Could you ever see this nonsense happening here?:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1579198,00.html

-snip-
Parents challenge US 'intelligent design' teaching

· Theory is repackaging of creation dogma, court told
· Test case could decide how evolution is taught

Julian Borger in Harrisburg
Tuesday September 27, 2005
The Guardian

Religion and science clashed in a drab Pennsylvania courtroom yesterday over a test case that could decide how evolution is taught in America's state schools.
-snip-

-snip-
In yesterday's court hearings, supporters argued "intelligent design" does not stipulate what that guiding force might be, and is therefore not a religion.
-snip-

Well, it certainly isn't science, either.

I mean, we are intelligent, rational people, right?

Those are our problems...other cultures/nations have their own. The average American is convinced of evolution as good science. Unfortunately, we now have a corporatist President who is manipulating a minority of Americans to be his "base" while he's paying off another portion who can afford to send their children to private schools.

Actually, in my travels, I've always thought our rural south and rural Ireland/Scotland had a LOT in common. Even our southern mountains were once part of the Caledonian chain. The people share very similar cultures, also.

All countries and cultures have their own particular problems.
We have ours...you have yours. To that degree, we're all in this together.

Sorry, I know this is a UK forum and I try to stay out of here out of deference to that, but this caught my attention. The way the US is constantly and generally scorned and criticized by the international press is a problem for many of us...me included. We certainly have more than our share of lunatics over here, but we all have our own variations on the theme.

My question, "I mean, we are intelligent, rational people, right?" was meant with a certain irony, as this is quite obviously not the case. Things which start in the US have a history of spreading to the rest of us.


- Exactly, which is why this is News to people not living in the US. I think a certain amount of mockery is inevitable, though I didn't detect it in the Guardian story. No-one is suggesting that all Americans go along with this nonsense, nor would I expect them to.

We have our fair share of lunatics over here too, but I don't see any of them having the power or influence to try to have this nonsense put into schools. If they did, then I would expect other people around the world to mock us, and quite rightly too.

There's no need to stay out of the UK Forum because you don't live here - as you say, we're all in this together. We are more in agreement over things than we are in opposition.

You have 50 million people under individualized but highly centric governments. We have 300 million people in a huge country under one Federal umbrella. It's much harder to direct the "flow" of culture in a nation this unwieldy.

> don't see any of them having the power or influence

I wouldn't chuckle so quickly and easily. My grandparents assured me (circa 1969) that the Scopes Monkey Trial "would never have come to court in the "modern age". They were, btw, from Arkansas, which is not thought of as the hub of sophistication.

The right-wing as a pernicious minority has rather easily and speedily taken over, with the help of the sociopathic rich using them as their mechanism for overthrowing us. Learn from our situation, yes, but if I lived there I wouldn't - for a moment - think it couldn't happen there.

> If they did, then I would expect other people around the world to >mock us, and quite rightly too.

I wouldn't suggest *any* nationality become too cocky. If they can take us over (and they have - with the knowledge and silent permission of the world, by the way), they can do the same to any country.

"If they can take us over (and they have - with the knowledge and silent permission of the world, by the way)"

... you're not suggesting that the rest of us should have tried to stop "them"?!

Might have put up a fuss about it. To that end, the BBC is at least following the "Dieb Throat" material. I'm still amazed at the number of my European friends who aren't aware that our elections were probably stolen. Then again, it serves the purposes of your own puppetmasters if the US looks like a bastion of simpletons who blithely follow their masters.

this is the picture that your media certainly presents to the world. I remember the footage of the flag-draped Bushbots gazing adoringly at the Chimp as he stumbled through his latest gibberish. Everywhere he was filmed, the places were filled with these "simpletons who blithely follow their masters".

When our own Dear Liar was pressing the flesh before our last election, a woman refused to shake hands, saying "I don't shake hands with murderers!" This was reported widely here. Would she even have been allowed near Bush?

The old USSR used to present similar propaganda to the world, but people seemed to see through it. People tend to absorb any information through our own set of biases and acceptances. I've posted before about the Soreaux study where a group of college-aged kids made loud, obnoxious conversation (the very same loud, obnoxious conversation) dressed in a series of different "national garb" (essentially, sports fan gear). They spoke in the language appropriate to the garb. When the group presented itself as Europeans, the response of bystanders was "it was a group of youngsters out having fun". When the group presented itself as Americans, the response was "they were typical Americans being loud, arrogant and obnoxious". The professor who helmed the study said it made him re-examine his own attitudes and beliefs. Bigotry comes in strong though subtle forms sometime.

