Tuesday, August 15, 2006
ID's Contempt for Kansas Voters
John Calvert, of the Intelligent Design Network, tells Agape Press that they lost the Kansas school board election because science supporters launched a "misinformation" campaign against them.
Kansas Citizens for Science, the organization Calvert is referring to, spent just $1,100 dollars during the primary to show Kansans how the ID inspired revisions to the state's science standards open the door to supernatual explanations of natural phenomena.
If that small sum of money really had the impact Calvert ascribes to it, then that investment has got to go down in history as one of the most savvy and cost-effective public education campaigns ever waged. Marketing and PR types ought to be flocking to Kansas to learn how it was done.
There was, however, as Calvert knows, a very real -- and well financed -- misinformation campaign.
The ID Network and the Discovery Institute printed 100,000 full-color inserts and paid to have them distributed in newspapers in contested school board districts across the state. They purchased radio spots on Christian radio stations. The ID Network sponsored speaking engagements in fundamentalist churches. And, both organizations set up special websites for the election.
We may never know how much these efforts cost, because both organizations -- claiming they weren't attempting to influence the election -- won't have to file campaign finance reports detailing their expenses.
What is most striking about Calvert's comments, however, is the utter contempt they display for the intelligence of Kansas voters.
Do Calvert and the Discovery Institute really suppose Kansans have forgotten that in 1999 all the same people -- Steve Abrams, Celtie Johnson, John Calvert, among others -- tried to re-write the state's science curriculum with standards covertly written Tom Willis of the Creation Science Association of Mid-America?
Sorry Mr. Calvert, no one is that blind.
"That propaganda, which is just completely false, was developed six years ago by the organization that was leading the opposition," he insists. "And it's just false propaganda that is put into the minds of people who don't know the difference."
Kansas Citizens for Science, the organization Calvert is referring to, spent just $1,100 dollars during the primary to show Kansans how the ID inspired revisions to the state's science standards open the door to supernatual explanations of natural phenomena.
If that small sum of money really had the impact Calvert ascribes to it, then that investment has got to go down in history as one of the most savvy and cost-effective public education campaigns ever waged. Marketing and PR types ought to be flocking to Kansas to learn how it was done.
There was, however, as Calvert knows, a very real -- and well financed -- misinformation campaign.
The ID Network and the Discovery Institute printed 100,000 full-color inserts and paid to have them distributed in newspapers in contested school board districts across the state. They purchased radio spots on Christian radio stations. The ID Network sponsored speaking engagements in fundamentalist churches. And, both organizations set up special websites for the election.
We may never know how much these efforts cost, because both organizations -- claiming they weren't attempting to influence the election -- won't have to file campaign finance reports detailing their expenses.
What is most striking about Calvert's comments, however, is the utter contempt they display for the intelligence of Kansas voters.
Do Calvert and the Discovery Institute really suppose Kansans have forgotten that in 1999 all the same people -- Steve Abrams, Celtie Johnson, John Calvert, among others -- tried to re-write the state's science curriculum with standards covertly written Tom Willis of the Creation Science Association of Mid-America?
Sorry Mr. Calvert, no one is that blind.
