The Discovery Institute's official spokesperson Casey Luskin:
"Our priority with Intelligent Design is to see it advance as science and not as political hot potato," Casey said. "We want to see Intelligent Design debated by scientists, not by politicians."
We'd like to see that too!
Except . . . the ID folks have this curious habit of not submitting any data to experts in the field for analysis. You know, that pesky peer review thing.
So if the DI folks don't want ID debated by politicians, why are they working so hard to get so-called "academic freedom" bills passed in state legislatures? More after the jump . . .
Here are portions of the template for those academic freedom bills, so helpfully written by the Discovery Institute:
"This bill would expressly provide rights and protection for teachers concerning scientific presentations on views regarding biological and chemical evolution and students concerning their positions on views regarding biological and chemical evolution."
Note that they're not limiting "views" to being scientific, just the presentation. Besides, the DI labels ID as scientific - contrary to the vast majority of folks who actually, you know, do science.
"The Legislature further finds that existing law does not expressly protect the right of students to hold a position on views regarding biological or chemical evolution."
Neither does existing law protect the right of students to hold a position on whether the Cubbies will win the World Series. Why does the DI think that views and beliefs can be legislated? Sounds more like the inquisition than academic freedom.
"Students may be evaluated based upon their understanding of course materials, but no student in any public school or institution of higher education shall be penalized in any way because he or she may subscribe to a particular position on any views regarding biological or chemical evolution."
Note that the language is not "Students will be evaluated upon their understanding" which leaves the option open to allow "God did it" as a fully correct test answer. With the weasel word "may," the gate's wide open.
At the top of the template's webpage, you find a statement noting that the progress of science itself "depends on robust debate and critical inquiry." Instead of engaging in robust scientific debate and subjecting their research (right, none so far) to critical inquiry, ID proponents keep trying to legislate "academic freedom" for ID before ID has earned its academic stripes. And although they've denied that their goal is to have ID taught in science class, their actions speak much louder than words.
After all, it was the Discovery Institute who promoted "Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula: A Legal Guidebook" by David K. DeWolf, Stephen C. Meyer, and Mark E. DeForrest, of the Discovery Institute's Center for
"Moreover, as the previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution-and this includes the use of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that present evidence for the theory of intelligent design."
and
"Since design theory is based on scientific evidence rather than religious assumptions, it clearly meets this test. Including discussions of design in the science curriculum thus serves an important goal of making education inclusive, rather than exclusionary."
Likewise, from Luskin, 2005:
"Nonetheless, intelligent design is a bona fide scientific theory, and there is nothing unconstitutional about teaching about intelligent design in the science classroom. Most important, as a matter of academic freedom, teachers should be able to mention these scientific ideas in the classroom without fear of threats from the ACLU."
It is very clear that the DI does support the inclusion of ID in the science classroom. If the DI folks were sincere in their denial of this they'd make sure language prohibiting the teaching of ID as science was included in these bills. These "academic freedom" bills are just more examples of the blatant hypocrisy practiced by the intelligent design proponents.
You'd think they'd worry about facing their Designer someday.
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
