Looks like our global village full of idiots just expanded by one:
Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said “intelligent design” should be taught in public schools alongside evolution.
Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas, including intelligent design.
“I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith,” Frist said.
Hardly surprising, considering the hammering he took over his departure on stem cell research. Plus, of course, science is hard work and fraught with peril. Why, all those years of medical training and Frist still misdiagnosed Terri Schiavo.
Funny, because my copy of The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney just came in the mail.
Of course, if you ask this fellow, the reason we reject intelligent design being taught in high schools is because we are a bunch of ‘pussies.’
*** Update ***
As noted in the comments, “So with President Frist, we’ll have funding for stem cell research, but we’ll raise a generation of kids incapable of understanding it.”
Jim Caputo
I can’t begin to explain to you how much I love this quote.
It boggles the mind.
If faith is fact, then why does faith require faith? There’s a good tongue twister in there somewhere…faith, fact, fiction, phoney…maybe someone else can write it.
demimondian
What’s Frist’s aim here? I would have expected him to cleave to one side or the other, not waver back and forth, neither hot nor cold.
What’s his goal? Is he simply clueless?
ppGaz
So, if I have this right, “pluralism” means the same thing as “everything is equal to everything else.”
So, “broad range of fact” (a) includes things that are not facts at all but are claims which rest on proof by assertion, and (b) those things should be held equal to facts which can be tested and which rest upon a body of evidence.
In other words, faith, which is the opposite of and the antithesis of science, should be treated as if it were science. Called science. Taught as the equivalent of science.
So, the claim that a particular book was, um, written by the creator of the universe, a claim which after 200 centuries rests on a completely barren landscape of evidence, goes unchallenged in a “science” class.
Got it.
Note to Mr. Frist: Faith is the opposite of science, it is not another form of science. Faith, by definition, describes belief for which there is no evidence, or which persists despite evidence to the contrary.
That is not science, it is superstition.
KC
I think Frist just needs to get comfortable with the base again. What better way to do it than to back science that has great potential, yet back popular psuedo-science in the classroom. He can argue he’s working to cure disease and proselytize all at the same time!
KC
PpGaz, you’ve just hit on the truth of our times: the purveyors of absolutism are the relativists of today.
TallDave
ID is religion. It should be taught in Sunday school.
We get enough non-educational PC crap from the Left in our curriculae. We do not need religious crap from the Right added in as well.
Dave
“Pres. Bush, Sen. Frist and Tom Cruise walk into a bar….”
JC you are a teacher… When the ID lesson plan is drawn up, do you teach kids about the Thetans before or after the lesson on Genesis?
L. Ron Hubbard and the aliens must be jumping for joy.
jcricket
Demand equal classroom time for the Flying Spaghetti Monster now!
Seriously, any professional politician or political party that regularly aceeds to those that demand ID be taught in science class has absolutely no business governing.
Anderson
Polls show there’s no appreciable downside for a Republican who endorses ID in schools, so Frist doubtless finds this a safe issue to make nice with the base after his stem-cell apostasy.
Will this ID thing snowball? When do we get a prohibition on using federal money to fund research based on or employing Darwinist premises? “People who don’t believe in Darwin shouldn’t have to pay to support Darwinism!”
Don’t laugh, it’s worked for abortion funding.
ppGaz
Absolutism and relativism are two sides of the same coin.
The coin is dogma. You really can’t have pure absolutism or pure relativism, but the two make a happy cocktail together.
(I mean, you can’t have the pure versions unless you are insane, and I didn’t mean to be rude to Reoublicans).
Steve
Maybe that one clown at National Review will change Frist’s name from purple back to red now.
KC
Anderson, sad thing is I think you’re right. It’s really scary when you think about it.
Boronx
So with President Frist, we’ll have funding for stem cell research, but we’ll raise a generation of kids incapable of understanding it.
SoCalJustice
What’s next?
Is Frist (or Coburn/Thune/Santorum/DeMint) going to say that science curricula should include alternative medical theories like “babies are delivered by storks”?
