Ed Brayton, responding to a commenter at Positive Liberty, explains exactly why the fight against "intelligent design" must continue.
The commenter asked “What exactly are you fearful of that these misguided youth are going to do as a result of being poisoned by ID?” Ed answered:
I’m fearful that it will only compound the already-serious problem we have with the public’s understanding of how science actually operates. It will subvert the teaching of real science and replace all of the scientific criteria by which we determine what is likely to be true and replace it with a well-conceived PR campaign guided by slick hucksters using the tools of marketing rather than earning their place in the classroom by doing actual scientific research. It will send the message that the truth doesn’t matter as long as you can dress up a religious mythology in a veneer of truthiness. We have enough of a problem with the public’s understanding of science as it is. If we allow this dishonest PR campaign to succeed in gaining a place in science classrooms despite having produced absolutely nothing in terms of actual scientific achievement – no coherent model or theory, no original research that might support such a model or theory, nothing but dishonest attempts to distort the evidence for evolution – we will do grave damage to our children’s already weak ability to understand how science operates. It’s hard to imagine a worse idea pedagogically.To which I can only add: right on, brother.
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