Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

'Battle of ideology' in Ohio

Our political tradition sets great store by the generalized symbol of evil. This is the wrongdoer whose wrongdoing will be taken by the public to be the secret propensity of a whole community or class. We search avidly for such people, not so much because we wish to see them exposed and punished as individuals, but because we cherish the resulting political discomfort of their friends. To uncover an evil man among the friends of one's foes has long been a recognized method of advancing one's political fortunes. However, in recent times [1980] the technique has been greatly improved and refined by the added firmness with which the evil of the evildoer is now attributed to friends. acquaintances, and all who share his way of life.

Suspended science teacher Freshwater defends self in meeting
(By Alayna DeMartini, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, August 5, 2008)

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio -- A suspended Mount Vernon science teacher was like a rock star in the crowded auditorium of Bible-clutching, American-flag-waving people last night.

Most stood clapping and cheering when John Freshwater walked to the lectern and tearfully defended his teaching record.

He denied all grounds against him that have him fighting for his job as an eighth-grade science teacher in Mount Vernon schools.

Freshwater denied ever branding a cross into a student's arm, and he said he never taught creationism to his students.

"I never taught anything in the classroom that was prohibited," Freshwater said.

So many people showed up at last night's school-board meeting that it had to be moved from the Mount Vernon Middle School library to its auditorium. About 500 people came to hear Freshwater address the board; most were there to support him.

The issue of whether Freshwater discussed his Christian beliefs in class has been at the forefront since the family of one of Freshwater's former students sued the teacher and the school board, alleging that Freshwater had burned a cross onto their son's forearm during a science class.

The suit and an independent investigation said that Freshwater was teaching creationism in the classroom after the school board had told him not to.

Freshwater pointed out last night that his personnel file is solid and that he has a good record as a teacher.

"In my personnel file -- all 240 pages of it -- I have no reprimands. It's clean, it's absolutely clean," he said.

Freshwater, 52, has taught in Mount Vernon schools for 24 years. He was suspended without pay two weeks ago and has appealed his suspension.

Last night, he asked school-board members why, if the allegation is that he had been teaching creationism for 12 years, the issue is surfacing now.

He also questioned why school-board members aren't deciding whether he should be fired. Instead, that will be decided by an independent referee who has been selected by the state. Freshwater's appeals hearing begins Aug. 26.

Lori Miller, who teaches science and math at the middle school, said she thinks Freshwater "is being singled out."

Miller said she has religious items in her classroom, including a Bible, and has never been asked to remove them, as Freshwater was.

Dozens spoke in favor of Freshwater last night, as they have in previous school-board meetings.

Some people drove several hours to support him. Brian Gaiser and his wife, Linda, came from Cleveland after reading about the situation in an e-mail that circulated at their church.

"We believe religious freedom is not a violation of church and state," Brian Gaiser said.

But Paula Barone, whose three children were students in Freshwater's classroom, emphasized the importance of not favoring a religion in a public classroom.

She said that if one teacher is allowed to teach Christianity, "the question becomes whose particular Christian belief system will be taught."

Last night on television: The Genius of Charles Darwin (Channel 4)

By James Walton

In advance, The Genius of Charles Darwin (Channel 4) seemed to offer the rare and pleasing prospect of Richard Dawkins enthusing about somebody he likes rather than yet again laying into somebody he doesn't (ie God).

The introduction to last night's opening episode looked quite promising as well. Dawkins grew almost dewy-eyed as he piled up the superlatives and declared what an inspiration Darwin has been to him. Evolution by natural selection, we were told, is "perhaps the most powerful idea ever to occur to a human mind". It's also "nothing less than a complete explanation of the complexity and diversity of all life".

But as it turned out, Dawkins couldn't keep up this positive approach for long. Within 45 seconds, he'd already announced that the main aim of the series is "to persuade you that evolution offers a far richer and more spectacular view of life than any religious story" - with the last two words delivered, of course, in particularly withering tones. ("It's one reason I don't believe in God," he added, somewhat unnecessarily.)

And so, by and large, the programme continued. On the one hand, we got a brilliant and heartfelt guide to how Darwin's ideas developed. On the other, virtually every point was accompanied by a vigorous yet entirely predictable sideswipe at religious believers and their benighted ways. This only had the effect of constantly interrupting the interesting stuff. It was also like watching someone with a sort of anti-religious version of Tourette's syndrome - and certainly confirmed that the downside of having an obsession is that you become a bit of a bore.

Maybe one problem is that because of his evangelical atheism, Dawkins has had to field so many objections from mad creationists that he's forgotten how rare they are - at least in Britain. Either way, as he kept up his fierce arguments with people who weren't there, you had to keep reminding yourself that far from being a matter of deep controversy, Darwin's discoveries are so accepted here that the man is on every English tenner.

