Thursday, December 22, 2005

Dover Decision

The latest ruling in the Dover, PA Intelligent Design case should make me happy, but it doesn't. My fear is that this will now get played out on a much larger stage. The judge's ruling that ID is a religious movement, rather than a scientific model, is correct, but now some proponents of ID are citing this as religious persecution. A couple of quotes for you, from a Washington Post article:

"This decision is a poster child for a half-century secularist reign of terror that's coming to a rapid end with Justice Roberts and soon-to-be Justice Alito," said Richard Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and is a political ally of White House adviser Karl Rove.

The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank, wrote that the judge has a "pernicious understanding of what intellectual and religious freedom in America means."

So, my friends, the battle is far from over, and in many ways may have moved even further away from being a scientific battle than it was before. If you want more information on how the Discovery Institute is waging this war, go to http://www.evolutionnews.org/. It's good to understand the strategy of your opponent.

2 comments:

David Moles said...

The farther it gets from being a “scientific” “controversy,” the happier I am. If they want a stand-up fight about whether they can require religion to be taught in public schools, I’m all for it. They’ll get creamed.

Dr. Lisa said...

Wish I had your confidence, David. Like Judy, I find the word choices worrisome. There is no scientific controversy, but they are in good position to scare the masses by pitting science vs. religion.