Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Seeing Through the Eyes of God
Dan Glaister writing in The Guardian (UK) reports from the new front line in creationists' battle to usurp evolutionists in US schools -- El Tejon School District in California where a class, "The Philosophy of Design" is now being taught.
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is in court today representing a group of 11 parents who oppose the class -- a thinly disguised attempt at creationist indoctrination.
Many around the blogosphere have been highly amused over the grotesque gyrations the class has forced on Casey Luskin over at the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog. Luskin, while indignant that Americans United would file suit against the class, has nevertheless found himself in the undignified position of advising the school board there to "avoid creating a dangerous legal precedent" and to "simply cancel the course."
Discovery, it seems, has had enough precedent set over the last couple of months.
Glaister has an interesting insight as to why intelligent design activists are so conflicted:
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is in court today representing a group of 11 parents who oppose the class -- a thinly disguised attempt at creationist indoctrination.
Many around the blogosphere have been highly amused over the grotesque gyrations the class has forced on Casey Luskin over at the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog. Luskin, while indignant that Americans United would file suit against the class, has nevertheless found himself in the undignified position of advising the school board there to "avoid creating a dangerous legal precedent" and to "simply cancel the course."
Discovery, it seems, has had enough precedent set over the last couple of months.
Glaister has an interesting insight as to why intelligent design activists are so conflicted:
Smarting from their defeat last month at the hands of a Pennsylvania judge who dismissed the theory as "an interesting theological argument but ... not science", supporters of intelligent design have argued that the course is misleading because it suggests a philosophical rather than a scientific debate. Their intention to present intelligent design within the mainstream of scientific debate is being stymied by the creationists' insistence on seeing everything through the eyes of God.
