Back-Spin

The big news in the popular scientific press is the end of the Kansas "Kangaroo Kourt", centered around the big debate about whether "Intelligent Design" Creationism should be inserted into the Dover high school curricula. The Panda's Thumb has been covering the Evolution side of the debate pretty well, and of course The Discovery Institute and other ID figures like Dembski have weighed in as well.

Really, Steve Case's letter to the Wichita Eagle pretty much sums it up for me. But I'll distill it and give it my own "spin": Creationists and Intelligent Design Advocates in the popular press are deceitful, cowardly liars who have hijacked Christianity to serve their own wicked agenda. Abrams' original letter, to which Case's letter was a reply, would have you think that he is the victim, and only serving the cause of good science...but Case has blatantly caught him in his own web of lies and rhetoric. The only "proof" that the Intelligent Design advocates have given in evidence of their claim that biology is rife with tension and division over the validity of evolutionary biology have been dishonestly used quotes, distorted research from evolutionary biologists, and worst of all, outright lies that are perpetuated over and over and over again despite their repeated, explicit refutation. These people have been told over, and over and over again that the discussion and debate over evolutionary biology is not over the existence of evolution, or even Darwinian natural selection, but on the mechanism - the how of evolution. That these people have ignored this is a clear sign to me that they are either unbelievably ignorant and stupid, or simply without any sense of academic or moral integrity.

What makes me even more angry is not just that these people are outright liars -- but that they either have themselves, or a hardened core of followers who are more than willing to justify this through outright obfuscation, blissful ignorance, or just an even more tangled web of lies.

It simply astounds me that these people can give any justification to their acts...that they deny the overtly religious motivation for their actions yet shield them under a dense fog of confusing jargon. Christianity is not about lying to get ahead. It is about honesty and freedom, yet these people are more than willing to put a yoke of intellectual slavery over the necks of all of the school children of Kansas. This is simply pathetic and shameful, and I have to say to their supporters, Shame on You. Shame on you for demeaning and insulting a proud religious tradition. Shame on you for demeaning and insulting the hard work of scientists and researchers around the world, for decades...and lastly, shame on you for your "justified" hypocrisy.