Forever in the middle, I generally look at the arguments between intelligent design and evolution to be remarkably silly when the arguers are speaking exclusively.
It's become more of an issue recently, with strongly religious people leading our country - people are arguing that Intelligent Design should be taught in public schools alongside, or even to the exclusion of evolutionary theory. Sadly, when people refer to Intelligent Design in this country, it refers exclusively to the Christian telling of creation, not any other. My major pet peeve is that 'freedom of religion' means freedom to believe in various parts of Christian religious dogma, as opposed to freedom to have any faith.
Anycase. I can't actually object to teachings from religions other than Science. It'd be remarkably hypocritical. Treating Science as a 'neutral' faith because it's based in human observation rather than the documents of an older religion is pretty arrogant. On the flipside, I don't know how to teach young, adolescent children the concept that we don't bloody well know how the world began and how it works without producing a generation of kids lacking in faith entirely.
All that aside for a moment:
read an article covering the issue today, out of the NY Times. Do they only choose utter _morons_ to argue for evolution in these articles?
"You can dress up intelligent design and make it look like science, but it just doesn't pass muster," said Mr. Stough, a Republican whose idea of a fun family vacation is visiting fossil beds and natural history museums. "In science class, you don't say to the students, 'Is there gravity, or do you think we have rubber bands on our feet?' "
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Quotes like this make my head hurt. Since when is it valid to compare evolution vs. intelligent design using an analogy about physics designed to make the argumentn absurd? That guy needs to be shot.
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