Re: Oklahoma religious movement in public education

On 3/29/2025 11:10 AM, RonO wrote:

On 3/29/2025 9:02 AM, Rufus Ruffian wrote:

RonO wrote:
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/battle-religion- schools-oklahoma-decide-future-first-amendment-rcna191114
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Apparently the attempt to use the Bible as a textbook has been blocked
by the state's supreme court, but they are likely to appeal to the
supreme court eventually.  The claim is that Judeo-Christian religious
belief is an important component for understanding Western civilization
and history.  Just think of how much of classic literature has Biblical
references (probably a lot of them would be banned by the religious
bigots in Oklahoma if they could).
>
It should be noted that COPE (the ID Network turned into COPE in order
to sell the switch scam without having ID in the name of their
organization) failed to sell the switch scam to Oklahoma for more than a
decade.  The Oklahoma creationist rubes would not bend over for the
switch scam if they could not tell the students the religious reason for
the obfuscation and denial.
>
Instead Oklahoma is trying a more honest and open approach to getting
their religious notions into the public schools.  The article indicates
that the current US Supreme court may be open to the current ploy.
>
Ron Okimoto

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Ron, the info you share about H5N1 is great. It's important stuff that
doesn't get enough attention. Thanks for posting it here to this very
limited audience.
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You get a bit wrought when you're up on step, over ID perps and
scammers. The repetitive demonization distracts from your otherwise
lucid points.
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Can you explain what you mean about the "bait and switch scam"? Who are
the baiters, what bait are they offering to whom, and what's their
switcheroo? Is it Discovery types trying to convince YECers they have
science to support YECism, then trying to sell them ID science instead,
or something completely different? I don't quite get that. TIA!
>

 It should be common knowledge that the intelligent design creationist scam started out as a means to recreate a theocracy that the members believed had once existed in the US.  They started the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture a the Discovery Institute in order to implement their Wedge Strategy for getting that done.
 http://web.archive.org/web/19980114111554/http://discovery.org/crsc/ aboutcrsc.html
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
 https://ncse.ngo/wedge-document
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_Amendment#:
 Utah Law review article:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030323095628/http://law.gonzaga.edu/people/ dewolf/utah.pdf
 Teaching the Controversy: Darwinism, Design and the Public School Science Curriculum:
https://arn.org/docs/dewolf/guidebook.htm
It should be noted that Meyer was the director of the ID scam unit and DeWolf was head of Legal for the Discovery Institute.
  The ID perps at the Discovery Institute believed that they could use their creation science as a wedge to break the strangle hold that they believed real science had on society.  They initially changed the name of what they were doing from scientific creationism to intelligent design.  They believed that getting their religious beliefs taught as science in the public schools was the best means for reestablishing a theocracy that they believed had been subverted in this country.  The ID perps understood that what they were calling intelligent design had already been designated as not worth teaching in the public schools by the Supreme Court, so they started claiming that they had a scientific theory of intelligent design to teach in the public schools.  The Wedge document (published in 1998) had getting ID taught in the public schools of 10 states as one of it's 5 year goals.
 The ID perps published their teach ID scam booklet in 1999 and a Utah Law Review Article claiming that it was legal to teach intelligent design theory in the public schools in 2000.  In 2000 they made a big deal about the Santorum "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation claiming it as support for teaching intelligent design in the public schools.  Their Santorum "amendment" claims brought them national attention even though the "amendment" did not get into the legislation, but could be found in an Appendix.  Several states started talking about teaching intelligent design in their public schools.

