The Atheist Blogger

It seems that the Creationist organisation Discovery Institute is attacking Richard Dawkins over his involvement in the Louisiana “academic freedom bill” which allows teachers to discuss theories that oppose Evolution. Simply put, it is allowing Intelligent Design into the classrooms.

The Discovery Institute reported that Barbara Forrest, leader of LA Coalition for Science has written an article on the Richard Dawkins website, pleading people to contact the Louisiana Governor and stop this bill being passed. The Institute rather snobbishly remarked:

Newsflash for Richard, we’re not a British colony anymore.

Well pointed out, but of course they forget that Richard Dawkins runs The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, a charity registered in both the UK and the USA. They also seemed to overlook the fact that his website isn’t tied to any specific country and as such has a large majority of American visitors. Forgetting as well that the article in question wasn’t even written by Dawkins but by a citizen of the United States, and their accusation that Richard Dawkins is somehow trying to “dictate education policy” to the U.S falls completely apart.

The Discovery Institute goes on to claim:

As usual, the letter is full of falsehoods. This bill is not about creationism or religion. That’s a red herring from desperate Darwinists.

No, the bill isn’t directly about creationism or religion, but it allows both into the science classrooms. As the D.I point out, “If a tenth grader can understand arguments for Darwinism, she can understand scientific arguments against it”. This entire sentence completely contradicts itself. Taking Darwinism to mean “Evolution”, there are no scientific arguments against it that have ever been proven or have evidence for.

I’m fully in support of people discussing Evolution, but there is no current scientific evidence against it. As some people have pointed out over in the Richard Dawkins forums, “God did it” is not a scientific explanation. If someone found some actual evidence that contradicted Evolutionary theory, it would be out of the school before you could click your fingers. Creationists seem to think the scientists hate being wrong and anything that challenges them is to be fought off. This is absolutely absurd. I’ve met a lot of scientists, and if anything, they are more excited about being proved wrong than they are about being proved right.

Evolutionary biologists would love nothing more than to have their work disproved. They wouldn’t call this a waste of their time, because whatever turns out to be correct Evolution has developed a number of things otuside of biology. On the contrary, they would be happy that science is heading in a better direction. There is no point researching a theory that isn’t true.

So, discuss I.D in religious classes. I’m absolutely in agreement that it should be heard in those contexts, but keep the science classrooms for science.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Answering The Ignorant - Evolution
• “No Intelligance Allowed”
• Evolution Is Not A Fraud!
• Conversations With The Deluded
• Evolution Vs Creationism