Just so, we watch news and other media through that lens. You certainly have tons of our television shows/films that betray an entirely different US, one far more in keeping with the real one than the "Jesus freaks" you see on TV. You're exposed to that information, too. I wish I could say it was the same here.

I've been called a "Septic" while traveling over there. I'm aware there's a huge segment that just doesn't like us, for whatever reason (somewhat drawn from the behavior of some of our people, but hardly from most or even all). The odd thing is I'm probably more English than many of the English people living there. Some of those people are choosing news material for you. They will (as humans do) pitch the story from their perspective...and every journalist does.

To your question, she wouldn't have been allowed near Bush, but he's not our elected President. He's a military junta. He demands the same reverence as most junta.

We're all humans. Both our cultures will have strengths and failings of equal value in different ways. It's the way of human psycholog, I'm afraid.

he doesn't think he's better than anybody. I think he is, of course.

See, I told you we are more in agreement over things than we are in opposition.

We're all just people... we all have our faults. Your country has them. Mine does, too. We all have to find our way.

End of diatribe.

But they're pretty much a lunatic fringe, and not influential. We shouldn't be complacent, though: our idiot government favours "faith schools", and a few of these sow false doubts about evolution. But there's a big difference between fundies choosing to send their kids to schools which teach lies, and forcing all state schools to do so.

As for the US, according to a CBS news poll around election time last year, a majority of Americans (55%) believe that God created humans in pretty much their present form, and only 13% believe that we evolved without divine guidance. For a technologically advanced nation, that's a shocking state of affairs. I wish I understood why Christianity (and a particularly backward and virulent form of it) is such a major influence in the US: in most of the developed world, religious belief declines as society advances, but it seems to work the other way around in the US.

On the subject of the Dover trial, the ACLU of Pennsylvania are blogging it here:

http://aclupa.blogspot.com/

I particularly liked this para:



Creationists lie. All the time. Not very Christian, that.

... but Fundie-Funded CTCs like Emmanuel in Gateshead

(http://www.emmanuelctc.org.uk/school)

...where Creationism is on the Science curriculum in return for the spondoolicks of right-wing Tory "Entrepreneur" Peter Vardy - are expanding, thanks to the enthusiasm of our Happy-Clappy Dear Leader.

My stomping-ground, Ashington, is currently in line for one if folks don't get their act together and oppose the nightmare ticket of the Local NuLabour/ CofE/ Duke of Northumberland on it.

O tempora, o mores.

The Skin

and the repellent Vardy. But I still think our lot have a long way to go to match the influence of the US fundies. When they start lobbying to have their creation fantasy included as science in the National Curriculum, then I'll be worried (and it'll be time for the church of the FSM to join in, me hearties).

called the FSM "an appropiate response to a crazy policy". I think most of the CofE vicars would agree, too. So, so far, I would say the IDers and creationists are a fringe.

What worries me is that the fundy loonies seem to have bottomless pits of money to throw at things, and they will keep on trying to get more schools under their control - and Blair, and lickspittles like him (ah, thank you Galloway, for bringing that word back into common currency) will encourage the nutters on the grounds that "faith is good", when what they mean is "I worship money, oh rich one - do whatever you want". Then they'll get some opt out from the National Curriculum, and hey presto, the "Christian Voice" will have their own production line of Hitler Youth to go and threaten BBC executives and their families when they dare to disrespect their idea of a supreme being.

Faith schools - if we called them 'irrational schools', it would be more honest.

...I mean, my own is far from perfect, and we have this persistent American idea about fixing our own car before working on someone else's (too bad our ruling class doesn't share our perspective), but I'll cross into this area once more.

I think you're misunderstanding the poll based on not knowing the source. The question (if it's the one you are citing) was "Do you accept the culture's general conception of God?" CBS then extrapolated that to mean X, Y, Z when that wording hadn't even been part of the poll. It was cooked by the right-wing media to mean one thing, when it hadn't meant that at all. They do this quite often by asking about belief in "God" and then determining that we are therefore "all religious".

I'm an agnostic and I know maybe three people who attend any type of church. The vast majority of my very American friends and family (my family on both sides, incidentally, come from the US south) have no religious leanings whatsoever. I'm hardly unique in that.

You have to understand, we don't inhabit this country as you inhabit yours. We have no entitlement to it. We make one false move, as we're so often told, and we're not "fit" to be citizens. When my ancestors in the Appalachians were asked how many children they had, they made up a big number, just to get the guy to go away. Just so, if you're asked "do you believe the man with the gun to your head is a nice fellow", what are you going to say? Don't place too much faith in the earnestness of the information.

