If it is actually taught accurately, Intelligent Design actually supports Darwin. For instance, there has been no example of irreducible complexity ever found. Nor has any of the other tenets of ID ever been found in nature. If these things are found, Darwin is undermined, but they have NOT been found. By expanding this accurate summary, you reinforce evolution and undermine ID.

To truly teach it would take a much more sophisticated and mathematically complex lecture than the one sentence of ID. It would also demand that we teach American children science more competently than we do. THAT is the problem. AMerica sucks at teaching science, and we face a scientific brain drain. Instead of addressing that, we waste time on this junk.

I have been shocked at the number of truly scientificly illiterate people in the world, who equate these two ideas as equal. If they were literate, they would understand why ID fails the test of science (no supernatural explanations, for instance- science is based on facts and mechanistic explanations fo the universe.

What truly offends me is that ID proponents blaspheme God. If God wanted to use evolution to create the world, God can. It's called omnipotence. To claim that "it must be an intelligent designer and nor evolution" is to argue that God can't create evolution, and that God is a prankster, giving us fossil evidence and micro-evolutionary evidence to confuse us. The proponents of ID, like the attack on Happy Holiday crowd, ultimately make God small. My God is not a prankster, and I don't want him used to sell thongs to teenagers. I will fight ID, and say Happy Holidays, because both are a part of a small minded attack on American values and real Christian values.

It is extremely refreshing to have a victory, and in the form of such a devastating repudiation of ID. The judge nailed it, 110 percent. My fear is that many who should take this seriously will dismiss it as "liberal judicial activism." As the judge himself said, it's not. But unfortunately, many who should hear the message will be unwilling to receive it.

Everything I have read lately about ID, including Gordy Slack's article today in Salon, contains serious distortions of the original ID concept. This is understandable, because the original concept has in fact been taken over by intellectually dishonest ideologues. The Dover school board members are perfect examples of this.

To be brief: my own introduction to ID came from reading Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box". Readers of Gordy Slack's article might be surprised to learn that Behe does not reject evolutionary theory, but rather believes (like nearly every scientist today) that it is a big part of the answer to nearly every question in biology. However, in his book, Behe gives examples of microbiological systems which display "irreducible complexity". Such systems cannot be produced by evolution, essentially because they have no viable precursors. Any small change to the system, such as all the small advantageous ones posited by evolutionary theory, will break the system (and therefore kill the organism, or more pointedly, prevent its reproduction).

The arguments presented by Behe are powerful and well constructed. In essence, they make explicit something that we all intuitively do already: distinguishing "natural" objects from those produced by an intelligent agent (usually us). If his arguments are ultimately found to be invalid, I believe that their flaw will turn out to have been the consideration of microbiological systems in isolation from each other. Others, Richard Dawkins among them, think that the answer is simply that even if the evolution of some microbiological systems is not currently understood in detail, that does not mean it will always be so.

In any case, I think it is a shame that the intellectually honest arguments of Michael Behe are now being widely portrayed as just more whacko creationism. Of course, this portrayal is accurate in the sense that whacko creationists are off and running with their own sad misinterpretations of ID. I hope that readers of Slack's article will also read Behe's book, and then make up their own minds on the matter.

and what makes me the angriest and most frightened, is that they're really not teaching ID, they're teaching christian ID (which is all they're doing, i believe, in case i'm wrong). so it's not even just a matter of any church/temple/mosque bringing their teachings into a public school setting, it's that they're bringing them in without any false pretenses that they are, in fact, christian theories. essentially, they are allowing the christians to come in with their beliefs, but not the rest of the religions and races in this country. so they become more important, more reliable, the purveryors of truth. which erodes the other religions in this country for decades to come.

i'm all for teaching comparative religion, frankly i think it's sorely needed in this country right now. but i fear any teachings would be "christianity in contrast to other religions."

the amount of ground we, open-minded thinkers, liberals, jews and muslims and hindu and buddhist, et alia, have lost is staggering. and that our president (a term i use lighly) thinks there's no problem in teaching neatly packaged christian doctrine in our schools, then something is very, very wrong in this country.

as an american, i pay taxes. those taxes go towards public education (and weapons, i know...), and i'm sickened to know that my hard earned dollars are teaching the tenets of christianity. it seems like such an obvious argument, it's hard to believe it's gotten this far.

the bigger question always on the mind of this jewish/atheist raised to recognize red-flags of exclusion and anti-semitism: when do we leave? what provokes the final straw to move out of this country before it's too late?

There are so many prongs of argument to attack concerning ID, one hardly knows where to start. Several simple premises seem to be obvious though. If one believes that the evidence argues for an "intelligent designer," then who designed the designer, because this entity should be increasingly complex as well as those which are irreducibly complex, yes? Second, intelligent design presumes that one would be in the position to discern both that which is "intelligent" and that which constitutes design. I shouldn't have to begin a very long list of things about humanity, both in body and mind, which are quite apparent flaws, especially considered in the light of such an allegedly powerful designer. Yawn.

One thing I do believe is that ID should not be ignored. The obvious logical flaws in its premises should be pointed out, and then science class should be continued. But the concepts should most certainly be addressed in literature (myth?), philosophy (logic?), religion (deism?), or other comparative cultural classes, where one might show how quickly a deity-reliant idea can gain such supposed currency through clever manipulation of the media and a little infusion of cash.

Finally, the evangelical right--which I understand so thoroughly having grown up in this type of church--must be confronted with the full brunt of logic. I don't recommend playing their game in the political arena, unless it is to bring them under the harshest light that they propose shining on evolution somehow. Academia and every single engineering/science research institution in this country has relied on the scientific method to arrive where it is. ID should be exposed for the creationist myth it seeks to re-imagine as scientific evidence against evolution.