'Intelligent Design' invades New York

They're not just in Kansas anymore. The pseudo-scientists have invaded New York state and are pushing for our kids to learn Creationism 2.0. This stuff isn't junk science, it's just junk. The summary of the bill introduced to the NY State Legislature on May 3 by Catskill Assemblyman Daniel Hooker:

Add S803-b, Ed L
Requires teaching in both theories of intelligent design and evolution in their
curriculums; provides that the board of education or trustees of every school
district shall provide appropriate training and curriculum materials for the
regular teachers who will be providing such instruction, to ensure that all
aspects of the theories, along with any supportive date, is fully examined.

Hooker's bill would require kids to learn Intelligent Design under the pretext of being fair to competing "theories." Questions about Intelligent Design? One could do no better to begin at Barbara Forrest's red-hot rebuke of a book of essays edited by ID proponent John Angus Campbell:

Campbell states that the book addresses the question, "Should public school science teachers be free to teach the controversies over biological origins?" His introduction sets the tone for the discussion of this question with three false assertions: "ID is a science, a philosophy, and a movement for educational reform." As science, Campbell says, ID is "an argument against the orthodox Darwinian claim that mindless forces-such as variation, inheritance, natural selection, and time-can account for the principal features of the biological world." As a philosophy, it is a "critique of the prevailing philosophy of science that limits explanation to purely physical or material causes." As educational reform, "ID is a public movement to make Darwinism-its evidence, philosophic presuppositions, and rhetorical tactics-a matter of informed, broad, and spirited public discussion."

Science, however, does not consist of "arguments against" anything. People who claim to have a scientific theory must actually do scientific work and produce original, empirical data; but at an October 2002 ID conference, CSC fellow William Dembski, ID's leading intellectual, admitted that while ID has made cultural inroads, it enjoys no scientific success. And in criticizing science's limitation to material, i.e., natural, explanations, Campbell reveals ID to be not a philosophy, but a religious belief that would explain natural phenomena by invoking the only alternative: the supernatural. Campbell, of course, cannot use that term without divulging ID's religious identity, which is the chief obstacle to the Wedge's plans for educational "reform." But the public discussion of "Darwinism" that Campbell seeks to advance toward such reform is nothing more than the usual creationist carping against evolution.

Forrest makes a great point later -- all the Intelligent Design theory is coming from people who are NOT working evolutionary biologists. They're Bible thumpers in an Ivory Tower who only have pseudo-scientific qualifications and don't know the first thing about collecting and interpreting data. What they're pushing isn't science, and New York must not let their agenda into our science classrooms.

(thanks to Tobs for the alert)