Snippets from blogs …

Snippets from blogs on Bush’s “Intelligent Design should be taught in school” remark. Spot the repeating thread.

Protein Wisdom – “Similarly, I have no problem with Intelligent Design being taught alongside evolution in the context of questions concerning the origin of life-which, whether the President meant to do so or not, is in fact the context into which he placed the question. The origin of life-or first cause-is properly asked within the realm of philosophy or religious studies.”

Ballon Juice – “I have no problem with a brief fifteen minute discussion of intelligent design as part of a religious/philosophy class, provided schools offer those courses.”

DrivelBlog – In short, let science classes be science classes, and leave theoretical arguments for other classes such as philosophy.”

Two Babes and a Brain – “How is this science? How by proving order and adherence to “rules” does this indicate an Intelligent” Design? … Here is the thing: this theory is taught in philosophy or religion class–not science.”

MovieBob – “Matters of faith, spirituality and the supernatural are philosophy, and Intelligent Design belongs in a philosophy class.”

Louisiana Libertarian – “Intelligent design is not a serious scientific theory. It is the belief that some “intelligent designer” (ie. God or some space aliens) designed DNA to evolve in a programmed manner. That’s not science, that’s philosophy. It should be discussed in a religion or philosophy class, not taught as an alternative to evolution.”

All these are wonderful suggestions as a potential place to put ID. But of course they’re disingenuous because…well, let’s let another blogger snippet say it:

L’s Simple Observations – “It is a sad day when we are teaching philosophy in our Science classrooms. Maybe we should create an elective in High Schools that simply covers religion and philosophy…oh wait…there’s no religion in public schools, but there can be Intelligent Design????”

So thus we have a whole host of people giving a reasonable-sounding suggestion yet which has an absolute zero chance of happening. Religion class? Forget it. Philosophy class? Perhaps as a low-attendance elective.

Any other suggestions? I mean, ones that have a snowball’s chance in Havana of actually happening.

My main point here (and I’ll admit, it’s a little opaque) is that if you don’t think ID has any place in school, just say so. That’s a debate worth having. But if we’re just going to get suggestions that could never happen in today’s educational climate, that’s not really a debate.

A fair result could be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts on both sides of each question. Oh, that idea isn’t original with me. It’s a quote from Charles Darwin in the Introduction to “The Origin of Species”.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out. Comments welcome.)

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