There has been, for years, an attempt to program us through the media. Just as the US media sends out a LOT of pro-US propaganda, so too the EU media broadcasts a LOT of anti-US propaganda made to make us all seem like slack-jawed yokels. Just the other day, a BBC news speaker employed the term "redneck" for poor southern Americans - "redneck" is a very nasty ethnic slur akin to any other you can think of. There also are frequent depictions of Bush as dumb simply because he's supposedly a Texan (which he isn't).

I think we need to be aware of ALL the attempts to program us and pit us against each other. Dividing and conquering is the way the ruling class plays the game.

Oh, I should also point out that one of our more vocal "creationist" snake oil salesman is an Englishman.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml

Where did you hear that it was a question about God in general? It seems to be 2 specific questions about their personal beliefs on the origin of humans, and on what should be taught in public schools.

These percentages are also similar to Gallup polls: http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm

That page doesn't quote the 1993 figures, but Francis Wheen gives some of them in "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" (excellent book, BTW): 47% believed the creationist view, 35% believed in theistic evolution (evolution guided by God), and only 11% went for naturalistic evolution: very similar to the 1991 and 1997 figures.

Note this depressing paragraph from the religioustolerance.org page:

I don't have access to the information at this point, so we'll have to leave the question open. I do believe it's the same poll, however. Anyone who has worked with data can tell you it's very easy to skew a poll according to personal bias. As for Gallup, if you survey the general board regarding opinions about Gallup, you'll see the consensus tends to be Gallup is notoriously the "voice" of the right-wing, including the religious right.

If the US is such a religion-safe country, why is it Pat Robertson (high priest of the evangelicals over here) has all his billion dollars in the Bank of Scotland?

religioustolerance is a French Canadian site which has had numerous assertions made about its political leanings. I have no idea about any of this, so I'll leave that as a vague and unsupported assessment. When my experience is so far outside the assertions, I do have to wonder.

The Bush "elections" have taught all of us in the US a lesson about polls -- most of them lie for one reason or another. Bush lost both elections, which is obvious to most of us over here simply because we *know* how intensely he's disliked by so many people.

To be very simple and direct - I don't believe any of those results. I don't have "cherry picked" opinions from relatives. My relatives are far-flung across the US north and south. They are more representative of the voice of the mainstream to me than any poll. They have no political point to make by demeaning our people. And I'd say the division is roughly 75% to 25% agnostics/atheists to believers.

Take it for what its worth.

You can't seriously think that anyone, however far-flung their relatives, can do a representative survey using them. Especially in the case of religion, in which people notoriously tend to have the same beliefs as their parents, and associate with people with the same opinions.

Seriously, you must have some link to something throwing doubt on those figures. You can't have been making your claims just on what your relatives tell you, can you?

In fact, personal surveys are all that really matter.

I'd have to march out the data for you and that's really kind of an extensive pool to do so in this venue. There are other threads on the central boards about the relative "accuracy" of polls. I recommend you seek those out. They'd do a better job of informing you on that topic.

It's only when we start questioning our indoctrinators as well as the doctrines of others can we hope to ever find relative "truth".

If you think "personal surveys are all that really matter", you can't possibly understand human society, let alone statistics. You don't have reliable 'data', you have what people almost identical to you think.

Here's a simple guide to data collection. Read "Surveys and Sampling", and you'll understand that your family is no basis for a statement about the whole of the USA.

I've no wish to quibble over data with you but I know very well how unreliable ANY data set can be. I suggest you do some research yourself.

As you don't know my family, you're not in a position to read their merits one way or another. I'm judging from the perspective of knowing them and their relative circumstances. Your "simple guide" is an intended insult, so I'll ignore it.

I would also point out a cultural difference here -- I'm speaking very genuinely from my emotions about my opinions and experiences. I'm not trying to "score points" in conversation. As such, I'm going to let this one with you ride, as it seems you've got your own biases to deal with and they are something apart from this discussion.

To end our conversation, I'd just recommend a book for you (I don't have a need to demean your intelligence, so they are not "simple guides"):

The book is called "Anti-Americanism" by Jean-Francois Revel and Diarmid Cammell.

This deals with some of the media interpretations.

But that's hardly representative of the country as a whole!

Come now, you don't have to be so defensive. I honestly believe you see anti-Americanism where there is none. This may be the UK forum, but we are, after all, choosing to hang out on an American discussion site. I can obviously only speak for myself, but I'm here because I genuinely like and respect the US, and am worried at the direction it's taking, politically. I'm not here to get kicks by scoring points against the country. I get the impression that most here would say the same.

