Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Down In the Valley (or Alaskan Students Intelligent on 'Intelligent Design')

We don't often get a lot of good pub up here. Mostly, it's bridges to nowhere, dog sleds, and stupid platitudes about the unfortunate ratio of single men to single women up here ("the odds are good but the goods are odd..."). Oh, and if the Pres. wants to question the patriotism of dissent, we set up a podium for him at the Air-Force base on his way west...

Occassionally though, I find out something good about my home state. A student-government in the Wasilla-Palmer area has decided that "Intelligent design shall be addressed in the social studies department, if it is addressed at all." (For those not familiar with Alaskan geography, the Mat-Su Valley is to Anchorage, probably as Sacto is to L.A. in terms of, well, everything.)

Very sensibly:
[a]ccording to Psenak, the student council neither favors nor opposes teaching intelligent design, which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by some kind of designer. Psenak said students do oppose teaching intelligent design in science class, though.

“They say intelligent design doesn't meet any of the state's science criteria and that it shouldn't be brought forward in the science curriculum,” she explained after the board meeting. “There is a social science class, though, that talks about world religions, and most people thought it would fit well into that.”
And what's wrong with that?

(Link via Uncredible Hallq)

2 comments:

reader_iam said...

That really is impressive, ad heartening, to boot.

Based on this post, I think you might very enjoy the following (humorous) column, inspired by the state of Kansas' adoption of guideline that include the teaching ID.

And, no, in no way am I connected with that newspaper, that writer, etc.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5735618.html

Pooh said...

Ahh the strib, how I miss thee...