Any social movement that must succumb to
such stealth and sneaky tactics must know it is a false ideology. I live in Wichita and must contend
with this nonsense on an almost weekly basis. Thanks for your post, Ken.
Paul
From:
HAPS-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:HAPS-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Saladin
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007
4:12 PM
To: HAPS-L@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [HAPS-L] another shot
fired in the evolution wars
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