bring the "science" of Genesis into science classrooms.
No word yet on whether Buttars also wants to teach comprehensive sex education side by side with abstinence only sex education and allow students to decide which is more valid.
