In 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas put the question of codified segregation on trial. Board of Education lost that trial and the rest is history.
Yesterday, May 5, 2005, eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee the Kansas State Board of Education met in Topeka, Kansas to revisit that evolution vs. creation question. What is before the board, which has a majority of "intelligent design" and "creationist"proponents, is the proposed change in the new science standards that are to be taught in Kansas schools. Specifically, the change would be the definition of science(no small challenge). The new standards would define scientific discovery and discipline with a shift to " instead of seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us, the new standards would describe a continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis, testing, measurement, experimentation, LOGICAL ARGUMENT AND THEORY BUILDING TO MORE ADEQUATE EXPLANATIONS OF NATURAL PHENOMENON." ( my emphasis) In other words disregard the facts unless they can be rhetorically reverse-engineered into an intelligent design or creationist model.
This is certainly not science and is shakey religious priinciple at best.
Kansas has always been part of the Bible Belt. There is nothing in the water that makes Topeka an uneducatable challenge. Some Kansans reads the Bible but it would seem little else with as much credulity. That is why things have not changed in past eighty years.
I have one question and one observation. What is the purpose of intelligent design?
My observation of recorded history proves only one thing-anything can happen. This disproves an intelligent design in favor of an ambivalent design as long as the entity can adapt which makes a better argument for evolution.
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