Lesson plan No. 1

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http://www.suntimes.com/output/steinberg/cst-nws-stein03.html

Speaking of science. Once again, President Bush and I are in complete agreement on an issue and, surprisingly, that issue is "intelligent design," the pseudo-scientific sham that the religious right cooked up to jam their beliefs into public schools, where they don't belong.

Bush told a group of reporters that he feels intelligent design should be discussed in school. So do I. What the president didn't say was how it should be discussed, and so, in the spirit of public service, I offer my own intelligent design curriculum, which should be inserted about midway in the two weeks sixth-graders spend learning about evolution and Darwinism. The teacher should sit on his desk, sigh mightily, and say:

"OK, kids, as we now know, life on Earth evolved over billions of years, from tiny, one-celled organisms gradually evolving into the complex animals we see today. The fossil record and biological evidence clearly supports this understanding of our world and most scientists endorse it.

"Except, of course, those whose religious faith overwhelms their reason. They cleave to a belief they call intelligent design -- basically the notion that, gosh, the world is so darn complex that God had to make it, he just had to. There isn't any scientific basis for this -- it's the Genesis story from the Bible with a few facts picked out of nature and hung on it like Christmas ornaments, plus whatever inconsistencies in evolution they can find.

"Well, of course, religious faith is a wonderful thing, and in this country everyone is free to believe any creation myth they like: You can believe that the universe was laid as an egg from the Great Cosmic Turtle, and people do.