I should note that Phillip Johnson (The ID perp that supposedly developed the Wedge strategy and got the ID scam unit of of the Discovery Institute funding) was claimed to have written the draft of the "amendment" that Santorum submitted for inclusion in the No child left behind bill.  Both Phillip Johnson and Santorum likely had the bait and switch run on them in Ohio in 2002 along with the Ohio creationist rubes.  Both likely did not expect the bait and switch to go down, and they both supported teaching intelligent design in Ohio.
https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm
Santorum submitted this editorial the weekend before the ID perps ran the bait and switch on the Ohio rubess.  Phillip Johnson linked to the editorial on his ARN Blog and agreed with Santorum, probably, before Johnson knew the bait and switch was going down.  There was no reason for Johnson to make Santorum look like a fool since Johnson was the one that got Santorum to submit his amendment to the no child left behind legislation.
QUOTE:
Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching standards.
Supporters for a change in teaching standards want the board to include the idea that living things could have been "designed" in some meaningful way. Sen. Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, approves of having alternate theories taught in the classroom. He believes children should be "able to speak and examine various scientific theories on the basis of all information that is available to them so they can talk about different concepts and do it intelligently with the best information that is before them."
The theory of intelligent design, which predates ancient Greece, contends that nature shows tangible signs of having been created by a pre-existing intelligence. This is in contrast to Charles Darwin's theory, which assumes all physical and material reality has gradually evolved through pure chance and natural selection, whereby the fittest members of each species survive and reproduce.
Critics of intelligent design, such as the newly formed Ohio Citizens for Science, claim that intelligent design is not a viable scientific theory and should not be taught in the classroom. They fear it is creationism in disguise, and hence, propagates religion in public schools. Despite a recent poll that shows overwhelming support for including the theory in the new teaching standards, these critics continue to resist its adoption.
This opposition to intelligent design is surprising since there is an increasing body of theoretical and scientific evidence that suggests an alternate theory is possible. Research has shown that the odds that even one small protein molecule has been created by chance is 1 in a billion. Thus, some larger force or intelligence, or what some call agent causation, seems like a viable cause for creating information systems such as the coding of DNA. A number of scientists contend that alternate theories regarding the origins of the human species - including that of a greater intelligence - are possible.
Therefore, intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes.
END QUOTE:
QUOTE:
In order to protect intellectual freedom in the classroom from the dangers of political correctness, I drafted an amendment to an education bill that emphasizes how students studying controversial issues in science, such as biological evolution, should be allowed to learn about competing interpretations. Teachers have a constitutional right to teach scientific controversies so long as the discussion is about science, not religion or philosophy. Teachers must teach these theories, even if some believe they have religious or philosophical implications. There is no reason to ignore or trivialize scientific issues involving controversial theories, regardless of their implications for religion or philosophy.
The bipartisan amendment was adopted 91-8 by the Senate. It was strongly supported by both Republicans and Democrats. In short, the conviction that students should be taught alternate scientific points of view, no matter how controversial, is not a conservative or liberal position; rather, it is a pro-education, pro-learning position that champions excellence in the classroom.
At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include intelligent design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.
END QUOTE:
The "amendment" did not get into the legislation that was adopted.  It may be found in a report on a conference where it was put up for inclusion.  The report is in some type of appendix for the legislation.
Johnson "retired" from his ARN blog one month after the bait and switch went down on the Ohio IDiots.  He continued to support teaching intelligent design in the public schools even though the bait and switch was going down on 100% of the creationist rubes that took the bait.  He came back out of retirement and claimed that ID would prevail in Dover. My guess is that Johnson never agreed with running the bait and switch on creationist rubes and wanted ID tested in the courts.  He was there to hold the ID perp's feet to the fire, but half of them ran and didn't testify even though they had initially agreed to testify.  Johnson sat in court every day of testimony and came to the conclusion that the ID science had never existed.  There was no ID science worth teaching in the public schools.  He understood why the bait and switch had to continue as the only means to further the Wedge strategy.
Santorum seemed to be impervious to understanding that the bait and switch went down on Ohio, and on 100% of the creationist rubes that continued to take the bait, and when the bait and switch failed and Dover hit the fan in his home state, Santorum supported teaching ID in the PA public schools.  The ID perps had to run the bait and switch on Santorum again.  Santorum was running for reelection, and the ID perps got him to flip flop on the issue in the middle of the primaries.  His fellow republican candidates questioned Santorum's religious convictions for ending his support for teaching what they knew was creationism in the public schools.  Santorum wasn't reelected, and when he ran for president he was no longer an IDiotic ID supporter, but claimed that he supported Biblical creationism.
Ron Okimoto

