Georgia and Science Class

WorldNetDaily: Separation of sticker and state: "Suggesting that evolution is a theory rather than fact endorses religion and causes anguish among impressionable school children in an Atlanta suburb, at least in the opinion of U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper.
On Thursday, the Clinton-appointed district judge dove head first into the evolution versus intelligent design debate by ordering the Cobb County Board of Education to remove a sticker from science textbooks stating that 'evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things.'"
David N. Bass is a 19-year-old Christian homeschool graduate who writes for World Newspaper Publishing and is a regular columnist at AmericanDaily.com, IntellectualConservative.com and RenewAmerica.us. While attending college, he interns at a pro-family public-policy organization. Bass is currently working on his first novel.

I don't know much about David N Bass, but since he is 19, I would advise him, friendly like, to learn a bit more about science, so that he can understand what sets science apart from other endeavours. Then he might understand why ID is not acceptable and calling Evolution "just a theory" is plain, unadulterated ignorance of the wide application in the life sciences of that very theory.

ID has ambitions (if an inanimate objects and ideas can have such a thing) at being science, but hasn't made any progress on the proof side, particuly the falsablity of the theory. We need to know exactly what the intervention of the Intelligence is in Life, and does it restrict it's self to the living world. It is all very well to talk about irreducible complexity (Behe) or specified complexity (Dembski), but to claim some intelligence did it because of the existence of those concepts seems a long stretch and can't be established in a scientific method. To date there has been only one feeble attempt in a book review.

Intelligent Design has, without a doubt been set up by the same group as the Duscovery Institute in Seattle to break into the Science curricullum in US Secondary Schools on a State by State basis, School Board by School Board. In this case a sticker is placed in a science text book in the appropriate section that covers Evolution saying something like Evolution is just a theory and that there are other theories. This implies that the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is somehow, unspecified, inadequate to the task. Yet biological sciences of one kind or the other consider this theory to be a foundational theory, one which underpins all their work, shouldn't that take priority over a school board opinion. Surely a philosophy of Science class or Comparative Religion class would be more apropriate in an honest world.

Not surprisingly, it wasn't long before atheists began experiencing concern (perhaps we should call it theophobia) that school children might actually seek alternatives to evolution to account for origins of the human species.

This is an insult to many good Christians, to equate defending science with being an atheist is just plain polemics and a narrow field of view for a Christian, the sort of misrepresentation common in dictatorships when referring to any opposition that may occur.

Their rationale for the lawsuit raises some interesting questions. Can a sticker that never mentions the words Creator or creationism be construed to endorse intelligent design? Can stating a fact (namely, that evolution is only theory, a reality conceded by many evolutionists themselves) be somehow tied to religious extremism? Can merely implying that there might be other theories to account for mankind's origins establish a state-sponsored religion?

Indeed is Intellegent Design creationism? It doesn't matter how much they cry and wave etc., ID is Creationism, the sticker was placed by a school board intent on influencing the children to a particular religious view of the world in science class. The State can't be seen condoning one particular religious idea, particularly in a Science class. If science agreed ID was science, it would be a different matter, but that is not the case, and we have a particular branch of Christianity, indeed a twig on a branch we will call Fundamentalist Creationists. They will betray their motives in cross examinations in court, but free to say what they please in public, they blindly parrot the mantr that ID is science. Why then do they have to get the school board stacked to place such idiocy in the text book? Surely if ID was esablished as legitamate science then there would be no problem.

The children need to understand science and introducing debates that are outside the science curricullum is irrational, unfair to the childrens time, and intelligence.

He says further our young erstwhile correspondant

The Judge declares in his ruling that an "informed, reasonable observer would understand the school board to be endorsing the viewpoint of Christian fundamentalists and creationists that evolution is a problematic theory lacking an adequate foundation." How can a sticker that comes nowhere near to specifically backing creationism or debunking evolution accomplish this, one might ask? According to Judge Cooper, it does this by somehow conveying "an impermissible message of endorsement" and by telling "some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others that they are political insiders."
That's a central theme of Judge Cooper's rationale. To avoid offending the small number of atheistic children in public schools, every possible vestige of God or religion must be wiped away, including any insinuation that there just might be legitimate theories on origin aside from evolution. Forget about the vast majority of Jewish, Christian and Islamic students who believe in alternative origin theories – the all-important goal is to appease atheists.

Now the children are atheistic, perhaps every atheist should be burnt at the stakes? No David, the Judge was not trying to accomodate atheists, he was trying to prevnt creationists putting an irrational message in a SCIENCE text book. It seems to me that David doesn't fit the "informed reasonable observer". The "vast majority of Jewish, Christian and Islamic students who believe in alternative origin theories", now where does he get this data, and how does he know these students agree with him. I know plenty of Jews, Christians and Moslems who would be happy to study sciences as science and discuss Genesis in their seminary classes or Bible classes. Get a grip man, the world is a lot bigger and more diverse than you think, clearly, this isolated school or state district does not represent the world or the nation or Georgia for that matter. It represents the internal dynamics of that community, define your claims otherwise you will sound rediculous in any debate with rationalist, let alone evil atheists.