A battle of unequal opponents (Evolution vs. 'intelligent design')

From Leonard Pitts Jr. ...

T he Ku Klux Klan is a terrorist group. It was organized in 1865 for the purpose of controlling and oppressing newly freed slaves through intimidation, violence and murder.

Not many people will argue with that. Historians in particular will find the statement uncontroversial.

But 10 years ago in Vicksburg, Miss., I learned an alternative view. Vicksburg was an especially stubborn stronghold of Confederate sentiment during the Civil War — refused to celebrate the Fourth of July again until 1944. Small wonder, then, that a museum there featured an exhibit claiming the Klan was actually formed to save the South from corrupt black governments and that, while “many people suffered, some no doubt innocently,” the night riders sought only to “restore some semblance of decency.”

It’s a lie, of course, but it’s a lie some of us believe. So here’s the question: When we teach schoolchildren about the Klan, must we give equal time to this view? Are we required to treat it as if it has the slightest credibility?

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/12809302.htm

you have to be fair to liars and present their side as if it is simply another kind of truth. A lie is a lie, and the truth does not fall somewhere between the truth and a lie.

As for "Intelligent Design" I feel that its supporters are living proof that it never happened.

defended the KKK. However, as a point of interest, as I was doing some academic research on the history of Vicksburg, I found several
editorials in the local newspaper, the Vicksburg Evening Post, complaining that the black policemen (circa 1869) were beating white citizens and that it should be stopped. This was during the so called
"carpet bagger" period in which the entire city government was in the hands of blacks who had been put in by Northern opportunists.

This period was short lived in Vicksburg as a white administration was voted in during the late 1870's. There is no doubt the the Federal Govt. did a terrible job of reconstruction, a fact that may have greatly exacerbated racial tension.