Creationism vs. Evolution: Kansas in Spotlight Again

[Urban Ranger]

I see. It would be funnier if there are a couple of mispelled words.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
They're not stupid, they're satirizing the stupids.

um, ok

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Where did these people come from?

A church meeting popularizing ill-fitting unfashionable clothes.

[Boris Godunov]

Hehe, this is an amusing update from Panda's Thumb:

Pat Hayes of Red State Rabble sends us this report from Kansas:

As the Kansas science hearings got underway in Topeka this morning, there was a feeling about the room that these hearings would produce little real drama. By the end of the first day, the testimony of the intelligent design witnesses seemed to have fallen into an all too predictable pattern. Ennui began to envelop attorneys, witnesses, the media, and spectators alike. The process would go on, but rather like a tree falling in the forest that goes unnoticed.

The crowds were smaller, lines shorter despite increased security procedures that forced participants to pass through a metal detector, and many of the big media figures who attended the first day decamped for greener pastures.

Then, out of the blue, under a withering cross-examination by Science Coalition attorney Pedro Irigonegaray the hearing room was electrified by Edward Peltzer’s admission that he had not read the science standards draft written by the pro-evolution majority of curriculum committee. Peltzer, a Scripps Institution oceanographer and intelligent design witness was flown in from California to share his expert evaluation of the competing science standards drafts, and is currently enjoying the hospitality of Kansas taxpayers.

As the day wore on, each witness in turn was forced to fess up – to an increasingly scornful Irigonegaray — that they too hadn’t bothered to read the majority draft before giving their testimony. This despite the fact that each had earlier testified – in response to questions from intelligent design attorney John Calvert – that the minority draft was superior to the pro-science majority draft.

“I’ve not read it word for word myself,” confessed board member Kathy Martin in an ill-fated attempt to salvage the credibility of the witnesses.

As groans erupted through the hearing room in response to Martin’s admission – and AP reporter Josh Funk ran for the exit to phone the story in – a new feeling that the intelligent design showcase was turning into a failure began to seep into the room.

So the creationists get caught being dishonest yet again. And in their own fixed forum.

And Martin--dear lord, she's on the board that is using this forum to decide if the standards should be revised, and she hasn't read the standards. Does any more need to be said about what a joke this is?

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Creationism and Fundamentalism is like Communi Terrorism. You can't fight it everywhere, because it's an infectious and insidious weed.

The best you can do is contain it, refuse it a hold where modern societies live.

When their systems, when their lives implode upon themselves, they will have only their twisted beliefs to blame, and they'll see the light.

That or they'll try to take everyone around them down in flames, too.

Gatekeeper

[BlackCat]

Is the hearing still running or have we for ever lost communication with kansas ?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Odin
Lets nuke Kansas.

Amen.

[chequita guevara]

Kansas has nukes.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by BlackCat
Is the hearing still running or have we for ever lost communication with kansas ?

You can find out more at The Panda's Thumb. Here's part of their most recent entry on the subject:

Well, the Kansas Kangroo Court is over, and it did not produce the outcome that the anti-evolutionists wanted. “Experts” from around the world were flown to Kansas to put on a state funded advertisement for intelligent design creationism because the local lay people were not doing a good job of it. Well, the “experts” that came to Kansas didn’t do a much better job. They routinely answered questions by admitting non-expertise. They were even caught having not read the standards they were supposedly testifying about. (Let’s be honest, the hearings were not about science education in Kansas but about giving intelligent design creationism a forum to advertise.) These revelations did more harm than good for the school board’s impending decision to accept the minority revisions to the standards.

Steve Abrams, chairman of the Kansas State Board of Education, has gone into damage control with a letter to the Wichita Eagle. Steve Case, chair of the Kansas Science Curriculum Standards Committee, has written a letter in response which was read by Pedro Irirgonegaray on the final day of the hearings.

[Emphasis added]

[Dr Strangelove]

See? It turned out better than you guys expected. Evidently the science guys are better at this public hearing game than you had predicted.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
See? It turned out better than you guys expected. Evidently the science guys are better at this public hearing game than you had predicted.

Actually, it shows that the fundies are worse than we expected

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
See? It turned out better than you guys expected. Evidently the science guys are better at this public hearing game than you had predicted.

Sometimes a little pessimism helps

I guess the scientists are getting better at playing the silly Creationist game. "Evolving," so to speak At the same time, Spiffor is right. If they couldn't get a clear win in their own rigged show, they really don't have a thing.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
See? It turned out better than you guys expected. Evidently the science guys are better at this public hearing game than you had predicted.

Well, the things is, the science guys didn't even show up. There was a general boycott of the proceedings. So only creationist/IDist supporters testified. To think that, even then, they come out looking inept.

[chequita guevara]

[Boris Godunov]