Bush: "Schools should teach intelligent design"

[npincus]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/02/bush.education.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss "intelligent design" alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life.

During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life. But he said students should learn about both theories, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation.

Christian conservatives -- a substantial part of Bush's voting base -- have been pushing for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. Scientists have rejected the theory as an attempt to force religion into science education.

Well folks, that's the Great Mind running our country- when he's not clearing brush and sweeping cow turds in Crawford.

[Deep13]

1. So Fundies are the best that the intelligent designer could manage?!

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Is there a DU award for most ironic headline? N/T

[garthranzz]

3. They haven't even got intelligent design right

Evolution and a belief in G-d aren't contradictory. In fact, evolution and what is being called "intelligent design" - that a "higher power" (let's just say G-d, shall we?) had a hand in creation aren't contradictory.

We can go even one step further. Evolution and creation in six days as delineated in Genesis aren't contradictory. An analogy: how long does it take to make a diamond? By pressing coal - with a little pressure over millions of years (the natural way, which is why diamonds are found beneath the earth, under mountains) or with a lot of pressure in a few minutes (the artifiical way, how we now make them in a lab)? Many manufactured diamonds are indistinguishable from real ones, if my information is correct.

Science and theology (philosophy) influence each other, and rightly so. But using one to discredit the other leads either to a Holocaust-scenario or a Shirley Jackson Lottery type religious dictatorship.

The theory of evolution is a theological nuisance and an ethical irrelevance.

A theology that blinds itself leads its followers into an abyss.

[jean]

4. Schools should teach critical thinking and we wouldn't be in this bushmess

in the first place.