D.C. group (Americans United) eyes Darby 'objective origins' fray

D.C. group eyes Darby 'objective origins' fray
By BOB ANEZ of the Associated Press

HELENA - A national organization that bills itself as a "religious liberty watchdog group" has asked Darby school officials for all documents related to the school board's recent decision to change its teaching of evolution in science classes.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State said Tuesday it is concerned that the mandate to teach "intelligent design" is an unconstitutional attempt to insert creationism into a public school curriculum.

Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington, D.C.,-based group, said records connected to the board's preliminary vote earlier this year will help determine whether a lawsuit will be filed to challenge the action.

"There's some thought of possible litigation if the evidence warrants," he said in an interview. "We're interested in seeing whether the purpose behind the demand of the school board is based on religious teaching, which would be flatly unconstitutional."

More at the Missoulian

Barry Lynn is my hero. :loveya:

Intelligent Design? Why yes, it was designed by an intelligent mind. And who's mind, you ask, why, God's mind, of course!

Go gettum, Barry! Keep the Dominionist from our door!

I can say "That earthy substance that fosters Growth", another guy would say "fertilizer" and somebody's kid would say "That's SHIT!"

The MO of the creationists is rather transparent. I am not sure why they're even wasting their money to fight for ID in court when it's nothing but thinly veiled creationism.

..this issue wouldn't exist, would it?

When someone can state that it was the Devil who planted all the dinosaur bones to trick us, and appear to believe it, I wouldn't expect that person to make the most efficient use of their own resources.

Thank God for that! :D

Perhaps my imagination is limited, but I can't figure our how you would teach it as science. Are the teachers supposed to suggest that intelligent beings came down one day, said, "Gee, it would be great if that dinosaur could fly," and started tinkering with its DNA to produce wings? And was this tinkering supposed to have happened in an alien test tube or to have been brought about within the parental egg and sperm by a magical wave of the hand? And what did a couple of dinosaur parents do with the baby Archaeopteryx that came out of their egg? Or did the aliens hang around for 10,000 years, making tiny adjustments one generation at a time?

I just can't tell the story in any way that makes sense -- and I don't know how any science teacher could either. All they can say is, "Well, we don't know exactly how dinosaurs evolved into birds, so one guess is as good as another." And *that* isn't science.

The "intelligent design" hypothesis doesn't suggest any kind of experiment. It's not falsifiable, and can't ever be a part of science.

But that won't stop them. As somebody already said, logic has nothing to do with their agenda.

Then tell the kids that they can think God programmed all this in at the big bang if they like. Call it modern Deism, something like the writers of the constitution believed was reasonable. I know, it is too simple, and it doesn't allow all the 7000 year old earth stuff, Adam and Eve, and all the rest, so it would never fly.