Still going in Circles
The fact of the matter is, since election day and Robertson’s tirade against the little town of Dover, there hasn’t been a whole lot to talk about.
I’ve sort of been trying to categorize the various points of view in the Intelligent Design versus Evolution debacle and here’s what I’ve come up with.
The Creationists – The True Bible Believers, like Robertson, who see Intelligent Design as a way of getting around the principle of the Separation of Church and State. Most of these folks wouldn’t know science from a stale donut. These people I refer to the 9th Commandment (the 8th if you’re Catholic) and ask whether it includes a prohibition against lying in general?
These are the American Taliban. For the most part Evangelical Christians that would like to mold the country into their medieval view of the way things should be. They are intolerant, biased and opposed to the principles of American Democracy. As far as they’re concerned, only people who agree with them have any rights. In their opinion anyone who disagrees with them is persecuting them and needs to be silenced.
These people are dangerous. If the rest of the country doesn’t wake up and figure out a way to reduce their influence, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the next American Civil War will be a religious one. And I’m not talking about a war of words; I’m talking about a war with real bullets, and real blood.
The Intelligent Designists – People like Behe and Gonzalez that may in fact believe what they are doing has scientific substance. To them I say more power to you. Publish papers and debate other qualified scientists about your hypotheses. High school biology students shouldn’t be asked to be the peer review panel. Why are you trying to sidestep a process that has been proven to work? What is it that you are afraid of? As a direct question to Dr. Behe, why did you feel it necessary to change the definition of science so your hypothesis would fit?
You will notice that I didn’t mention William Dembski in this group. I think he belongs in the Creationist group.
The Evolutionists – I do believe there are some people, and I include folks like Barbara Forrest, Richard Dawkins and Kenneth Miller in this group, that don’t want to even consider that there may be some merit in ID. They are, perhaps, being as dogmatic as the Creationists.
The Technologists – These folks understand that ID is just not science and are concerned that it is at best a waste of time and at worst a threat to scientific research and science education. The people at the National Academy of Science are in this category as are the overwhelming majority of biologists, zoologists, paleontologists and so on and so forth.
Many educated folks of non-scientific disciplines are also in this group including most science teachers and an Engineer or two I happen to know. Generally they understand the question and can be relied upon to support evolution but at least took a hard look at ID. While they might even be willing to give people like Gonzales or Behe the benefit of the doubt, they would be adamently opposed to teaching ID in a high school science classroom.
I'm in the Technologist group (surprise, surprise).
The Ignorant – These folks either don’t have a clue about what’s going on because they're too busy watching the latest Reality TV show or are too dumb to be able to comprehend the question. The fact that this segment exists pretty much renders opinion polls moot. All of these folks should be answering “I don’t know,” but almost none of them are.
The Fair Playists – These folks don’t really understand what the fuss is all about. Why not just teach both and let the students decide would be their attitude. There probably aren’t any teachers in this group. Some of these folks understand the issues and just believe that it makes sense to teach both ID and evolution.
Other folks in this group know enough to be dangerous but not enough to make a really informed decision. A lot of these people think there really is a scientific controversy with respect to evolution and most, if not all, are scientific illiterates although they probably don’t realize it. These are the people that the press fails when they don’t provide adequate background.
The fact that we’re even seriously having this conversation is a disgrace in a so-called technologically advanced country.
I’ve sort of been trying to categorize the various points of view in the Intelligent Design versus Evolution debacle and here’s what I’ve come up with.
The Creationists – The True Bible Believers, like Robertson, who see Intelligent Design as a way of getting around the principle of the Separation of Church and State. Most of these folks wouldn’t know science from a stale donut. These people I refer to the 9th Commandment (the 8th if you’re Catholic) and ask whether it includes a prohibition against lying in general?
These are the American Taliban. For the most part Evangelical Christians that would like to mold the country into their medieval view of the way things should be. They are intolerant, biased and opposed to the principles of American Democracy. As far as they’re concerned, only people who agree with them have any rights. In their opinion anyone who disagrees with them is persecuting them and needs to be silenced.
These people are dangerous. If the rest of the country doesn’t wake up and figure out a way to reduce their influence, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the next American Civil War will be a religious one. And I’m not talking about a war of words; I’m talking about a war with real bullets, and real blood.
The Intelligent Designists – People like Behe and Gonzalez that may in fact believe what they are doing has scientific substance. To them I say more power to you. Publish papers and debate other qualified scientists about your hypotheses. High school biology students shouldn’t be asked to be the peer review panel. Why are you trying to sidestep a process that has been proven to work? What is it that you are afraid of? As a direct question to Dr. Behe, why did you feel it necessary to change the definition of science so your hypothesis would fit?
You will notice that I didn’t mention William Dembski in this group. I think he belongs in the Creationist group.
The Evolutionists – I do believe there are some people, and I include folks like Barbara Forrest, Richard Dawkins and Kenneth Miller in this group, that don’t want to even consider that there may be some merit in ID. They are, perhaps, being as dogmatic as the Creationists.
The Technologists – These folks understand that ID is just not science and are concerned that it is at best a waste of time and at worst a threat to scientific research and science education. The people at the National Academy of Science are in this category as are the overwhelming majority of biologists, zoologists, paleontologists and so on and so forth.
Many educated folks of non-scientific disciplines are also in this group including most science teachers and an Engineer or two I happen to know. Generally they understand the question and can be relied upon to support evolution but at least took a hard look at ID. While they might even be willing to give people like Gonzales or Behe the benefit of the doubt, they would be adamently opposed to teaching ID in a high school science classroom.
I'm in the Technologist group (surprise, surprise).
The Ignorant – These folks either don’t have a clue about what’s going on because they're too busy watching the latest Reality TV show or are too dumb to be able to comprehend the question. The fact that this segment exists pretty much renders opinion polls moot. All of these folks should be answering “I don’t know,” but almost none of them are.
The Fair Playists – These folks don’t really understand what the fuss is all about. Why not just teach both and let the students decide would be their attitude. There probably aren’t any teachers in this group. Some of these folks understand the issues and just believe that it makes sense to teach both ID and evolution.
Other folks in this group know enough to be dangerous but not enough to make a really informed decision. A lot of these people think there really is a scientific controversy with respect to evolution and most, if not all, are scientific illiterates although they probably don’t realize it. These are the people that the press fails when they don’t provide adequate background.
The fact that we’re even seriously having this conversation is a disgrace in a so-called technologically advanced country.
posted by Alencon at 1:21 PM
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