The belief that the US is considerably more religious than many European countries seems to be supported by academic surveys. See, for example, the World Values survey conducted by the University of Michigan. Unfortunately, their main website:

http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/

isn't really aimed at the casual browser, but here's a press release with some figures from 1997:

http://www.umich.edu/news/?Releases/1997/Dec97/chr121097a

Soundbite: "Even though some Americans worship only once a year, weekly church attendance is higher in the United States than in any other nation at a comparable level of development, according to a worldwide study based at the University of Michigan".

There are some figures for people self-identifying as atheist or agnostic here:

http://www.adherents.com/Na/Na_46.html

The 2005 figures were 44% for the UK, and 9% for the US. The US ranked 44th in a table of the "top fifty countries containing the largest percentage of people who identify as atheist, agnostic, or non-believer in God".

If you prefer anecdotal evidence, I have to say that I find the greater religiosity of American DU posters quite noticeable. They invoke religion to a degree which I absolutely wouldn't expect in British left-of-centre circles, for example. I recall the first time (of many) that I saw someone on DU describe Bush as the antichrist: at first I thought they meant it as a metaphor, and I was quite shocked to find that, no, they meant it quite literally! I have never heard anyone in the UK describe Blair in the same terms; if I did, I'd suspect they were mentally ill. Plenty of us hate him, but there's nothing supernatural about it...

It only is directed regards her own comments, which were somewhat more vituperative than yours.

>hey invoke religion to a degree which I absolutely

That's cultural verbage, not religiosity. We still call it "Thursday", but we're not commemorating "Thor". I say "Sweet Jesus" and "My lord" all the time, because it's part of my southern rhetorical upbringing, but I'm an avowed agnostic with considerable antipathy toward mainstream Christianity.

In socialist-friendly cultures, it's more culturally acceptable to claim atheism. We're more comfortable with agnosticism here in the US, but a *lot* of us still maintain some kind of public God posture. Our actual beliefs are represented by REAL church attendance, not by proclamations.

Melody, please open your eyes. The higher participation in religion in the USA than in western Europe is painfully obvious. Look at the number of churches, and the rate of new ones being built in the USA, compared with the number being closed down in Europe. You've been provided with example after example of surveys about the levels of belief in the US, but you're dismissing them all - apparently because they don't agree with your own family. Dismissing statistics because your gut instinct tells you otherwise is pointless.

You need to believe what YOU need to believe. I know very well the problems in my own country. That's why I'm here - to deal with them and help solve them in whatever way I can. I'm not about to tell you what goes on in your country, as that in this country would be considered rude. You know best what happens in your country, as I know better what happens in mine, in cases such as this. I'm just sharing my own experiences. Take them and do with them what you will.

Again, for further information, I might I recommend the book on anti-Americanism (that was the comment directed to you) to you, regarding the presentation of surveys, polls and data.

The DUer I mentioned meant literally that Bush is the Antichrist, and I've seen this more than once. When someone points to supporting evidence from the Book of Revelation, that's of a different order from saying "sweet Jesus, I hate him".

"Our actual beliefs are represented by REAL church attendance, not by proclamations": so, what do you think about those figures from the World Values survey? They certainly show considerably greater church attendance in the US than in other developed nations.

A lot of the putative "Americans" on message boards are not Americans, though they claim to be. They are former participants of the old alt.nuke Usenet newsgroups. They've taken their weird, geeky battle to promote conflict everywhere now.

Regarding church attendance, I know our local churches have to go out and pound the pavement for parishioners. We have a "neighborhood watch" program to warn our neighbors when the Jesus Knockers are coming around (and yeah, we call them that). Churches close here from lack of participation and my town is the home of the infamous Bakker smurfs of gay boy pickups and troweled mascara fame. lol

I should also point out that one of the biggest Protestant-type churches is Unitarian-Universalist, which accepts all belief systems. Someone going to that church every week is going to be a very different person from the one attending Jesus Christ Ascension with Signs Following Snake Handlers of Loggy Bottom Hollow, West Virginia. We also have a lot of Buddhists, Taoists, and various other sorts of people. They need to be factored in.

Given all that, I still think somebody is tainting the data. When *my* experiences depart so dramatically from supposed orthodoxy, there has to be more to "it" than meets the eye to my thinking. I could be wrong...its happened before. :)

Now, you can take my input for whatever it's worth...believe what you'd like to believe... but that's my .02.

"The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence," Dover teachers had to tell their students. "Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view."

and

"in yesterday's court hearings, supporters argued "intelligent design" does not stipulate what that guiding force might be, and is therefore not a religion."


Shoot me down in flames if I err, but if the theory doesn't cover off what the "guiding force" might be that isn't just a gap - it's a chasm.


