Just go read Red State Rabble and the Panda’s Thumb. My favorite entry so far:
One after another, the intelligent design witnesses, brought into Kansas at taxpayer expense, were forced to admit under a withering cross examination by Science Coalition attorney Pedro Irigonegary that they did not bother to read the majority draft of the science curriculum.
John Calvert asked them all to evalutate the minority draft and compare it to a document they haven’t read.
As Jack Krebs, a member of the majority of the science writing committe points out, the standards the so-called expert witnesses haven’t read contain the section in the standards on scientific inquiry — even though they complain that the majority draft limits inquiry by ruling out design.
Faith-based science meets faith-based testimony.
Jason
Religious fundamentalist in America seems to have a trait that Liberals are often derided for. Basing their beliefs too heavily on emotionalism and less on critical thinking.
The DV
The idea that a layman committee is capable of competantly judging whether or not a theory is scientifically sound is absolutely absurd. It takes years of training to produce a scientist, and these theories are already reviewed in rigorous scientific journals.
The greatest victory the Idiot Brigade has won in their war against rational thought is moving the validity of Creationism v. Evolution into the public domain, where it will be decided not by those qualified to judge but by those who’s knowledge of scientific theory, and, in some cases, the basic scientific method, is comparable to George Lucas’ knowledge of astrophysics.
Orac
Religious fundamentalist beliefs do far more harm than just hurting science education. They can kill. For example, fundamentalists are at the core of anti-vaccination movements in Nigeria, Asia, and the U.S..
KevinA
^The DV is, sadly, correct with his/her analysis. I think it is amazing that people believe the following:
1. The Earth is around 10,000 yrs. old. You take The Bible literally, then you have to believe this.
2. The whole thing was done in a week. Now, yes, with God, all things are possible. I honestly believe that. Too bad there’s ZERO scientific evidence for that.
3. People lived for 900 years, as the Bible says.
But according to most polls, those of us who get the science behind Evolution are in a serious minority. A religious revival has temporarily emerged since 9/11. That’s a good thing, but the religious beliefs taking hold are very fundamentalist.
Too bad. B/c evolution and faith in God are not contradictory.
Dave_Violence
Question: How thoroughly entrenched in the curriculum is the theory of evolution? That is, is it central to high school biology class? How much biology are high school students taking? While you’re disecting a fetal pig are you learning about evolution or anatomy – immediate learning, that is? Likewise, when taking a class in taxonomy (assuming high school biology even gets that far), is evolution being taught or is taxonomy being taugh?
Kimmitt
Well, there’s a lot of review of taxonomy being done right now, since Linnean taxonomy preceded our understanding of DNA. That said, my biology class was pretty much “how does evolution fit into this phenomenon” for everything we discussed. It’s central to the science.
me
To 99% of the people who believe it, Evolution is also faith based science. To the other 1%, it’s just the only rational explanation they can come up with without invoking divinity.
Kimmitt
Well, yeah, most folks just accept the scientific consensus as fact and move on. I certainly have no independent reason to believe that Special Relativity is a good description of the universe.
me
I do. But then, the effects of Special Relativity can be recreated in a lab and are, in fact, observed and employed in practical devices.
Aside from the production of a few basic amino acids, the same cannot be said of the genesis of life. And, except on a microscopic scale, the same cannot be said of Evolution.
Kimmitt
I take some drugs which were discovered based on chemical pathways that require evolution to understand, and they control the symptoms of my chronic illness. So it goes both ways, y’know?
me
Require evolution to understand? Or, evolution seems to provide an explanation of how they got there?
The tooth fairy seems to explain why young teeth fall out. Is that the standard under which we construct objective theories?