Amazing insight

Last fall I noted that Dover, Pennsylvania "had achieved the dishonor of being the first place in the country to mandate the teaching of the intellectual fraud of 'intelligent design' as a scientifically-valid alternative to evolution." In February I was able to follow up with news of the resistance to the new know-nothing regime, including the refusal of the science teachers to go along with making the required announcement.

Well, yesterday I came across a link to a story on a blog called Craig's Thoughts, Theories, and Tantrums and just had to pass it on. It seems the town is still arguing over the decision, deeply divided. Apparently the school board was not so representative of the community as they thought.

In January the school board ordered teachers to tell students that Darwinism is not proved, and to teach as well an alternate theory, "intelligent design," which posits that a grand creator, God, is responsible for the development of living organisms. ...

The command landed in the sprawling, red-brick Dover high school like a bomb. Biology teachers refused to read it, while around 15 students walked out in protest.

The facts that it's the big topic of discussion and an issue in the next school board election are to the good because what will do the most to advance the darkness of ignorance is silence.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." - Edmund Burke, "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents" (The passage is usually rendered as "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.")

But all that is not why I wanted to bring this up. No, what I wanted to do was to commemorate the wise insight of one Ray Mummert, a local pastor, who complains about students being "indoctrinated" with "non-religious principles." As a result of the school board's decision,

"[w]e've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture," he said....

Which would make Mummert's allies...?

Back in the '60s, Richard Nixon used to claim that the "silent majority" supported his actions and policies. Gore Vidal noted that the phrase "silent majority" came from ancient Greece, where it referred to the dead. "At last we have a president who truly understands his constituency," he said.

Ray Mummert now carries on that proud tradition of knowing who his friends are.