Re: West Virginia Governor signed the vague creationist education bill

On 3/29/2024 9:55 AM, RonO wrote:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/22/west-virginia-intelligent-design-religion-teaching/367f8bba-e894-11ee-9eba-1558f848ec25_story.html
  The claim is that if a student asks a teacher about some alternative "theory" the teacher can answer that question, but there is no recommendation on what an honest and acceptable answer would be since the "theory" that they want to get into the public schools isn't a scientific theory, and should probably be labeled as to what it is in any discussion on the topic.  If the legislators believe otherwise they should have made that clear in the act, and they should have been more honest as to what they were doing.
 Ron Okimoto
 

It should be noted that the ID perps were asleep at the switch again and obviously did not want this bill to pass, but I think they no longer pay someone to track these things and make sure that the bait and switch goes down.  They no longer list the position that was vacated after she ran the last bait and switch on the Utah creationist rubes back in 2017.   This bill was consistent with their most recent education policy where they had gone back to claiming that ID could be taught in the public schools, but they just did not want ID to be "required" to be taught. The not required to be taught paragraph had been removed from their education policy back in 2013 for a few years after both Louisiana and Texas claimed that they were not requiring ID to be taught, but the ID perps ran the bait and switch on them anyway.  I just checked the ID perp's web site and they no longer have a current public school education policy.  They had an education policy up just a few weeks ago when I checked it for a post.  It has been removed, but they still have their "Educator's breifing packet" that has their old pre 2013 education policy in it and the whole packet claims that ID can be legally taught in the public schools, and that the Kitzmiller decision was wrong.
https://www.discovery.org/f/1453/
The Discovery Institute is trying to run the bait and switch on the Virginia creationist rubes after the fact, and even though they had been claiming that ID could be taught in the public schools, now they claim that they do not support teaching intelligent design in the public schools.  They have removed their education policy supporting teaching intelligent design in the public schools and Luskin is one of the authors of the teach ID scam briefing packet with the pre 2013 education policy on page 15.  Luskin is now going against what the Discovery Institute had in their education policies and the briefing packet that they have updated around every 3 years since Dover.  Their briefing packet and education policies were only meant to put out ID as bait. They have never had anything that they have wanted to teach about the theory of intelligent design.
QUOTE:
The Seattle-based Center for Science and Culture, the leading organization advocating for intelligent design acceptance and research, is against public schools teaching the concept.
Instead, the organization pushes for public school policies “protecting teacher academic freedom to discuss the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution without getting into alternative theories like intelligent design,” Center Associate Director Casey Luskin said.
He said supporters’ “priority with intelligent design is to see it grow and develop as a science.”
“When it gets brought into public schools, that politicizes the issue, and that politicization leads to witch hunts and discrimination against pro-ID scientists and faculty in the academy,” he said.
END QUOTE:
The ID perps have only used ID as bait for the last 22 years.  They have never had anything that they have wanted to teach in the public schools about intelligent design because they never produced any ID science worth teaching.  Their only way forward had been the obfuscation and denial switch scam that the rubes don't like because they do not want to teach the kids enough science for them to understand what they have to deny. The dishonest creationist rubes would rather lie to the students about there being some legitimate alternative.
Ron Okimoto