ID: Mother of Evils

Churches urged to back evolution
By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter, St Louis

I was going to post just one clip from this article, but there's too much good [bad?] stuff. Definitely read the whole thing.

At any rate, though, here are some clips:

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.

Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.

Since when is a questioning, probing, well-informed mind a threat to scientific literacy? Sounds more like a threat to somebody's favorite dogma.

"The intelligent design movement belittles religion. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory.

"Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"

Two responses for Mr. Coyne: (1) ID is a scientific theory that says "it couldn't just happen"; it's people like you who are muddling the debate. (2) A Master Designer/Engineer wouldn't make such a bad God. What are you folks at the Vatican observing anyway? Chaos and ugliness?

But Mr Omenn (AAAS president) warned that teaching intelligent design will deprive students of a proper education, ultimately harming the US economy.

"At a time when fewer US students are heading into science, baby boomer scientists are retiring in growing numbers and international students are returning home to work, America can ill afford the time and tax-payer dollars debating the facts of evolution," he said.

Makes you wonder how Copernicus and Plato and DaVinci and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and Einstein all those other ID-believing guys ever made it through school.