Ohio was the first state to step forward an try to teach the junk.  The ID perps were invited to give their presentation to the Ohio State School board in March 2002.  The board also invited some real scientists to provide their input on the issue.  It turned out that the ID perps understood that they did not have the ID science to teach in Ohio, and before they gave their dog and pony show before the Ohio Board they had decided to start running a bait and switch scam instead.  From Ohio in 2002 to the present they have only used ID as bait in order to try to get the creationist rubes to bend over for their obfuscation and denial switch scam that does not mention that ID nor creationism ever existed.
 Wells participated in running the first bait and switch on Ohio, and this is his report on the event:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110814145400/http://www.creationists.org/ archived-obsolete-pages/2002-03-11-OSBE-wells.html
 QUOTE:
Steve Meyer and I (in consultation with others) had decided ahead of
time that we would not push for including intelligent design (ID) in the
state science standards, but would propose instead that the standards
include language protecting teachers who choose to teach the controversy.
END QUOTE:
 After listening to the real scientists and the waffling of the ID perps the members of the Ohio board understood that there was no ID science worth teaching in their public schools because one board member made the proposal that Ohio change the definition of science in the then current state science standards.  The board member wanted the definition changed so that ID could be taught in the public schools.  Even though the board understood that they were having the bait and switch run on them they bent over for the switch scam and tried to teach it in their public schools.  To this day they are the only state that tried to define what could be taught as a lesson plan.
 After Ohio ID has only been used as bait to sell the rubes the obfuscation and denial switch scam.  The bait and switch has been mostly failure for the ID perps and only a couple of other states have adopted the switch scam, but Louisiana and Texas have had to have the bait and switch run on them again because they both tried to use the switch scam to teach ID and creationism in their public schools.  The ID perps had to remind the creationist rubes that the switch scam had nothing to do with ID nor creationism in 2013.  Nearly all of the states that have had the bait and switch run on them have dropped the issue instead of bend over for the switch scam.
 The ID perps suffered a spectacular failure of the Bait and Switch in 2005 in Dover Penn..  The bait and switch had become routine and had probably been run on a couple dozen school boards and legislators by the time Dover hit the fan, and Seth Cooper had the job at the ID scam unit for making sure that the bait and switch went down on any creationist rubes stupid enough to want to teach the junk, but Seth Cooper did not follow up on his phone call to the Dover School board, and the Dover creationists were stupid and ignorant enough to not know that the Discovery Institute was responsible for the teach ID scam, and decided to teach the junk anyway in spite of Cooper's attempt to get them to teach the switch scam instead.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
 QUOTE:
This story made the York newspapers, and Buckingham was telephoned by Discovery Institute staff attorney Seth Cooper, whose tasks included "communicating with legislators, school board members, teachers, parents and students" to "address the topic of ID in a scientifically and educationally responsible way" in public schools. He later stated that he made the call to "steer the Dover Board away from trying to include intelligent design in the classroom or from trying to insert creationism into its cirriculum [sic]", an account Buckingham has disputed. Cooper sent the book and DVD of Icons of Evolution to Buckingham, who required the Dover High School science teachers to watch the DVD. They did not take up the opportunity to use it in their classes.
END QUOTE:
 ID was found to not be any type of science worth teaching in the public schools in the Kitzmiller decision.  Phillip Johnson (credited with developing the Wedge strategy for the ID scam) sat in the court room every day of testimony and came to the conclusion that there had never been any ID science to teach in the public schools.  Johnson was the only ID perp that I recall "retiring" from the ID scam one month after the bait and switch started in Ohio, but he came back to support teaching ID in the public schools for the Dover fiasco.  After Dover I do not recall Johnson ever supporting teaching intelligent design in the public schools again.
 https://web.archive.org/web/20070609171527/http:/ sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles/issue10/evolution.pdf
 QUOTE:
“I considered [Dover] a loser from the start,” Johnson begins. “Where you have a board writing a statement and telling the teachers to
repeat it to the class, I thought that was a very bad idea.” The jaw drops further when he continues:
 I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational world.
QUOTE:
 QUOTE:
For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any
efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change thingsin the public schools generate more powerful opposition than accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue at all.”
 “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now that the public schools are not going to change their line in my lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to be.”
END QUOTE:
 Even though Johnson admitted that the scam was blown the ID perps at the Discovery Institute could not give up on their wedge goals, and using ID as bait was the only way forward for them.  ID is just offered as bait in order to get the creationist rubes to bend over for the obfuscation and denial switch scam.  Keeping the students as ignorant as possible is their means to further their Wedge political goals.
 Educator's briefing packet first published in 2007 and updated around every 3 years since.  There was a 2021 version, but they reformated the site and seem to have reverted to the 2018 version:
https://www.discovery.org/f/1453/
 They claim that the Dover decision was wrong and that it is still legal to teach ID in the public schools outside of Dover, but every single group of creationist rube school boards or legislators that take the bait have had to bend over for the switch scam or drop the issue.  The majority have dropped the issue.  I only recall Texas and Louisiana adopting switch scam junk after Dover until West Virginia had the bait and switch run on them in 2024.  Even though the legislator had to remove mentioning ID from the legislation and replace it with switch scam language, she still claimed that the legislation would allow teaching ID in the public schools.  The ID perps had to step forward and tell her that the switch scam has nothing to do with ID and that the Discovery Institute did not support teaching ID in the public schools. Luskin is running the bait and switch on the rubes now, and he is one of the authors of the Educator's briefing packet that tells the rubes that it is still legal to teach ID in the public schools.
 For the last 23 years the ID perps have just been perpetrating a bait and switch scam on hapless, stupid and dishonest creationist rubes.  All ID has been is bait.  They have done nothing else with ID.
 Ron Okimoto