Bush: Schools Should Teach 'Intelligent Design' Theory Alongside Evolution

[NewWaveChick1981]

This is from today's Chronicle of Higher Education. I love the comment from Professor Krauss---he puts Bush firmly in his place! (Wait...that still won't work---he thinks his place is in Washington as Emperor...)

http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/08/2005080303n.htm

Schools Should Teach 'Intelligent Design' Theory Alongside Evolution, Bush Says

By JAMIE SCHUMAN

Washington

President Bush said on Monday that schools should teach "intelligent design," a theory asserting that an intelligent agent helped shape the origins and history of the earth and life, in addition to evolution, the theory of life that enjoys overwhelming support from scientists.

Mr. Bush, who spoke in an interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, said students should learn about intelligent design to understand the debate over creation-of-life theories. His support could help the efforts of Christian conservatives who have pushed for public schools to teach the theory. "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Mr. Bush told the reporters. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

Intelligent-design theory holds that some biological systems are so complex that they could have arisen only through the action of an intelligent force -- ostensibly divine -- and not simply through Darwinian evolution. Critics of the theory have described it as a more-sophisticated version of creationism and a way to insert religion into science classrooms. The National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have said intelligent design is not based on scientific methodology and should not be taught alongside evolution in schools.

Lawrence M. Krauss, a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, said introducing the theory into curricula would dilute science. "Teaching something that is not science in a science class under the guise of free speech is just the wrong policy," Mr. Krauss said. He said the interview demonstrated Mr. Bush's "complete lack of interest in and knowledge of science."

Copyright © 2005 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

[MercutioATC]

1. I completely agree. Put on your pirate outfit!

http://www.venganza.org/

[Puzzler]

2. The irony of this whole situation...

... is that Bush and his fellow-fundies' anti-scientific theocratic attitudes are very similar to the kinds of Islamic anti-progressive, anti-scientific, attitudes that he claims to oppose.


-P

[Demeter]

3. Bush Doesn't Do Irony

He confuses it with "ironing".

[Puzzler]

4. sorry...

... I forgot ;)


-P

[NewWaveChick1981]

5. Yeah, I don't know about "intelligent agent" theories...

... I've been pondering this... After all, if an "intelligent agent" had his/her/its hand in all of this, how do you explain W and his Neocon Phenomenon???