As with 'scientific creationism' before it, 'intelligent design' is 
part of a larger effort to suppress science and critical inquiry and 
replace it with blind obedience to (theocratic) authority.

It is not some new hypotheses to be tested by experimental science, it 
is theology (and a specific monotheism, no less).

However, as with creationism, the proponents (who some call 'Christian 
fascists' because they cite that scripture as their fundamental 
justification) are eager to shroud their efforts as 'just another 
theory' to be debated in the marketplace of ideas. In which case, 
finding someone with a PhD and a journal to publish in is a significant 
event. It plays well on the 700 Club.

Is there something wrong with that? Yes, there is.

This is not simply an intellectual debate (although that debate, even 
on museum-l, is important). The ideology and politics being promoted 
are being realized by incitements to violence, by wholesale round-ups 
and detentions, by military invasions and the threats of further 
invasions.

This stuff is lethal (to critical thinkers, to gays, to women who don't 
'know their place', to people of color, to immigrants, to Muslims, to 
people living in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria...) and will become 
more so if "good people do nothing" (to paraphrase Burke).

-L.D.


On Jan 31, 2005, at 12:02 AM, MUSEUM-L automatic digest system wrote:

> Date:    Sun, 30 Jan 2005 17:46:12 EST
> From:    David Harvey <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Smithsonian in an uproar etc
>
> Indigo -
>
> Good for you!
>
> Intolerance and hate of any stripe, be it fundamentalist or humanist, 
> liberal
> or conservative, should be called out and decried.
>
> I am curious as to why the proponents of intelligent design keep 
> trying to
> pass this thing off as "science" when the argument so naturally 
> belongs to
> philosophical or religious views. The author of the article has every 
> right to
> present his views but in publishing them in a scientific journal he 
> also places
> his credibility as a scientist up for scrutiny and up for question.
>
> One of the basic components of science is skepticism and the constant 
> testing
> of theory against observable and measurable data. Science has been 
> wrong in
> the past and it will continue to find and publish its own flaws. I 
> fear that
> intelligent design is a self-fulfilling theory based more on faith 
> than on
> critical thinking. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
>
> Cheers!
> Dave
>
> David Harvey
> Conservator
> Los Angeles, California  USA
>

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