Preach the controversy

Taking a page from overseas, Christians are sending "intelligent design" material to schools to "teach the controversy" regarding evolution in science class. (The same thing happened after the media reaction to the Dover trial.)

Oh dear... There is no good here. First of all, yes, let's teach about intelligent design... in philosophy or religious discussion classes. ID is religious. It can basically be summed up as "I don't know how the universe got to be as amazing as it is... so Goddidit is the answer I choose".

Evolution is a theory - in this case, "theory" means "an explanation that encompasses facts and is scientifically rigorous" and not "educated guess" as TV (and other media) has it. It can be challenged, for example "rabbits in the Cambrian", ie fossils where they shouldn't be. ID explains nothing (how did god do it? Who or what created god?), and cannot be challenged ("I don't know, but it happened.")

Louisiana recently passed a bill that allows teachers to teach the "controversy". This is a major set back. Creationism was denied access to science classes because it was religion. It recast itself as ID and tried again, and was shot down again (Dover). Now the tactic is "allow teachers to teach both sides of evolution". This has been successful once, and opens the doors.

THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY. EVOLUTION IS AS CLOSE TO FACT AS SCIENCE WILL ALLOW. (And anti-evolutioners who feel like commenting, take it to Pharyngula.)

There is a poll for "should ID be taught in science classes?". Yes is currently winning... but I'm not sure how much of it is unbiased (not that an internet poll is exactly rigorous).

Let's be honest here. Evolution is a part of reality. Check this out: reality is cool. (As is xkcd!)

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