In June, Governor Brad Henry vetoed the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act,” a piece of legislature authored by Sen. James Williamson and infamous fundamentalist Rep. Sally Kern.
If passed, this bill would have, among other things, guaranteed that “students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.”
You read that correctly.
Answer on a test that the universe began 6,000 years ago with a few words from the mouth of an invisible, magical entity rather than 13.73 billion years ago with the expansion of energy from a gravitational singularity? A-plus!
So it might have been if Gov. Henry hadn’t interceded. I’d like to tell Henry: Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and God bless you.
And to those of you who weren’t kicking up a fuss about the bill or at least complaining about it on your blogs: What were you thinking?
This isn’t the first time Kern and those like her have tried to insinuate superstitious nonsense into the curriculum of our state’s children, and it certainly won’t be the last.
Some of you may be too busy to follow each shot fired in the battle between the proponents of intelligent design ¬≠— the nom de guerre behind which creationism usually hides when its proponents seek to incorporate it into educational curricula — and its detractors.
This is fair enough, I suppose, though I hope you’re busy with something more productive than World of Warcraft.
To the rest of you, those who didn’t object to Williamson and Kern’s bill because you approved of it: you’re wrong.
Intelligent design doesn’t belong in schools for two reasons.
Firstly, it’s not science. Secondly, it’s not true.
Intelligent design proponents usually promote their cause by attempting to pick holes in the theory of evolution and then suggesting their own idea as the default alternative. And I do say “idea” advisedly because intelligent design is not even a theory.
A theory is a framework of propositions formulated to explain a phenomenon. A theory must be predictive, and it must be testable. It must be capable of being disproven.
Intelligent design makes no predictions, and is so amorphously defined that it is effectively unable to be proven false.
It is not even truly explanatory, as it creates the problem of the origin of the designer, an agent necessarily more complex than that which it has created.
Scientifically, intelligent design is worthless.
Intelligent design proponents frequently refer to the elaborateness and complexity of organic structures as evidence for design.
Breathtaking elaborateness, yes -- but nothing that isn’t predicted by evolutionary theory. Evolution accounts for the numerous design flaws we see in organic structures such as the human body, which intelligent design cannot do without a bit of contortion.
Take, for example, the fact that the urethra runs directly through the prostate.
Surely an entity capable of aligning the 100 billion cells of the human brain would know better than to make such an oversight. And a major oversight at that — just ask any man over sixty.
Observations in genetics, zoology, botany, microbiology, epidemiology, paleontology and ecology all affirm evolution’s validity with mountains of evidence, while not a single paper confirming intelligent design has ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Intelligent design — according to the overwhelming preponderance of evidence — is nonsense.
There are, of course, many more points in favor of design (and counterpoints to match them) than I could possibly put down here, so I encourage you to do your own research.
Talkorigins.org is an excellent resource for those interested in the creation/evolution debate and includes many links to both evolutionist and creationist websites.
Even a cursory examination will lead inescapably to the conclusion that intelligent design has no more place in our schools than does alchemy.
And, to those of you who were too busy to notice when the Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act was put forward: next time one of Sally Kern’s ilk proposes a similar piece of rubbish, take notice and get to angry letter writing.
We shouldn’t have to depend on the governor to defend Oklahoma’s children from fundamentalist indoctrination.
Zac Smith is a University College sophomore. His column will appear every other Monday.
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I agree. What I can't get over is the college student who absolute refuse to accept evolution, there comes a point when I think that rational people just have to plug there ears and go lalalalalalala to believe SCIENCE is wrong.... Another thing, I realize we are a conservative(hiss) state but when will people realize how stupid it makes us look that the masses keep electing people like Kerns....
Sigh, I just died a little inside
People need to read the series of posts at the following url.
http://www.perspectives.com/forums/view_...
The posts should help people to understand why we're making fools out of ourselves with respect to the ongoing c&s separation feud.
An awful lot of energy was expended here to hate on Sally Kern and her "ilk".
Taking a look at this young gentleman's face and deducing that he's probably a naturalist, it makes me wonder: Whence cometh his moralistic tendencies? Why is it wrong, on his naturalistic evolutionary view, to indoctrinate children with fundamentalist dogma? Why is it wrong to hate on homosexuals? Why is it wrong to push ID down people's throats?
