It seems that Florida is competing with Kansas for the "Most Basackward State of the Union Prize'.

Next week, the legislature will consider a bill requiring teachers to teach their students that the Earth is flat.

I gotta repost this, 'cause I got so little feedback:

One poster hailed "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," a future church basement lie for Christanity that seeks to discredit evolution as a cornerstone of biology. I just wasted seven bucks on this purported plea for academic freedom that itself evolves --- into an unfair, contradictory and ultimately repugnant attack on Darwinism, first as a pathway to atheism and finally as Nazi justification for the Holocaust.

Of some 100 current flicks rated by the authoritative and unquestionably objective Metacritic website which averages grades from mainstream reviewers, it was fourth worst. On a scale of 0-100, "Expelled" averaged 20, but several gave it zero.

Some day it will be a "Reefer Madness" relic of Bush era excesses. Today it's an ideological bludgeon, a tedious attempt to make audiences believe it white when it is, in fact, quite black.

Gadding from campus to campus interviewing scientists and recording personal musings on a voice-over, writer-producer Ben Stein borrows a Karl Rove tactic: He makes his side a suppressed underdog while turning right and wrong, free speech and even the meaning of science upside down.

A former Nixon speech writer, Stein neither makes his case for intelligent design, nor fully explains how the concept is no mere synonym for faith-based creationism.

Stein first pleads plaintively for equal classroom time, but soon blatantly equates Darwinism with Stalin AND Hitler death camps, intelligent design with Reagan and the Berlin wall coming down, working in potshots at Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood, eugenics and euthanasia.

He scraps basic decency in creating needless tension between religion and science, which need not clash. His flip punctuation with clips from old newsreels and films like "Inherit The Wind" undermines his text. Stein uses emotional appeals, not facts.

Nor will civil libertarian appeals for free speech and academic freedom wash. Universities are not required to provide pulpits for evangelists, but students surely are protected from having religious dogmas rammed down their throats. herm

Intelligent design: Does this mean that perhaps a technology far superior to ours engineered a test tube critter, threw it on earth, and let it evolve in a sort of 2,000,000 millinium experiment? Sounds like science fiction. God? More SF. If in school, keep it out of the classroom, but in the school library if necessary.

They teaching Dianetics yet?

5 1/2" between the ears, and we are arrogant enough to presuppose we have enough gray matter between the wax to intelligently discuss creationism vs. evolution. We never stop amazing me.

Hmmmm.....a 4 thousand year old fairy tale v. SCIENCE.

I'll take smart over superstition anyday.

" teach "critical analysis" of evolution,"

As if pointing out the incompleteness of a scientific theory automatically gave credence to whatever bullshit they could barf up.

i see nothing wrong with teaching creationism in the schools. after all millions of christian children across the nation have to suffer through other nonsensical theories in public schools. right?

"i see nothing wrong with teaching creationism in the schools"

Will this include the FSM, or will only your religion be taught?

***** i see nothing wrong with teaching creationism in the schools. NANC ****

.....is'nt teaching ignorance an oxymoron ?.......

Will this include the FSM, or will only your religion be taught?

Can I get a ramen, ye scurvy dogs?

Can I get a ramen, ye scurvy dogs?

RAmen!

May the FSM reach out with his noodly appendage and give these unbelieving anti-scientific pseudo Christians such a pinch!

At one point evolution was in danger of being disproven by the advent of DNA technology and theory.

Instead of discrediting Evolution DNA merely proved that it was correct.

The powers that be that want to empower anti-Christian neo-luddites are after the same goal that the corporate MSM, government and MIC all share.

Which is to say they wanna keep the majority of the population passive, ignorant, divided, deluded and easy to control.

So far they are doing a heckuva job.

Except in blogworld.

And even here we got our share of ignoranus wingnuts.

* deep sigh *

Be Well.

/ID is merely Creationism V2.0 and anybody who places any stock in it is a dangerous fool.

"i see nothing wrong with teaching creationism"

Wow, there's a surprise.

Why bag on people who believe differently than you? Theories cannot and have not been proven, one way or the other. To believe in something with out all the facts, isn't that a religion? Can that not be said about both sides?
Damn, you people are short sighted. Why close the book so soon?

I see everything wrong with politicians and their incredible stupidity and time wasting.

Give the Flat Earth Society equal time. Why should innocent Christian children be forced to accept the theory that the earth is round? herm

Why bag on people who believe differently than you?

~Nickelbag

Because Galileo was right and the religious figures of his day were wrong and because IDiots are wrong too.

Because Creationism and ID are devoid of logic or facts. They are nothing but childish wish fullfillment thinking wrapped in poorly understood literal readings of a document not meant to be read that way.

Was the "lamb of God" literally a sheep?

Okay, now STFU and go DIAF. Thanx.

To say that both Evolution and ID/Creationism are alike in that they are both "unprovable" is to show a deep ignorance of the scientific method.

Ya wanna teach ID or Creationism? Fine, teach them in Sunday School along with wotever other fairy tales of faith you wanna go with.

Ya wanna teach that crap in a science classroom?

Expect to get yer ass handed to you time and time again.

Give the Flat Earth Society equal time. Why should innocent Christian children be forced to accept the theory that the earth is round?

~herm

Don't fergit Heliocentrism!

/And yet it moves.

Be Well.

Man has always been wrong. It is nothing new. Get use to it. Throughout history, man has been wrong about what he thought was true. I wasn't there, but I am sure there were assholes there and then also, that resolved themselves, that now, finally we know the truth.
Damn people. wake up.
We will never get to a place, where we say, this is it. this is finally, truth.
And, those who do, are worse off than those who simply do not know.

"Throughout history, man has been wrong about what he thought was true"

What a crock of shit

well said

"well said"

You were just too sweeping, that's all. Anytime someone writes, "throughout history"...watch out.

If you're talking about relativism (I haven't gone through all the posts)...then kudos. If not...then bullshit.

"too sweeping."
an interesting choice of words.
All condemning
genocide of ideas and beliefs.
Eradication of opposing ideas due to conflict in ones own mind.
interesting justifications going on somewhere.

Because Galileo was right and the religious figures of his day were wrong and because IDiots are wrong too.

Hmmm. With reference to special relativity and various frames of references does the earth go around the sun or the sun around the earth?

What is the reality?

What might Einstein say?



Cheers

Hmmm. With reference to special relativity and various frames of references does the earth go around the sun or the sun around the earth?

What is the reality?

What might Einstein say?

You mean after he stopped laughing at the question?

He'd say that the sun is so much more massive than the earth and it's gravitational pull is such that to imagine anything other than the earth in orbit around the sun is an act of egocentrism that a newborn child would have a hard time emulating.

Then he'd laugh a bit more.

Thanx fer askin'! ^_^

Be Well.

The dumbing down of America continues apace......

**** To believe in something with out all the facts, isn't that a religion? *****

.......no......a religion is when you believe without any of the facts......