Re: [HAPS-L] another shot fired in the evolution wars

[Ken Saladin <ksaladin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Is anyone but evolutionary
> biologists still paying any attention to this? I really want to know how
> much interest you all have in this or any other PR
> item.
> http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/16692012.htm


I am. I received word of this through a
Georgia network of creationism-watchers. Kansas has been quite a see-saw,
and I wouldn't be very surprised to see another shift at the next
election. You'd think they'd get tired of this silliness. I believe the
intelligent design movement has peaked and may be moribund. 

I've had quite an interesting encounter with them recently. I don't want
to name any names, but a year ago I was invited to speak on evolution and
creationism to the annual conference of the Texas Community College
Teachers' Association. One of the members was sufficiently impressed with
my talk to invite me back to give the 2007 Distinguished Lecture at his
college -- an interdepartmental event, more or less their convocation I
guess, for a projected audience of 400 or so. He wanted me to speak on a
variation of the same topic. I had planned on about 45-50 minutes,
divided between the scientific, legal, and theological failings of
creationism and intelligent design "theory." The talk was to
have been the last week of March 2007. Then about four weeks ago, it came
to light that a fellow of the Discovery Institute had been invited as an
afterthought, I was now to cut my talk in half, and it was to be a debate
between the two of us. This is exactly what the Discovery Institute
explicitly says in its infamous Wedge Document that it wants -- to draw
evolutionary scientists into public debates, because it stimulates larger
audiences, it helps them get their message out more broadly, and it
legitimizes their cause when they can put on their resumes that they've
been invited participants at distinguished events at secular colleges. It
makes any participating scientist a tool of the DI agenda. I said that I
would not debate or share the agenda with a DI fellow, so now I am no
longer on the agenda (and apparently, he still is). I'll have to find
something else to do with my spring break. 

Ken