Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

That's alarming. It shows how infectious the idea is."

OCR says 'intelligent design', creation not on the curriculum
(BHA Press Release, 19 May 2006)

The exam board at the centre of a storm surrounding the teaching of creationism has committed to re-visit its guidance to avoid the threat to science teaching that many feared, and to issue strict guidance to trainee teachers on their exam programme.

The 'Gateway Science' specification had caused controversy because teachers were asked to 'explain that the fossil record has been interpreted differently over time (e.g. creationist interpretation)'.

But now, in a letter to the British Humanist Association, OCR said they were 'happy to commit to reviewing the wording of this part of the Gateway Science (Biology) specification for the next edition'.

They continue that 'more immediately, we shall be issuing guidance in the many In-Service Teacher training (INSETs) and Network meetings we carry out during the year for the specification.'

OCR envisage the guidance to teachers being 'along the following lines:

'Only a creationist interpretation of the fossil record prior to, or contemporary, to Darwin needs to be explained in this context - such that students are able to understand the fundamental departure of Darwin's work from the religious norms of his time.'

Concerns had been raised that the inclusion of creation in the specification could operate as a Trojan horse for those who wish to smuggle creationism and intelligent design into their science teaching. This new guidance makes clear that this should not occur.

Andrew Copson, BHA Education Officer, said: 'We welcome the sensible decision of OCR. It is clear that they never intended that religious ideas should be taught in science, but too many creationists and advocates of intelligent design hide behind the claim that they want nothing more than for schools to 'teach the controversy'. We were concerned that by highlighting evolution as an area around which there can be controversy gave the wrong impression. Now it will be made clear that no scientific controversy does in fact exist, and there can be no teaching of religion in school science.'

School under fire for teaching evolution
(Montreal Gazette, May 19, 2006)

A high-school science teacher vowed Friday to continue telling his Inuit students about Darwin's theory of evolution, despite complaints from parents in the northern Quebec community of Salluit.

Education officials from the Kativik School Board said the principal of Ikusik High School cannot ban the teaching of evolution, since it is part of the provincial physical-science curriculum.

Alexandre April, who teaches French and physical science to students in Grades 7 and 8, said he was told repeatedly by the principal to stop teaching evolution, for fear of hurting their students' religious beliefs.

The Pentecostal Church is active in Salluit, a community of just more than 1,100 people located beside Ungava Bay, on the northwestern coast of Nunavik.

Intelligent design ruling likely to cool challenges to evolution, lawyer says
(By JENNI LAIDMAN, The Toledo Blade, May 19, 2006)

Want to see an example of evolution in action? Then look at how evolution's main opponents have changed, said the lawyer who won the case against intelligent design in Dover, Pa.

They're "an excellent example of evolution in a nonbiological world," said Stephen G. Harvey, who spoke last night at the annual meeting of the Northwest Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union at the Toledo Club.

"They've adapted their strategies to a hostile legal environment. First, they pushed straight creationism, then it was creation science, then intelligent design, then 'teach the controversy,'" he said in an interview with The Blade before his speech.

Mr. Harvey co-led the ACLU's successful court battle against the teaching of intelligent design in the Dover schools. Intelligent design proponents maintain that some things in nature are too complex to have evolved and must have been made by an unnamed designer. Evolution says all living things were formed by incremental changes over time.

The strongly worded decision from U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones in the Dover case hasn't driven evolution's opponents toward extinction, but it does make future legal challenges to evolution a "hot stove" no one wants to touch, Mr. Harvey said. It could keep evolution from facing a court challenge for a long time. "They saw somebody else touch the stove and get burned. I think that's the lesson learned in Ohio," he said.

The Ohio Board of Education reversed a two-year-old policy encouraging the teaching of intelligent design after the Dover decision.

The cost of the lawsuit to Dover schools surely discourages many lawsuits. Judge Jones awarded the three groups representing the plaintiffs $2 million. Mr. Harvey's firm, Pepper Hamilton LLP, of Philadelphia, agreed to recover costs only, reducing the award to $1 million, which went to the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

If evolution lands in court again, it will be over something called "teach the controversy," Mr. Harvey said.

They're "an excellent example of evolution in a nonbiological world," said Stephen G. Harvey,

"Teach the controversy" is too funny to contemplate. It doesn't even mention anything to do with "religion" any more.

It's a perfect issue for any philosophy course. LOL

"Teach the controversy" is too funny to contemplate. It doesn't even mention anything to do with "religion" any more.

It's a perfect issue for any philosophy course. LOL

... May be it's just that you find your sayings funny and I don't.

It's the old "if you can't get it in the front door, sneak it in the back door" trick that never dies due to reincarnation of failed ideas into new packaging? That's kind of religion-like, isn't it? reincarnation?

And perhaps you find your ramblings pertinent, salient, humorous, relevant, or some combination thereof while others find the reverse.