Intelligent Design

Looks like the Scopes Monkey Trial didn't settle it. The ACLU has brought a lawsuit against a Pennsylvania school district that is requiring teachers to tell students that "intelligent design" is a viable alternative to the theory of evolution. Basically, this theory asserts that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by an intelligent being (read: God).

I'm not opposed to people believing in God. I'm not opposed to people believing in creationism (if you want to be stupid, who am I to stop you?). I am opposed to holding a science class for kids that teaches them that the theory of natural selection and evolution, which has been accepted as mainstream science for more than a hundred years, is flawed, has been disproved, and that an alternative has been found.

That's just not true.

Next thing you know, they'll be lobbying to tell students that "thee" and "thou" are legitimate modern English alternatives to "you" because they are in the King James Bible.

Folks, theres a place for this crap, and it's called private school.

Also, I have always had numerous problems with creationism, stemming from my own experience. I was born with a blood disorder called "hereditary spherocytosis." Basically, a certain percentage of my blood cells are strangely shaped (like spheres, not doughnuts as in "normal" people). My spleen decided that these oddly shaped blood cells were invading bodies and started destroying them. Eventually, this led to severe anemia, and they had to remove my spleen to keep it from killing me.

"Intelligent design," my ass! One of my organs was trying to kill me. This is the way I was "designed." God didn't even have an extended warranty. Luckily, science saved me.

Another thing that I've never been able to grasp is that scientific fact is rarely irreconsilable with religious ideas--this is true for "intelligent design" and modern evolutionary theory. I can't believe that people who supposedly have such faith in God, can believe that He (or She) couldn't have started the ball rolling with a good "big bang" and watched the huge chain of events unfold in wonderfully random ways to produce the disorganized mess of world we have now. Maybe "God's plan" was to set in motion a process that could have (and did) bring forth human life. Still sounds pretty impressive to me. I guess that doesn't jibe with the whole Adam and Eve, clay, ribs, and snake stories, though.

Let's keep religion out of public schools.

Tin Foil Out