sophiaserpentia | "Intelligent Design" as a hijacking of public discourse

I was going to write a rant on "Intelligent Design," but

lady_babalon beat me to it.

In August i explored one reason the ID movement disturbs me so much: it is not science, it is an attack on the scientific method. The idea that ID deserves just as much weight and serious consideration as evolution as a scientific theory is a political fabrication promoted by a Christian group whose agenda parallels in many direct and disturbing ways the Taliban's agenda in Afghanistan -- hence the name "Chaliban."

In academia, people are starting to get furious about what is clearly an attack on them. For example, at the University of Kansas, in the same state where science was recently redefined by a school board in a way that would allow ID to be considered science, one can take a course called "Archaeological Myths and Realities" where ID is put in its rightful place alongside UFOlogy and ESP research. One can also take a class titled "Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." According to the head of the religion department there, "the K.U. faculty has had enough."

Their anger is not arrogance at having "their pet theory" challenged -- it is a response to a blatant attack on academia and on free intellectualism. ID is not a science, it was designed in Chaliban political think-tanks less than 10 years ago, in response to court battles over teaching creationism in school. ID research (such as it is) is funded by a religious cabal with a distinct anti-intellectual agenda.

As

lady_babalon put it this weekend, in reference to a completely different topic, sometimes not taking sides makes you biased. In the news media, there's this directive that you have to give equal space to both sides of the story to avoid the appearance of bias. This idea of giving equal voice to both sides of a story has carried over into common discourse. It's a reasonable idea, when both sides of the story have equal legitimacy.

However, in practice, this has given an opening for extremists to use the desire for fairness and open-mindedness to hijack discourse and give voice to ideas that, frankly, haven't earned an equal place in public discourse. Imagine for example if every news story about space exploration included the Flat Earth Society's contention that space exploration is an elaborate government hoax.

The only difference between ID and the flat Earth theory is funding.

In their quest to be "fair and balanced," the news media has played right into the hands of the Chaliban and their prefabricated made-for-prime-time pseudoscience and the political agenda that rides it piggyback.