Saturday, May 05, 2007

If you can't force science to match your religion

Then incorporate scientific words into your religion! Then you can sell really crappy science books with religious overtones!

PZ Myers at Pharyngula
:
If you've been wondering what the new name for repackaged Intelligent Design was going to be after the drubbing it took in Dover, look no further: it's going to be called "evolution". The new textbook from the gang at the DI, intended to replace Of Pandas and People is going to be titled "Explore Evolution".

It's a cunning plan to sow confusion, which is ultimately all the Intelligent Design creationists are good at. If state education standards mandate instruction in evolution and if the laws of the land make teaching Intelligent Design creationism illegal, well, they'll adapt and teach "evolution" … it's just that this version of "evolution" flouts the ideas of experts, ignores the evidence, misrepresents the theory, and promotes a role for design in "evolutionary" history.

It's an interesting tactic. Simply write a very bad book about evolution, market it appropriately, and find enough ideologically motivated science teachers to use it, and they will have effectively continued their efforts to subvert science education in this country. After all, the successful court challenges to block creationism in the classroom have done so on the basis of their violation of the separation of church and state, not so much on their quality and competence; propagating awful science is probably constitutional.

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