Looking forward to future legislation asserting that the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are in fact real, well-respected, god fearing, American citizens.
SeesThroughIt
And they all vote Republican!
james richardson
so would Frist mind the parts of the book his faith is based on saying we can stone a guy working on the sabbath? how about the ones that say we can sell his daughter? or the ones that say we can stone his wife for wearing clothing made of two different fabrics? or does he only mean the ones that can get him elected and a few monetary donations?
how about we teach some broad opinions in schools that say women should be in charge of their own destinies? that gays aren’t pedophiles hellbent on converting his children? that jesus respected the poor and the humble, not the corporate whores?
Don Surber
Krauhammer observed once that Dean would make a lousy president because he is a doctor. Krauthammer went on to explain he knows that because he is a doctor. Frist is a doctor. Not only is he a doctor but a surgeon
Mike S
You should put that in a letter to the editor.
unpoetaloco
I wonder if Frist, the blood-letter, thinks that Harvard should start teaching that epilepsy is causes by demonic possession and offer a course in exorcism to cure it. Hey, we do live in a pluralistic society, after all.
Joe Albanese
I’m embarassed for my country.
Pb
Talk about your misnomers.
Bush and Frist support Intelligent Design? That’d be a first! Personally, I’d hold them up as evidence to the contrary. :)
Pb
unpoetaloco,
Personally, I’m waiting for them to support teaching about homosexuality as a lifestyle, in schools. Hey, we do live in a pluralistic society, after all. Students need to be exposed to different ideas.
Steve
Perhaps gays need to form a church, since they keep getting thrown out of the existing ones. Then we’ll see how people really feel about religion in school.
Sirkowski
BOW TO THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTERS, ramen!
decorticator
I wish intelligent design were taught in school as an example of something that is not science.
It’s perfect. It requires faith, it advances a conclusion that is already embodied in its assumptions. It is not explicitly mentioned in a sacred text, so deconstructing it isn’t overtly anti-religious.
It is not science. The fact that it is not science is trivially demonstrable, and it was designed by its inventors to appear to be non-religious.
Perfect, I say.
RiverRat
I fail to understand why uncertainty, which leads to faith, is termed the view of idiots by those that embrace another uncertainty.
Evolution is nothing but an unproven but methodolically validated theory that is still evolving.
A rational person would count themselves highly skeptical leaning towards validated theory. I reject biblical creationism and always have because it’s the creation of man without demonstrable validation. I do not reject ID but remain highly skeptical. To call it’s proponents “village idiots”, John, is a demonstration of the purest form of bigotry and absolutism; hardly a rational centrist position.
Intolerance is a weakness, John, and you suffer a severe case thereof.
Joe Albanese
RiverRat said,
Yes, and those that embrace ID are so very tolerant aren’t they? When I think of the fundamentalist religious right, tolerance is the word that immediatly pops into my mind.
Steve
There is a difference between believing something that is not fully proven in certain aspects, and believing something that is completely unprovable through and through. The former can be the subject of future scientific inquiry; the latter exists somewhere outside of science altogether.
Dothehop
I have the creeping suspicion that we are not trying to involve sociology into science, but philosophy. ID is purely philosophical and should be taught as such. I have studied religion in college as well as philosophy and sciences, and ID seems to fit the profile of philosophical discussion more than anything else. These idiots are getting it wrong in trying to include it into science where it does not belong, that is unless they have proof at Area 51 and are willing to include those findings as proof.
tBone
I don’t think people who believe in ID are idiots (although some are). While I don’t personally believe in it, I think ID can be a fairly elegant way for some people to reconcile their religious and scientific beliefs. And I have much more respect for someone who believes in ID than someone who believes in creationism – at least they believe evolution has actually taken place.
Now, people who believe ID is science and should be taught in schools? Yeah, those people are idiots.
james richardson
and it’s a good reminder that Frist went to Harvard, lest in the future we should find him complaining about those elite east coast liberals that he detests enough to be educated by.
perhaps he’ll say he studied, but he didn’t inhale.
