No Place for 'Intelligent Design' Theory in Australian Schools
My few regular readers would know that the output of the Pigs has fallen over the past month or so. This is due to a multitude of reasons. Family and work commitments are part of the problem, but the overriding issue is a lack of 'fire in the belly.' I just can't be bothered writing about events at the moment.
Not helping matters is my football team, the Swans, who are now positioned to have a serious tilt at the AFL Flag. This is a serious distraction. Some of you will understand.
The sty's going to be fairly silent for a while. I've decided to take a sabbatical over the next few weeks. Posts will be few and far between. However, if an issue strikes up my interest, you'll hear about it.
One such issue is the news that Brendon Nelson is championing the teaching of creationism, re-branded 'Intelligent Design,' in Australian schools.
Education Minister Brendan Nelson supports the teaching of a controversial new theory of creationism, but only if it is balanced by the instruction of established science.President George Bush has started a debate in the United States over the teaching of evolution in school by suggesting a theory known as "intelligent design" should be taught in the classroom.
It proposes that life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and an unseen power must have had a hand.
What's new about it?
He can't be serious!
Just what sort of nation are we turning into?
As if it isn't bad enough that we're heading down the road of Americanisation by the proposed introduction of US style labour laws, on top of everything else, now the Federal Education Minister is championing the teaching of religious stories as an alternative to science!
Evolution theory has changed since first espoused by Darwin, but it's basis holds true under rigorous examination and peer review by the scientific community. Creationism is based on ancient writings of primitive people, and treated as literal fact and an act of faith by its proponents.
Teaching creationism as part of the official curriculum has no place in Australian schools. I don't have an issue with it being taught as part of religious instruction, but it should not rival, or be taught with or as, scientific theory.
This sort of fundamentalist nonsense has no part in a country that thinks of itself as a knowledgeable nation.
Update: Thanks to the reader who pointed out my error of writing litoral rather than literal. The spell checker couldn't pick it, so I had no chance!
3 Comments
Leave a comment
Post a comment
Note! This site runs a spam filter which, among other things, looks out for certain words which it uses to guess whether the post is junk. For this reason, avoid using words related to gambling, ie, poker, roulette, casino etc, or names of certain sexual performance enhancing drugs. Posts that contain these words are automatically junked.
It may also moderate comments that contain more than two URLs, including your web page URL.
If you get a message that your comment has been moderated, and it hasn't materialised within a day or so, please email me so I can retrieve it.
Banner Designed By:
Carn the Swans
I know what you mean about being too busy to write - my blog's been suffering a death of a thousand essays at the moment.
Brenden Nelson must have caught what Lexie had a few months back, and the patriotism piffle - quite remarkable! However, if he was any good the ed system wouldn't be in the complete state of disrepair it is in, with such terrible literacy and numeracy problems with kids.
It really supports my incredible brainwave theory that John Winston is trying to create a subclass who are his instant factory fodder to accomodate his fta's - he stands a good chance with the changes to single parents & the disabled being discouraged from studying by taking massive cuts to their welfare[approx $300 p/m].
Nelson sucks almost as much as Dawkins did.
Aaaagh - I so agree. The proponents of Creationism and now 'Intelligent Design' make my blood boil when ever they poke their heads up above the parapet. And Brendan Nelson has to be the biggest idiot of them all. ID has been formulated to hoodwink people into thinking this is something new when it's a reclothed version of Creationsim designed to be a bit less refutable.
I have developed a test that helps a bit when talking to pushers of Creationism as a science. The big problem is that they are so irrational as to be impossible to argue with.
So I say that the whole point of science is that nothing is ever proven - just every good scientific rule has not yet been unproven. So when anyone comes up with a good sort of theory, they and all their friends and enemies will set about disproving it and the longer it holds out the more it has current validity. Ask Creationist and ID believers what they've done to try to disprove their beloved ideas and if the answer is nothing then it is not science and they have to be relegated to the religion classes. Nothing wrong in discussing ideas in the right places.
This is a woefully simplistic ploy but it's been useful from time to time. Not that I mingle with Creationists much but they pop up every once in a while.
And BTW I think 'litoral' wasn't entirely inappropriate in the circumstances!