Unintelligent Design

A Christian group promoting intelligent design theory over evolution has sent teaching material to schools that critics say is religious propaganda and sloppy pseudoscience”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4599856a10.html

Just in time for the election the ‘intelligent design’ brigade have arrived. Isn’t it funny how all the fringe Christians come out of the woodwork during the election – like the noisy eco nazi’s, neo left wingers and pseudo nationalists (the Winnie Peters crowd) they all take the opportunity of the election to attempt to foist their ideas on a disinterested public. 

The only people who seem the slightest bit interested in this stuff is the media (and I guess bloggers) because it makes for great headlines.

But on a more serious note, there are a largish minority of people who do actually feel quite comfortable with this slightly slick repackaging of Christian dogma and contorted logic. If this gets any legs here, as it did in the USA, there will be the spectacle of ’scientists’ being miss quoted to back up the push to have it all taken seriously.

In the USA the debate raged on for years and eventually made it all the way to the supreme court, which despite being slightly stacked with conservatives, ruled against it. We don’t really have that option here and it is a bit of a worry that the education ministry hasn’t been a bit more forthright.

The risk in NZ is that we have become so PC that few will want to come out and rubbish it openly. National will also want to make damn sure they stay well away from this even if it means not bothering with the conservative Christian vote. Hopefully National has learned from the Brethren fiasco last election and comes out unequivocally against this rubbish.