RiverRat
Now, people who believe ID is science and should be taught in schools? Yeah, those people are idiots.
Why do you insist those who disagree with you are idiots? You sir, by simply making the statement, admit your bigotry.
Should ID be taught in schools? Yes! In Science classes? Yes, as alternative beliefs. As a Science? Absolutely not!
DougJ
I agree with Senator Frist. Why shouldn’t we in a diverse society considr ALL possibilities? Why shoud we be stuck with the tyranny of liberal notions of science? You mock “intelligent falling” but why should we not consider that possibility, that God guides the movement of things, that what scientists call gravity is in fact the workings of a Higher Power?
The liberals have had a monopoly on science for generations, ever since Darwin, if not earlier. Why are they so threatened by new ideas? Funny that “open minded”, morally relativistic people should reject out of hand ideas coming form a culture that is differnet from their own. Can you say hypocrisy?
CornDog
Bush–and now Frist–are themselves arguments AGAINST “intelligent design.” Stupidity reigns. Naw, come to think of it, with Frist, it’s self-serving, politically-weighed, pandering drivel. Shame on him. George II of course just doesn’t know better.
ppGaz
It’s because you understand neither faith nor science.
Faith, by definition, is belief without evidence. Belief contrary to evidence.
Science is a process for discovery of evidence. Science is not about belief, it’s about discovery. Faith is all about belief, and nothing about discovery.
It’s that simple. They two are not two versions of the same thing. They are two very different things.
Tap the Fem Tart
I don’t believe that “intelligent design” should be taught from a religious perspective. A fact-based science course should, instead, point out the flaws in what is known of the evolutionary process.
DougJ
What about discovery through faith? Are we to reject that our of hand? The earliest scientists — whom even the liberals revere — were motivated largely by faith. Should we reject them too?
ppGaz
Discovery of evidence, Doug.
Faith is belief despite, or in the absence of, evidence.
Scientific discovery is not made through faith. It’s made by doing work.
Try to keep up. This may require a level of abstraction that is beyond the limitations of your persona. It’s the “Charlie McCarthy Rule.”
tBone
2+2=5. This my alternative belief. I demand that it be taught in math classes.
The purpose of a science class is to teach science. Alternative beliefs are fine, but they belong in a philosophy or religion class.
And sorry, but I do think people who believe ID should be taught in science classes are idiots – or at the very least, ignorant of what science actually is.
tBone
I smell a rat. DougJ has spelled “liberal” correctly in two consecutive posts. I think it’s one of the fake DougJs (or one of the voices in the real DougJ’s head).
ppGaz
The question is, should DougJ be taught in schools?
james richardson
yes, liberals have a monopoly on science. we carefully craft it to support our beliefs, whereas when a conservative makes a scientific breakthrough we sneak into his office and replace the scientific discovery’s conservative gene with our newly grown stem-cell liberal gene.
we liberals seem to have a monopoly on most of the country, if you believe conservatives. yet the gop controls the government, has the highest rated news show in the country, and is often caught rewriting scientific studies to benefit the corporate whores who donated money to their election fund. yet liberals have the monolopy.
baronelmo
For George W. Bush and Bill Frist, a valentine:
“Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man’s possessions has been derided when new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands…
“The inferior man’s reasons for hating knowledge are not hard to discern. He hates it because it is complex – because it puts an unbearable burden upon his meager capacity for taking in ideas. Thus his search is always for short cuts. All superstitions are such short cuts. Their aim is to make the unintelligible simple, and even obvious… every man prefers what he can understand to what puzzles and dismays him.
“The cosmogenies that educated men toy with are all inordinately complex. To comprehend thir veriest outlines requires an immense stock of knowledge, and a habit of thought. It would be as vain to try to teach to peasants or to the city proletariat as it would be to try to teach them to streptococci. But the cosmogeny of Genesis is so simple that even a yokel can grasp it. It is set forth in a few phrases. It offers, to an ignorant man, the irresistable reasonableness of the nonsensical. So he accepts it with loud hosannas, and has one more excuse for hating his betters.”
