I’ve just spent way too long flailing away in the horribly cramped confines of 150 words trying to write a letter to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on the whole ID-in-schools silliness. I wrote about a zillion drafts, and WeatherGirl expertly poked holes in one after another, sending me back to the drawing board time after time. Gotta love having a wonderful editor across the kitchen table, but it’s darn frustrating when you just want to get the thing done and turn it in. Fuss, whine, moan – rinse until done.
So, after much work, we’ve gotten to here:
In his 23 April piece, Dave Eaton is clearly unable to critically examine the complexities of the “Intelligent Design” debate or understand the underlying scientific issues. He starts by seriously misrepresenting the state of the debate in evolutionary biology in a desperate attempt to create the illusion of a crisis when none exists. He then suggests that ID should have some place in our science curriculum. Yet Paul Nelson, a major spokesperson for the ID cause, recently admitted in a talk here at UM-Morris that to date ID had no scientifically testable hypotheses to offer.
Until ID can bring such hypotheses to the table, it should not and cannot play a meaningful role in our science curriculum. ID may have a useful role to play in a course on creation myths, but not in our children’s science courses.
Thoughts or suggestions are most welcome, although I’ll need to send this off tomorrow night (Sunday, 1 May).
For those with a twisted interest in the painful birth pangs of this letter (and as evidence for my students and son when they complain about all my scribbles on their work), I’m actually including an abridged history below the fold of how we ended up with this draft.
Continue reading “A draft of a Strib letter on the neo-creationism silliness”
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