To be fair, Dawkins did manage to find a science class in a London school that seemed populated by an unusually religious bunch of teenagers. Faced with their belief in God as the source of life, he did his plucky best to remain twinklingly avuncular. Again, though, it was only a matter of time before he snapped - in this case by angrily lamenting their "lifetime of religious indoctrination", and packing them off on a coach trip to look for fossils.

In fact, what these teenagers were doing in the programme at all never became clear. Luckily, once they'd been left on a beach looking rather bored, they did disappear from the screen for a while, leaving Dawkins free to get on with the story of Darwin.

In this, little was left to chance. (Darwin, Dawkins felt the need to remind us, lived "in the days before the internet".) Occasionally too, there were possible elements of confusion. For most of the time, Dawkins emphasised that Darwin spent the 20 years between the voyage on the Beagle and the publication of On the Origin of Species painstakingly working out his ideas. Towards the end, we heard that Darwin had known the truth all along, but had decided not to publish because of the fuss it would cause. Nor was it easy to square Dawkins's belief in the "beauty" of natural selection (the process itself rather than just the concept) with the enormous cruelty involved - which he described with some relish.

Nonetheless, by the end, the story of how the theory of evolution evolved had definitely been traced with impressive care, and neatly combined with the other great scientific advances of Darwin's day - and of ours. (Dawkins was touchingly dismayed by the thought that Darwin didn't live long enough to see his ideas vindicated by the discovery of DNA.) There were also several moments that lived up to those advance hopes for a less cross Dawkins than usual. The sight of him looking awestruck as he gazed at a first edition of On the Origin of Species was especially stirring. When he showed us some of Darwin's own pigeon specimens from the 1850s, he duly handled them like holy relics.

And yet, all the time, those anti-religious outbursts just kept coming, with each glorious breakthrough in human understanding becoming another chance for Dawkins to say how rubbish religion is. As a true Darwinian disciple, he evidently felt obliged to admire everything about the man - which here included approving of the fact that Darwin was never "an aggressive polemicist". Ironically, of course, this only goes to show that, like many a religious believer before him, Dawkins doesn't always find it easy to live up to the ideals of his Master.

Local dentist wins state ed board primary
(By Barbara Hollingsworth, The Topeka Capital-Journal, August 06, 2008)

For the second time, Topekan Bob Meissner is headed for a general election battle for a seat on the Kansas State Board of Education.

Meissner, a dentist and Shawnee County GOP chairman, was trouncing his Republican primary opponent, Alan Detrich, an artist and self-described "fossil hunter" from Lawrence.

"I'm excited," Meissner said Tuesday night from Joe Vagabond's Coffee House, 3627 S.E. 29th. "I certainly am appreciative of all the support people have given me and their votes of confidence."

At 11:20 p.m., Meissner led Detrich with 76 percent of the vote with 234 of 275 precincts reporting. In Shawnee County alone, Meissner raked in 85 percent of the vote. The District 4 seat also includes Wabaunsee County and parts of Douglas and Osage counties.

Four years ago, Meissner narrowly lost to Bill Wagnon, a Topeka Democrat not seeking re-election.

In that election, the 57-year-old former Shawnee Heights Unified School District 450 school board member didn't have a primary opponent. This time, Meissner said having an early opponent may work to his advantage in the Nov. 4 general election, when he goes up against Carolyn Campbell, a former Topeka USD 501 school board member.

"It's kind of energized me earlier than I think what it might have been otherwise," Meissner said.

Detrich said he was "happy and honored" to have won Douglas County in the race, and he wished Meissner luck in the general election.

In the District 6 race, incumbent Kathy Martin, 62, was more focused on reading late Tuesday than watching her lead grow in election returns.

"It's always been in the good Lord's hands," she said. "That's where I left it."

Martin was defeating Bill Pannbacker, 59, in the Republican primary with 52 percent of the vote. Of 441 precincts, 432 had reported results in the northeast and north-central Kansas race.

Martin is the only incumbent seeking re-election to the state board. A retired teacher from Clay Center, Martin has been a staunch conservative during her time on the board, pushing in 2005 to add criticisms of evolution to the state science standards. Martin also recommended that school districts provide sex education only to families who opt their children into the lessons. Pannbacker, a Washington farmer with experience serving on a local school board, took an opposing stance on such issues.

The winner will face Manhattan Democrat Christopher Renner, who ran in large part to ensure that Martin would face opposition in the general election.

Everything is rubbish, we're all going to die, what's the point anyway, to hell with it all.

He's right, of course, we are all doomed, but most of us prefer to ignore this. Or at least keep it tucked away in a dark corner of the brain. To be ostriches. Or Christians.

...he actually says that, he really does--and he hasn't even left the house, sorry office, where he's sleeping, miserably, fitfully on the floor.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Today is the last day of the 2008 International Conference on Creationism. It is being held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (I wonder if Farmerman had time to attend any of the presentations.)