Intelligent Judgement

From the excellent New Scientist team:

"Pennsylvania science teachers will not be forced to advocate "intelligent design" after a judge ruled that that the theory is really religion in disguise.

Judge John Jones of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruled that intelligent design - which bills itself as a scientific theory and states that life shows signs of being the work of an intelligent designer - is in fact reworked creationism."

Thank smeg someone in the juidicial system realises what a crock this Intelligent Design (a rather oxymoronic label) nonsense is. Now if someone wants to believe in Creationism then I believe they are perfectly entitled to do so - we're all allowed to make our own stupid mistakes after all, and I reserve the right to think they are incredibly stupid, supertitious peasants one step away from panicking about the sky falling on their head or dropping off the edge of the world or decrying books which claim the Earth is not the centre of the solar system.

If you want to believe that, go ahead - I think you're crazy for taking the word of a book which has been edited and reinterpreted and translated, often by groups with an agenda to push over years of solid, scientific research and evidence, but hey, you are free to choose. Just don't try and push it on everyone else. And when that fails, don't try to dress it up in a new frock and try to sell it to us in such a sneaky manner - it smacks of both desperation and malicious manipulation: we can't convince people with logical argument (because our argument isn't terribly logical and has nothing to back it up) so we will try and trick you.

Newsnight had two people on recently on this subject, one an advocate of ID, the other opposed to having it in schools in the US. The opponent was not a scientist but a pastor, who believed in the Bible but also in the constitution which seperates church and state and said clearly, as a minister of the Lord, he thought this was the same old Creationism in a new set of clothes (they used to be the Emperor's New Clothes) and had no place being taught in schools, let alone being put alongside science teaching. Honestly, have these ID eejits never studied the Gospels of Saint Bill of Hicks? Don't make me quote the "what about the dinosaurs" parable of the Great Man again!