"Following the Dover decision, some I.D.ers became more timid, or at least more evasive. John Angus Campbell, a Discovery Institute fellow and coauthor of a book about teaching I.D. in the schools, ran for a school board seat in North Mason County, Wash., last week. During his campaign, he intentionally left his middle name out of his election materials and failed to mention his affiliation with the Discovery Institute. The camouflage strategy worked and he was elected."

You could be an archaeologist, and have the joy of competing with one of Creationism's newest fronts, some new age archaeological theory about civilization being millions of years old, that attempts to undermine evolution in a very subtle way, through contradiction.

Ugh... ID'ers. So crazy... it's kind of fun to watch them try to spin crushing defeats like the Dover decision into something, anything, that can KEEP BUTTS IN SEATS.

I also have noticed that the essay's last paragraph, about how, in spite of all the chicancary of trying to look "scientific", creationlists really just hope to annoy people into giving up and letting them have their way, really does seem like their core strategy. Like an annoying aunt that everybody just wishes you'd agree with to shut her up.

Looking forward to the "Judgement Day" documentary, and to the creationlists debasing of themselves in their own, not-quite-as-cool, documentary.

Long live the prarie monkeys!

That this discussion will be free of the words "flying", "spaghetti" and "monster".

Let's try and be nice kids, and always remember that people's beliefs come in VERY different hues.

cheers.

Merda taurorum animas conturbit, and thats what they, whatever they're calling themselves these days, are trying to do, it's like arguing with a child, almost impossible, because a child does not use logic in its arguments, are these the same 50% of the US who voted for bush, then there's no hope, everyone has a right to a belief system, mine is based on an informed kind of common sense, this is just fundaMENTALism.

so rationality is not facing a general worldwide threat, some socieities are just not sure whether they want to participate in the modern world or not is all.

These anti-science people are tireless fanatics. Sometimes I just want to say, "Here, have your theocracy, just let me sleep until you all kill each other over some fiddling little point in some biblical text you can't agree on."

"Let's try and be nice kids, and always remember that people's beliefs come in VERY different hues."

I happen to BELIEVE that there is a Higher Power behind the world we see today.

My BELIEF is not based on facts or empirical reasoning. It is based on the remaining mystery of existence, and on what I feel in my heart.

It is NOT Science.

I am offended by religionists trying to force schools to teach their beliefs as Science. Science is about what we know, posit and can prove. Science means you put forth a hypothesis, and test it every way possible. Evolution is a theory based on the facts at hand, and has proved eerily prescient in predicting the biological underpinnnings that make it work (DNA and Mendelian genetics are prime examples).

That is what makese Evolution science. It fits the facts, and lives or dies by how well it describes what we are able to observe about the world. Since we are human, those observations of the world contain gaps due to inability to observe, or insufficient human understanding. But what we can see, and what we do know is unanimous. Evolution is a fact, and Natural Selection is how it operates.

We are all free to believe what we find most comforting to our souls and consistent with our hearts.

But we must not mistake our Beliefs for our Science. Doing so degrades both.

Well put, I actually agree with pretty much everything you just wrote.

I just find that whenever evolution and creation get discussed we end up getting reams of posts treating every person who happens to religious in any way as knuckle-dragging, drooling morons...I'm just hoping this discussion avoids that type of stereotype.

A hopeless endeavour I fear.

(well written post btw)

This is part of the American Right's attack on the Enlightenment. The Constitution, Darwin, science itself, rationality... we're in for the fight of the Eighteenth Century all over again. The other side wants the Modern American Fundy Church to govern us. Civil rights, democracy, scientific debate, & academia are all to be sacrificed on the alter of their god.

"But American creationism doesn't die. It just adapts."

"Adapts"? Really? This would have been the perfect time to say "It just evolves."

[Yes, that would perhaps not have been as dispassionate, but still...]

then perhaps they should look into their precious "Discovery Institute". This place has made no secret about it's agenda, which has nothing to do with science. Goggle "Discvery Institute" and "Wedge Strategy", it will take you right to their website. A manifesto written in the late nineties shows that they are a social movement, not a scientific one. "ID" was just the beginning of a very extensive plan to shape the country to the mold of a new kind of Christian/Republican educational philosophy that centered more on "culture", that great obsession of the right, and emotional opinion then science and facts.

It was designed to reshape all of academia to create two competing worldviews, the current one, cold and unfeeling and reasoning, and their view, a loving God that gives life meaning. Pretty soon, their view was destined to win out based solely on selling points. And then all of academia would have to discuss everything through a "christian" lens. Returning us to the days before the enlightenment.

I consider this new "setback" on their part a good sign. First they couldn't mention God, then they couldn't even hint about a creator, now they are reduced to trying to challenge evolution based on it's "gaps". If that's the best they can do, there may be hope for us left.