–H.L. Mencken, 1925
I can’t decide which depresses me more – pondering just how far we’ve come since the above lines were penned EIGHTY GODDAMN YEARS AGO… or the fact that back then, American newspapers had the courage to print such a piece.
Where is a contemporary Darwin to explain what has since happened to our media’s testicles in the evolutionary process…?
Pug
The liberals have had a monopoly on science for generations
DougJ, this is such BS. Science isn’t liberal or conservative. Science is the one thing the world that is based on facts, not opinions or dogmas. Where in the world do conservatives come up with this argument that scientists have some kind of liberal agenda?
Pug
I don’t believe that “intelligent design” should be taught from a religious perspective. A fact-based science course should, instead, point out the flaws in what is known of the evolutionary process.
You know, I’m not sure that the “people of faith” should really want to get into the arena of science. If they do, proof of their theories will be required.
Scientists will ask you to prove your version of creation. Are you prepared to do that? I mean with evidence. Do you really want your children exposed to that?
DougJ
The liberuls (back to my old spelling if that makes you happy) rig these arguments by defining science in such a way that it excludes religion and faith-based inquiry. They do the same thing with a lot of issues — constitutional law, economic policy, etc. — and I’m getting sick and tired of it. I’m tired of hearing that Bush doesn’t know what he’s doing because he doesn’t have all the facts and figures at his fingertips. The truth is, he’s got something more important, a faith in a higher power and a willingness to think with his heart and soul, not just his brain. Krugman and the rest can lampoon this and brag about being “reality-based” but faith is very bit as real as the fact and figure based reasoning used by the libruls.
Steve
Dr. Frist had initially intended to become a dentist. He chose not to when he could not find a school that gave equal time to the tooth fairy.
AlanDownunder
Without atheists, science would still exist. Without theists who deny their theism in order to impose their theism, ID would not exist.
ID is dud religion but Frist has said no more about it than Gore once felt constrained to say. The US electorate is rife with dud religion. God must be appalled.
splat
‘The liberuls (back to my old spelling if that makes you happy) rig these arguments by defining science in such a way that it excludes religion and faith-based inquiry’
i don’t believe i’ve read anything funnier than this in weeks. no further proof that these christianists are incapable of understanding this issue is needed. give up. you simply cannot explain reality to people who deny it all day, everyday.
Throatwarbler Mangrove
Y’know, I’m starting to think that DougJ is punkin’ us, because there’s no way he can really be serious about what he’s saying. You’re just playing the devil’s advocate to the hilt there, aren’t you Doug? It’s a great caricature of a thinking person’s idea of a right-wing ignoramus, and very well played, but, c’mon, you’re just funnin’ us with this stuff, right?
“Why shoud we be stuck with the tyranny of liberal notions of science? You mock “intelligent falling” but why should we not consider that possibility, that God guides the movement of things, that what scientists call gravity is in fact the workings of a Higher Power”
Right?
Otto Man
I think we should also teach magic as an alternative to physics, and alchemy as an alternative to chemistry.
Anniethena
I think it would be a good idea to have a mandatory class in high school exploring religion. Teach the history of the earliest religions that we know…early Mesopotamian, Egyptian, eastern Indian, Jewish, Greek/Roman, Christianity, pagan European, Islam, Native American, and so on. Show how the Genesis creation stories mimic religious traditions predating Judaism.
Especially important would be showing how the Bible (as easily the most-cited religious text in this hemisphere) has gone through translation after translation, revision after revision, ommission after ommission…
In this setting, ID would fit nicely, for those who are seeking spiritual answers. It has no place in any science class.
Del
I think its important to point out that Frist is not for stem cell research as much as people make him out to be. He’s still very conservative on the issue. He opposes the most promising kind of stem cell therapy: somatic cell transfer (ie therapuetic cloning). He still wants to ban that, as does Pres Bush and most of the Republican Party. So being for ID in science class is not a change of ‘philosophy’ imo. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he actually does believe in it.