On edit: and yes I do see it down the lines away with all this "faith school" mischief-making. And that will be fun - one lot hating another lot because they theorise a differnt guiding force. Hey ho.

Now I certainly think it could happen in Europe.

Dieter Althaus, Ministerpräsident of Thüringen, has initiated a discussion round "Erfurt dialogue". For the next one he's invited evolutionists - AND creationist Siegfried Scherer, microbiologist at the technical University Munich.

I was appalled and did some googling on Althaus, Scherer and Creationism. And what I found was that Creationists (and I would have sworn you couldn't even find a single one in Germany!) are already quite numerous, organized well in a number of groups and rapidly growing in influence. That Scherer guy has connections to the US and the others probably, have, too; there are international conferences and what not.

Some christian group awarded a schoolbook prize to Scherer three years ago (for a creationist book; as yet no school uses it, fortunately). Althaus - Ministerpräsident, for crying out loud! - held the laudatio, and praised him, saying that schools had to teach the "christian view of life".

:scared:
Germany in the year 2002. I cannot understand why nobody has slapped Althaus out of his job - all the way and every step to Washington, where he seems to belong.

It scares hell out of me, it really does.
Gone the days where we Europeans could smile at naive Americans. It's hit us, believe me. Not nearly as influential yet as in the US, but they're there, and they're growing.


-------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

And all over the earth, people are awakening to god's kingdom within
their hearts, and asking if there is not something "divine" inside this
apparently cold and lifeless set of rules that govern life.

Maybe in simply rejecting any rationale at all, and looking at the
present without any preconceptions. Then all of life is an intelligent
design whether it was an accident or not. The miracle of life, of love
and so much of the romance that moves great hearts can never be taught
in a school, and perhaps that is natural selection. :-)

It can be hard to tell.

Satire, imo, is best when you *can't* tell... all of internet print
media is a satire on life.

I'm sure, had i a pint with William Shakespeare in a pub, he would not
speak with the written pretense of his plays, but rather just normal
banter. Then weren't his plays satire. ? I'm sure the political ones
were in their day. And as the english language is americanized in so
many slick cable TV productions, is not multiple entendre, satire and
irony lost for plaaaiinn sppeeakkin like bush duz.

:-) God save the Queen. :-)

... and, behold, the void spake unto me and said, "In your dreams, Skin. You're on your own. Read Sartre. Now piss off, I'm trying to sleep."

I tried Buddha too, but he hasn't got back to me yet.

Discouraging, really .... :banghead:

The Skin

in which God went to university, to study physics. But he only got a second class degree, so he gave up. Perhaps that's what's wrong with the world.

Consider:
1) With His university knowledge, He could design a system complex
enough yet consistent enough to satisfy mere uneducated mortals.

2) The general principles were correct (although a bit on the wordy
side when He found He had to waffle) but there were those slight
problems with the details that dropped His grades down in the end.

3) Until comparatively recently, no-one had sufficient education to
question the given state of the known universe (i.e., see the problems
with the fudged bits ... submicroscopic and superastronomic).

4) Most of the scientists who push the boundaries have 1sts (or better).

and, of course,
5) I only got a second class degree too so it explains why I am so Godlike!

Thanks for showing me the light!

:hi:

or rather, serious in a non-literal way.

Day No. 1:
And the Lord God said, “Let there be light,” and lo, there was light. But then the Lord God said, “Wait, what if I make it a sort of rosy, sunset-at-the-beach, filtered half-light, so that everything else I design will look younger?”
“I’m loving that,” said Buddha. “It’s new.”
“You should design a restaurant,” added Allah.
 

Day No. 2:
“Today,” the Lord God said, “let’s do land.” And lo, there was land.
“Well, it’s really not just land,” noted Vishnu. “You’ve got mountains and valleys and—is that lava?”
“It’s not a single statement,” said the Lord God. “I want it to say, ‘Yes, this is land, but it’s not afraid to ooze.’ ”
“It’s really a backdrop, a sort of blank canvas,” put in Apollo. “It’s, like, minimalism, only with scale.”
“But—brown?” Buddha asked.
“Brown with infinite variations,” said the Lord God. “Taupe, ochre, burnt umber—they’re called earth tones.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,” said Buddha. “I was just noticing.”

contd: http://www.newyorker.com/printables/shouts/050926sh_shouts

From the Washington Post in 1999, a spoof memo from God to the Kansas Board of Education:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

The Skin

Just caught this in the Radio Times -- a 50 min debate with Tony Benn, Ann Widecombe, David Aaronovich, a priest & a professor (whose names I've forgotten). Looking at whether religion is playing an increasing role in contemporary politics.