And the intelligent design debate rages on. Something that shouldn’t even be an issue in public education in the world’s most powerful country in 2005. The CNN article is a good example of how the creationists have coopted language in order to present themselves as the enlightened, scientific ones, their freedom of speech being quashed by those nasty evolutionists:

But in his opening statement, the school district’s attorney defended Dover’s policy of requiring ninth-grade students to hear a brief statement about intelligent design before biology classes on evolution.”This case is about free inquiry in education, not about a religious agenda,” argued Patrick Gillen of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Dover’s modest curriculum change embodies the essence of liberal education.” The center, which lobbies for what it sees as the religious freedom of Christians, is defending the school district.

There’s so much double-speak in these two paragraphs that I don’t even know where to begin. They’re fighting for the right to make children listen to what is essentially malarkey? This is not about religion, yet they’re lobbying for religious freedom? I’m already getting a headache, and I’m only two paragraphs into the article.

Creationists/ID’ers tend to defend introducing ID into public school curriculum by arguing this freedom of speech angle. I don’t know when freedom of speech began to include the freedom to be stupid. If we’re going to go ahead and teach any old idea (note that I call it an “idea”, as opposed to a “theory” which is a set of statements to explain phenomena that has been heavily tested and widely accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community, apart from a few whackjobs), then why not teach that the sun revolves around the earth, which is also supposedly supported by the Bible? Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is, imho, a much sexier idea than intelligent design. Which reminds me, I need to write a letter to my representatives to support the use of pirates to combat our hurricane woes. Arrr, matey.

Honestly, I don’t care what these people believe. That’s the domain of faith, and nobody wants to change their opinions. I don’t even really care if intelligent design is taught in schools. As long as it’s in the myths and legends class, alongside Hopi creation stories and Viking tales. Where it belongs. If people absolutely don’t want their precious kids’ ears being tainted by any of that there evolution talk, then what’s stopping them from sending their kids to private school? Where, as an added bonus, they wouldn’t have to hear about all that nasty sex stuff either.

I’ll give the creationists credit, though, for being creatively zany. Apparently there’s a Christian Dinosaur Museum being built in California, in an effort by the creationists to “take the dinosaurs back.” I guess this is like a cosmic touch football game, Darwin vs. Jesus or something. I guess the story is that the dinosaurs not only walked the earth with people, they also got onto Noah’s ark and then later became extinct due to overhunting. No answer yet as to why the T-rexes didn’t just destroy the shit out of that ark while devouring everything else.