I'm not saying I'm necessarily for (or against) any of this - what I am questioning is how Mr. Smith decides what's right and wrong, because he certainly assumes it an awful lot. Maybe his next column could tell us all how he knows that, beyond what boils down to "I don't like Action X, much like I don't like broccoli". Can he give a justification for all these calls to action? After all, he's just going to die some day and be worm food. So what if ID is taught in schools? So what if he wrote 10 letters to the governor?
The other flaws in the column are almost too numerous to count.
One wonders whether the OU Daily knew they were getting a cheap Dick Dawkins knock-off when they dispensed their August stipend.
-No Christian or ID-er believes the designer is "magical". Try again.
-This does not fit the proper definition of "superstition". Dictionary.com is a useful tool.
-ID and creationism usually don't get along well. They don't claim each other. If Smith had bothered to read a little bit of their interaction, he might know that. ID thinks creationism goes too far, unjustifiably far. Creationism thinks ID is wimpy and gives too much room to naturalistic presuppositions. They're not friends, though the greater enemy beckons to each of them.
-Smith didn't define "science" for us, so there's no way to know whether ID is science or not. Is "science" a methodology? A conclusion? Is "scientific" a method or a description of a set-in-stone orthodoxy?
-ID-ers don't propose ID as the "default" alternative. Simply as AN alternative. Perhaps Smith could quote an ID-er to that effect.
-One wonders if Smith realises that the principle of falsifiability is unfalsifiable.
-Smith shows no recognition of the obvious fact that the Designer may well have desired to create sub-optimal structures. But perhaps Smith knows something about the Designer that we don't, in which case he's lying to us all about not believing in ID.
-Smith tells us that evolution accounts for the many design flaws. Creationists and ID-ers alike will shout a hearty "Amen!" to that. What they want to know is how evolution accounts for the great deal of GOOD and USEFUL design, without resorting to the infusion of intelligence into the equation. Bring THAT up to an evolutionists and try to count the stutters.
-ID-ers have published quite a few papers in peer-reviewed journals. Smith is simply wrong about this.
He’s so wrong about so much, but he’s merely a messenger of a sad movement. One hopes the movement is dying, for the good of reason everywhere.
This piece of legislation has nothing to do with indoctrination/doctrination. The purpose for the bill was to make sure that *students* have freedom to express any idea they have. Hope not to burst your bubble but this right/freedom is already "guaranteed" under the Constitution (which is why i understand and approve of the governor's veto).
Indoctrination involves subjugation of ideas from authority (teachers, principals, school board, etc.) on down. In this case I don't see how you can make your argument based on what this legislation was attempting.
Rho:
One wonders if Smith realises that the principle of falsifiability is unfalsifiable.
One wonders if Rho realizes that the theory of evolution is falsifiable.
Looking at the language, I can not concieve of how this could support the case for ID. All a teacher has to ask is what the theory of evolution states, and a relgious answer will be wrong regardless of the religious content because a religious answer would not properly address the question.
Also, a hearty thanks to Mr. Smith for proving once again that religion is far from commanding a monopoly on intolerance. It is your lack of civility and respect for the belief systems of some 90% of the country that belies the idea that intellectual bigotry is a solely religious trait.
NAL,
Replace the "able" with "ed" and you're there.
BTW, think about it. Your comment responds not at all to the point I made and which you cited.
It's political rhetoric on both sides, and regardless of what either side righteously claims via ideologically distorted science that either, willfully ignores evidence that appears to support the creationists position, or, on the other side of the coin, wrongly leaps to the conclusion that evidence that can indicate that there is higher purpose in nature, necessarily requires an intelligent agency.
This culture war will never end, and nobody on either side of the debate ever modifies their position. It's always a matter of who has the vote and scientists are not even close to being immune from the influence of their ideological belief systems.
Evolutionary theory suffers equally from the adverse effects of both sides, as does physics and cosmology, and in spite of much theoretical righteousness from the left.
If religious dogma and superstition are to be politically forced into school science classes then It's only right that science be forced into the bible school curriculums across the nation. How do you feel about that you ignorant, arrogant pulpit pounding manipulators of the ignorant masses.That will fix you bastards!
Smith gave one website for his viewpoint. I think it only fair that a website be presented for an alternate viewpoint. For those that truly wish to be skeptical and question the establishment, and are willing to allow their evolutionist dogma to be challenged by scientific (!) observable evidence that evolution's evidence is non-existent, type in your search here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/
Yes, it's Christian; that means it might be little less based on faith than evolution.
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