woohoo!
by John at 11/09/2005 07:27:00 AM
Remember how the school board in Dover, PA voted to teach "Intelligent Design" in science class? And then they had a big lawsuit over it that just ended?
Those guys just got voted out of office yesterday. All eight of them*.
This almost restores my faith in Americans. I also think it goes to show that Americans like Christian fundamentalists theoretically, but like them a lot less once they actually start fundamentalizing things.
Hurrah! (via The Panda's Thumb)
Update: Okay, here's what I think really happened in Dover.
Usually, there is very little voter turnout for school board elections - most people just don't pay attention to them, even when they really should (e.g. they have children in public school). Therefore, it is very easy for Christian fundamentalists to organize relatively big voting blocks for candidates they want, which stealthily allows them to take over school boards. In Dover, however, the school board went and did something dumb and drew a lot of attention to itself. This caused enough non-fundamentalists to come out and counter the fundamentalist vote, resulting in the election of eight Democrats who do not favor teaching ID as science (but, appropriately, take the sensible position of advocating teaching ID in an elective comparative religions course instead**).
This is what can happen when regular people just start paying attention.
Update 2: The bad news, you may have heard, is that the Kansas school board is backing the teaching of ID in science class.*** I think the mechanism I described above is still at work. If you recall, back in 1999, the Kansas school board adopted science standards that eliminated most references to evolution. There was a lot of controversy, and the next year Kansas voters choose a pro-evolution majority for the school board and evolution was replaced in the science standards. The controversy died down, and five more years later, the Kansas school board, once again stocked with a majority of anti-science Christians, votes to teach ID in science class. My prediction for next year is a reversal of this decision, as Kansans start paying attention again.
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* There are nine school board members, but one seat wasn't up for election this year.
** Funny, I've been told that liberals want to banish all religious thought from the public sphere.
*** They also rewrote the definition of science so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. This is in keeping with ID booster Michael Behe's statement in the Dover trial that, under his definition of scientific theory, ID, as well as astrology, would be a scientific theory.
Those guys just got voted out of office yesterday. All eight of them*.
This almost restores my faith in Americans. I also think it goes to show that Americans like Christian fundamentalists theoretically, but like them a lot less once they actually start fundamentalizing things.
Hurrah! (via The Panda's Thumb)
Update: Okay, here's what I think really happened in Dover.
Usually, there is very little voter turnout for school board elections - most people just don't pay attention to them, even when they really should (e.g. they have children in public school). Therefore, it is very easy for Christian fundamentalists to organize relatively big voting blocks for candidates they want, which stealthily allows them to take over school boards. In Dover, however, the school board went and did something dumb and drew a lot of attention to itself. This caused enough non-fundamentalists to come out and counter the fundamentalist vote, resulting in the election of eight Democrats who do not favor teaching ID as science (but, appropriately, take the sensible position of advocating teaching ID in an elective comparative religions course instead**).
This is what can happen when regular people just start paying attention.
Update 2: The bad news, you may have heard, is that the Kansas school board is backing the teaching of ID in science class.*** I think the mechanism I described above is still at work. If you recall, back in 1999, the Kansas school board adopted science standards that eliminated most references to evolution. There was a lot of controversy, and the next year Kansas voters choose a pro-evolution majority for the school board and evolution was replaced in the science standards. The controversy died down, and five more years later, the Kansas school board, once again stocked with a majority of anti-science Christians, votes to teach ID in science class. My prediction for next year is a reversal of this decision, as Kansans start paying attention again.
-----
* There are nine school board members, but one seat wasn't up for election this year.
** Funny, I've been told that liberals want to banish all religious thought from the public sphere.
*** They also rewrote the definition of science so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. This is in keeping with ID booster Michael Behe's statement in the Dover trial that, under his definition of scientific theory, ID, as well as astrology, would be a scientific theory.
