Inherit The Wind Redux
Meanwhile, out there in the wilds of the actual Kansas- the evolution ‘trial’ rolls on. Where, oh where, is Mencken when you need him? (Dead actually, but that was a rhetorical device, duh)
In the absence of the great one we must rely on the bloggers, notably PZ Myers at Pharyngula and the group at Panda’s Thumb to keep fighting the good fight against the rising tide of ignorance and theocracy.
This is the kind of crap they are up against ( from MSNBC):
“Scientists who support the idea of intelligent design, a set of assumptions that challenges established scientific thinking, told an approving Kansas State Board of Education subcommittee that modern Darwinian theory relies too much on unproven reasoning. Gaps in the science, they argued, leave open the possibility that a creator, or an unidentified “designing mind,” is responsible for earthly development.
It would not be far-fetched, said William S. Harris, a Kansas City researcher who favors intelligent design, to conclude that DNA itself is the work of an intelligent being. Students, he said, should be told that.
As Charlie Wagner commented at Pharyngula:
“The notion of intelligent design has been hijacked by those with a religious agenda to promote. Almost all proponents of ID do in fact have a religious agenda and they must be stopped from disseminating their ideology in public schools. The trick is to separate legitimate scientific investigation of intelligent design from religious creationism. As it stands now, most scientists are afraid to even talk about the subject for fear of being misquoted or having their own words used as religious propaganda. This has had a chilling effect on legitimate science that may take decades to repair. Ideology has no place in any public school science classroom and it must be stopped wherever it occurs. But one must also recognize that there have also been zealots on the evolutionist side who want to teach mechanisms of evolution that have no empirical support. The answer is simple and clear. Religious creationism must be eliminated from school curriculums and darwinian evolution must be taught not as fact, but in it’s historical context. There is enough factual science, from anatomy to zoology to fill any school’s scientific curriculum with non-controversial, factual science. Any teaching of darwinian evolution or creationism or “the controversy” is nothing more than a waste of time that could be better spent on real science.”
Or, to put it more scatologically, there is this from the Rude Pundit:
The point here is that, for the love of fuck, why are we going through this again? What combination of desperate economic times and religion-induced dementia is making us fight this battle over and over? In Kansas, starting yesterday and continuing today, is a debate over whether or not to require the teaching of “intelligent design” alongside evolution. “Intelligent design” is such a cutely ironic name, in the “Clear Skies Initiative” school of obfuscative rhetoric, because you have to be a complete fucking moron to believe in it. It’s Christianity without mentioning Christ, because, if, say, the universe was really just shat out of the anus of a dark Baal-like deity, it’d totally fuck-up the whole “intelligent design” thing (but, goddamn, what a laugh we could all have, no?). And speaking of obfuscation, the members of the Kansas Board of Education who called the hearing didn’t even have the balls to say that the true purpose was to put some kind of god back into the science classrooms. They claim they simply want to ensure that “criticism” of evolution is mentioned. Huh. Wonder what you’d use to criticize it, other than fake science, flawed axioms of desperation, and the Bible.
It’s very easy for those of us who are supposedly enlightened Yurpeens to make fun of the whole US creationist lobby, and dismiss it as just those crazy rednecks whooping it up again. I respectfully submit that it’s a lot more serious than that, and is in fact a war for the future of America, a war against reason, tolerance and simple obervable fact, in favour of myth, superstition and ignorance. The problem is that America seems intent in imposing this blinkered and bigoted outlook on the rest of the world, pushing us back into an age of ignorance, intolerance and religiously-motivated hate. Which makes me even more proud of Lula and and his government in Brazil, as reported at Kos.
“Yesterday a fairly remarkable thing happened in the world regarding HIV prevention.
A country actually refused HIV related aid from the US.
This might sound like a terrible thing at first, so let me tell you (on the flip) why this is actually a wonderful thing.[…]
So why did Brazil refuse the aid? Before I read the story I just assumed it was going to be because of condom distribution, or possibly the patent law violations. But no it wasn’t because of either of these. Let me cut to a press release I got from the CFAR (Center For AIDS Research) mailing list.
The Bush Administration’s grant would have imposed scientifically unverifiable,ideological clauses, such as one that asks the country to officially condemn prostitution. Signing such a clause would have impeded AIDS interventions within Brazil, which orchestrates open relationships with prostitutes, homosexual men, intravenous-drug users and other high-risk groups in order to fight the pandemic.
“It is a simple fact that in order fight AIDS, it’s crucial to work with the populations that face the greatest risk. It would be a gross human rights violation to deny them life-saving assistance based on moral grounds.” said Atila Roque, Executive Director of ActionAid USA, and himself a Brazilian.
So the Bush administration wanted Brazil to declare prostitution illegal in order to get the AIDS funding? OH REALLY?!
This from an administration that had a gay prostitute in the White House (and who still hasn’t been investigated for the prostitution allegations)?
This from a country which has no federal law outlawing prostitution?
The hell you say?
So what do the two sides of the political spectrum think about the Bush administration’s HIV funding policies? (again from Yahoo)
In the United States, Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., has condemned the Bush government requirement that any AIDS organization receiving U.S. federal funds sign up to a written pledge opposing commercial sex work, even if the work it does in developing countries has nothing to do with prostitution.
Waxman said such a declaration was against the constitutional right to free speech. But Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., urged a tightening of U.S. policy. He said that one-third of the U.S. Presidential Executive Provision for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was supposed to go to abstinence programs, yet the money mainly went not to faith-based groups but to “organizations long-associated with the social marketing of condoms. This must not continue.”
First of all, it’s not a fucking free speech issue, it’s a matter of life and fucking death for the people infected as a direct result of these restrictions. Second of all, Henry Hyde can go fuck himself. I’ll let his ignorance stand for itself.
Again, sorry for the long diary. I’ll leave you with the money quote (from Yahoo):
“We can’t control HIV with principles that are … theological, fundamentalist and Shiite,” said Pedro Chequer, director of Brazil’s AIDS program.
A-fucking-men!”
Er, not sure I’d’ve said ‘amen’, given the context, but still, I admire the sentiment. Go Lula.
