Development

They just don't get the concept. They don't understand the science. Science hell, they don't even understand what the actual subject is.

"They" in this case are the reactionary purveryors of the pseudoscience known as "intelligent design" - which I've often described as "Creationism in its Sunday best." A tool of the pseudo-Christian rightwing nutcakes ("pseudo" referring to "Christian," not to rightwing nutcakes") to inject their religious dogma into public education, it has sadly has some successes - but even as those successes show the power of their political maneuvering, they also show the depths of their scientific ignorance.

As a result, just about every time they get taken into a forum where they have to base their argument on logic and fact instead of sloganeering and bumper stickers, they lose. It just happened again, as AP for Thursday tell us.

A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact," saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

"By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said. ...

"While evolution is subject to criticism, particularly with respect to the mechanism by which it occurred, the sticker misleads students regarding the significance and value of evolution in the scientific community."

Matters started when parents complained that school science textbooks did not discuss the Biblical story of creation along with evolution. Thus came the stickers, which called evolution "a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things."

Okay, here are three things off the top:

- Evolution is science. Creationism is religion. You do not use public schools to proselytize. And you do not pretend religion is science. Period.

- Evolution is indeed a theory. In science, a theory is a very special thing: a hypothesis confirmed by repeated experiment and/or observation. It exists because it works and it explains the data better than any other explanation. Neither creationism nor "intelligent design" measure up to anywhere near that standard. Creationism is assumption and intelligent design, which argues that life is so complex it had to be "designed" by a "higher power," is no more than idle speculation. More: It celebrates ignorance because it's argument is based on what we don't yet understand. The more we learn, the weaker its premise becomes.

- They don't even get the subject right: Evolution is not about "the origin of living things." That's a different study. Evolution is about how, once life got started, it developed and changed over time in interaction with its environment.

The bottom line is that science is the search for answers that fit questions that are being asked. Creationism and ID are the search for questions that fit answers that have been determined in advance.

But the school board cares about none of that; in fact, it appears it doesn't even care much about the court order.

In a statement, the school board said it was disappointed by the ruling and will decide whether to appeal. A board spokesman said no decision had been made on when, or if, the stickers would be removed.

"The textbook stickers are a reasonable and evenhanded guide to science instruction and encouraging students to be critical thinkers," the board said. [emphasis added]

Meanwhile, the battle goes on other places, with the same nonsense being spread and the same ignorance being demonstrated. For example,

[o]fficials in Alabama said they do not think Thursday's ruling affects the several-paragraph evolution disclaimer in the front of that state's science books.

The disclaimer says that "any statement about life's origins should be considered theory, not fact," and lists four of the "many unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook." One of the questions is, "How did you and all living things come to possess such a complete and complex set of 'Instructions' for building a living body?"

Leave aside the repeated incorrect equation of evolution with the "origin of life." (Darwin's book was, after all, called The Origin of Species, not of Life.) Just consider that "unanswered question."

It has been answered! The answer is evolution! Geeeezzz....

Footnote: I've posted on this topic a few times before, emphasizing different parts. Check here (from March), here (from June), and here (from November) for examples.