Caution: Parental Guidance Required

I don't talk much about the fundie encroachments into the public schools under the guise of Intelligent Design. Maybe that's because the thinking behind ID is, in many ways, similar to my own thinking about things supernatural.

I believe in God, in no small part, because it's a handy way to account for the sensations I get when faced with the astonishing nature of the physical world. I can't know if universe was created by design, but I sure feel like it was.

My feelings, though, are one lousy basis for a science curriculum, though, and that's where I part ways with the Intelligent Design enthusiasts in public education. It's not science, it's theology. It's not a theology that I profoundly disagree with, as such, but it's also not one I want the government spending scarce education resources to promulgate. Scientology has 'science' right there in its name, but we don't teach it in psych classes.

Jesse Taylor does cover the ID beat regularly, and has some great stuff up today...

In Kansas, students are being armed with "Ten Questions To Ask Your Biology Teacher About Design". It's a brilliant tactic - give kids who don't know enough about evolution to understand the answers questions challenging it. Particularly when evolution, which will likely give refined scientific answers to the questions, is up against "logic" that seems straight out of a self-help manual?

Jesse handily dismisses the "questions," and the answers provided by the creation 'scientists' who argue for ID, but the average middle or high school biology student isn't likely to approach them with Jesse's sophistication. This is serious stuff, the attempt to dislodge science in favor of theological indoctrination in the schools.

Happily, all the offspring of Upper Left successfully survived their public school years without undue fundie influence, but some kids today aren't so lucky. If you've still got kids in school, make sure you know what they're being taught, and what's being aimed at them by the other side.

And if they come after the Absolutely Adorable Grandaughter of Upper Left (have I mentioned that she's the smartest and prettiest girl in the whole world), no mercy.