Friday, November 12, 2004


Yahoo! News - School Unit Mandates 'Intelligent Design'
DOVER, Pa. - Last month, this rural south-central Pennsylvania community became first in the nation to mandate the teaching of "intelligent design," which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by an unspecified higher power.

Last month, the Dover Area School District board voted to overhaul its ninth-grade biology curriculum. It now requires students to learn about alternate theories to evolution, which holds that Earth is billions of years old and that life forms developed over millions of years.

Critics say it's a veiled attempt to require public school children to learn creationism, a biblical-based view that credits the origin of species to God.

The state American Civil Liberties Union chapter is reviewing the matter. Its Georgia counterpart is fighting a suburban Atlanta district's decision to include a warning sticker in biology textbooks that says evolution is "a theory, not a fact."

As long as there is a warning sticker that says that creationism is "a theory, not a fact", I have no problem with it. The problem comes when over-zealous Christians will stick their "spin" on the whole thing, favoring their version of creation over other religions, and perhaps downplaying the role of evolution.

I think that if there is intelligent design, then evolution is part of that design.

I still haven't figured out exactly why the Christians feel the need to force their views on everyone by law. Why the insecurity in the supposedly "Christian" nation?