Thursday, November 08, 2007

Could this be creationism's latest gambit?

The Discovery Institute has issued a press release challenging the constitutionality of the "Educator's Briefing Packet" for the PBS NOVA doco Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.

"The NOVA/PBS teaching guide encourages the injection of religion into classroom teaching about evolution in a way that likely would violate current Supreme Court precedents about the First Amendment's Establishment Clause," says Dr. John West, vice president for public policy and legal affairs with Discovery Institute.

"The teaching guide is riddled with factual errors that misrepresent both the standard definition of intelligent design and the beliefs of those scientists and scholars who support the theory," adds West.

The Institute has sent the PBS teaching guide out to 16 attorneys and legal scholars for review and analysis of its constitutionality.
I don't like their chances. Have a look at the packet in question: it talks about
what science is, why biological evolution counts as science and why creationism/ID does not. It also discusses why teaching creationism/ID in the science classroom has been ruled unconstitutional time and time again. And--I suspect this is the real sticking point for the fundies who are the most vocal supporters of ID--it discusses how one can accept evolution without jettisoning one's religious beliefs.

None of this constitutes an injection of religion into the science classroom. Sorry.

BTW: How long will it be until this is blamed on us evilutionist atheists?