FWD by Greenwich, reply from Dale H., Paleoanthropologist:
======================================================
These "Intelligent Design" (ID) advocates have an agenda, of 
which contesting evolution is only a part.  The final goal is 
theocracy. Be careful about these folks, they have no qualms about 
lying to or purposely misleading outsiders, which are not only us, 
but also employers, courts and even casual supporters, in fact 
especially to casual supporters who would rebel if they were 
informed of how extreme the actual goals are.

Such sneak teachers as in Michigan should have their teaching 
certificates lifted, and civil monetary penalties assigned.  They 
only have a presence where there is enough money to finance their 
propaganda, threaten frivoulous lawsuits and support demogogues for 
public office.  

Any Big Lie costs Big Bucks to spread, since it must be repeated over 
and over just in order to create an intitial cadre of true believers. 
>From that point the advertising campaign to produce casual tolerance 
is every bit as expensive.   These things are not bottom-up grass 
roots movements; they are top-down commercial enterprises.

There are some deep pockets behind this trash.  That is what needs to 
be traced.  The agenda of creationists and iders is not one of 
rational discourse, but one of someone running an economic scam, a 
power grab with a whole bunch of committed but deluded suckers manning 
the front lines as a smoke screen.  

Pull the financing and the movement shrivels;  then selection takes 
care of the remnant suckers, which can actually end up improving the 
species.
--Dale
============================================
Professor Bonnie A B Blackwell wrote:
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 11:53:33 -0700
> From: Greenwich <[log in to unmask]>
> 
> THEORY ISN'T SCIENCE, TEACHER'S GROUP SAYS
> 
> BY PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI
> FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
> 
> The national debate over how life began is landing in the
> quiet southwest Michigan village of Richland, where the school
> district is threatened with a lawsuit over teaching the theory
> of intelligent design in science classes....
> 
> The question is
> whether intelligent design is science -- or religion?

> ...They quietly taught intelligent design alongside evolution for 2
> years until a parent complained last fall. Then the administration
> told them to stop teaching the theory while a committee, including
> the two [ID] teachers, studied whether it belonged in the curriculum.
> 
> The committee voted 5-2 in May against teaching intelligent design,
> with [teachers] Wenzel and Olson the only dissenting votes.
> 
> In the meantime, the teachers turned to the conservative Thomas More
> Law Center in Ann Arbor. The center, which is suing a Pennsylvania
> school district over not allowing intelligent design to be taught,
> notified Gull Lake it's likely to be sued as well.
> 
> ...The debate between teaching creationism or evolution is not new.
> During the last few years, however, it's been refueled by intelli-
> gent design. In May, the Kansas State Board of Education held a
> hearing on teaching evolution. Three states -- Ohio, New Mexico
> and Minnesota -- have adopted standards that could allow intelli-
> gent design to be taught in schools.
> 
> A survey by the science teachers' association this year found
> almost one-third of its members feel a growing pressure from
> students or parents to teach creationism or intelligent design.
> 
> "It's just not fair to present unsupported, unproven data to our
> students," said association president Wheeler. "The key issue is:
> Is intelligent design testable? There's no test that one can set
> up to prove it, and that's the test [required] of science."
> ..."It wasn't until creationism was ousted from public schools that
> intelligent design was brought in," said Mark Jennings, a Gull
> Lake Community Schools parent and pastor of the First Presbyterian
> Church in Richland. "I've always thought the school should leave
> teaching about God to the church and we'll leave science to the
> schools."
> The three theories of how life began:
> 
> * Evolution: Charles Darwin's theory that life evolved in tiny
> stages, each stage more adaptable to the current conditions than
> the last through a process called natural selection.
> 
> * Creationism: Basically holds that God created all life and
> includes the explanation found in the Bible, in Genesis.
> 
> * Intelligent design: Agrees with natural selection but says some
> life forms, such as humans, are too complex to have been created
> by accident so there must have been an intelligent designer. It
> does not discuss the designer's identity.
> ============================ END =========================

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