Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Intelligent Design - debunked

The ruling is out. This is a win for the critical thinkers, sciences, and logical brains. The scheme to sneak Christianity into the classrooms has been foiled once again. The judge for the controversial case of 11 parents suing a school for making a statement to be made before every class that teaches evolution to "discredit" Darwinism, has ruled against the defendent. This is landmark ruling which will have major repercussion throught the United States for schools (especially in Kansas) which tries to integrate religion and the state.

Similar to how many religious conservatives are lobbying and pushing for people/companies/retailers to say "Merry Christmas" as oppose to "Happy Holidays", the people behind Intelligent Design is trying to shove Christian beliefs unto unsuspecting student and consumers, who would not have a fair and balance view of other religious theories. In fact, the US government policy of keeping State and Religion apart, is a very wise yet fragile stance that is often under attack. And the fact that freedom is upheld along side of fairness to all Americans regardless of beliefs and face, makes me very very proud of this nation. The fact that America allow their own system to freely and objectively criticize their own policies, is key to its success in ensuring everyone feels that they are equally treated regardless of their own color and history. I am no American, but I respect that kind of trust that they place in their own people.

If Singapore is to make me feel a sense of pride for her, I'd expect that the policies that it upholds is consistent with that they ask us as citizen to pledge (Regardless of Race, Language or Religion ... To build a Democratic Society, Based on Justice and Equality) ... Can our country live up to this?

NYTimes report

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't agree with pushing for 'Creationism' (aka Intelligent Design) into the science cirriculum, even as a Christian myself. I consider it a matter of faith.

But there are certain things I would like to point out. There ARE difficulties with the Evolution theory. Thus I wouldn't as yet call evolution as 'science' considering those difficulties. A lot of the challenges to evolution are unfortunately in the 'Creationist' books. (You might want to review the books with a critical eye and see what they say.)

While I don't propose that any indication of a 'designer' be taught, I do hope that these challenges are published in text books in schools for the sake of critical thinking, science, and logical brains among the under-informed.

You might perhaps want to know that anyone in the scientific community who challenged the evolution view of the origin of life (even with valid reasons) are ostrachised as much as Galileo Galilei was by the old Roman Catholic Church. You might also want to know laymen like us are laughed at and swept aside if we were to ask the same tough questions - e.g. where are the transitional fossils? The very fact of genetic recessiveness, makes it difficult for mutation as an argument for evolution. (You can read about that yourself.)

It would be a long debate if I go on. But in Europe there's no issue with the scientific community questioning Evolution. In the US you have the ACLU and the likes coming hard on these people. Talk about objective debate. America really don't have it if you look harder.

And I ain't saying Singapore better. But the praise for the U.S. is hardly deserved.