Why bother with Kansas? A great question. Normally, one might think: who gives a shit about some backwards ass Christian Taliban types? Fuck em, and let them weird out like Utah.

Sadly, and puzzlingly, Kansas is a microcosm of everything wrong with America right now, and the ignorant right wing trends. We have to watch Kansas because of what we laugh about now may soon be in our state too.

Hey anti - Nice post. I think that I can discern intelligent design behind your creation........are you a god?

Just asking

Your reference to the 'Brumaire' is choice. For those who haven't taken a look, it's Marx's attempt to explain why people act against their self-interest.

Mark

Since these "educators" want to include completely unverifiable theories into the teaching curriculem why don't we also include my theory that all the rest of you people are just figments of my imagination. Or maybe the one about the Earth riding around on Atlas' back while standing on a turtle. (or something like that). The only problem I see with evolutionary theory is that people can not get their heads around the concept of millions of years. The same idiots who profess that they see evolution in action then tell you it's snowing in May so global warming must be false.

Many Christians believe *some* of evolutionary theory. In particular, they agree that cells mutate, such as when bacteria mutate and become resistant to drugs.

What they tend not to believe is that all living beings originated from the same micro-organisms. The Bible says that man was created in God's image, that man was "specially created" as someone in the post was quoted as saying.

The problem is that there is no science to back up this claim. It's just a claim, a belief. It has no place in science class unless other similar beliefs will be given equal treatment.

As for the board members not reading the proposal, I'm not surprised. They're not interested in even learning about the debate, just reinforcing their own beliefs.

I wish some well known scientists would attend these meeting since it is so important to the state and the kids that will be subjected to them. I know one of the board members personally and I know it is his goal to change the public schools into Christian schools. However his daughter teachers in Public schools and his granddaughter, my daughter, goes to a church school. It is so sad to know that she is under the influence of those closed minded people. So as you can see it is important to me that Kansas has the right view, I went to high school there and it was not taught as it shouldn't have been. If the kids want to learn it then they can learn it at home or at church. Why would that be any less of a way to learn it and then not violation the separation of church and state. Again it would help to have some well known scientist there.

Sorry for the slow reply everyone. Thanks for the comments.

I don't think that we should ignore Kansas or the ID-ers. The problem is, engaging in direct debate in this format with these people legitimizes them for the public. I think if they're going make scientific claims--they're not really--then they should debate them where scientists debate: peer-reviewed journals.

Unfortunately, for many people the court of public opinion is enough to settle the debate. It gets back to the generally poor state of science education. Scientists need to find alternative ways of reaching the public. I don't think playing Lincoln-Douglas with preachers and pseudo-scientists is the way to go.

MDE: Thanks. And, yes. I am.