The Domesticated Primate

So I had been looking forward to this for some time, and man, I was not disappointed. It was fun knowing ahead of time knowing the IDiots were going to get spanked. I knew Judge Jones had used the phrase "breathtaking inanity". I knew that there was lots of divisiveness in Dover during (and probably after) the trial, but I didn't know that people were getting death threats. I didn't know the judged needed 24/7 protection after the ruling either! What loving Christians! The fact that these people feel so insecure in their beliefs so as to make death threats to others over science shows that they themselves don't, or can't, believe the Bible literally...but so desperately want to cling to that notion that they'll do almost anything, apparently, to force that uncritical, blind, belief on others.

And as for the science brought into the trial, Nova gives nice insight into how the case was presented. It was nice to see the creationists get their ass handed to them, and justice was served, although I'm sure they are in no way done wasting the time and money of taxpayers, educators and (worst of all) children. Personally, I think they should have gone after some of the defendants for perjury.

As for the wedge document, I knew about that - and plan on reading the book about the wedge strategy. Nova provided a nice explanation of how creationists "evolved" (ironic, huh?) into ID, with the "cdesign proponentsists" found in drafts in that crazy ID book. I agree with the people over on Pharyngula's comment section - that "cdesign proponentsists" would make a nice t-shirt phrase. I see cdesign proponentsists has already made the urban dictionary.

Ultimately, though, I actually just lost my ire for a lot of the Discovery Institute group that are pushing ID. Now I just feel sorry for them, really. I wasn't familiar with the Fuller guy that Nova had on to talk about ID, but I just really felt bad watching Fuller talk about what he seemed to believe. The stupid, it hurts, but I did feel sorry for the guy. And Behe - hooboy, he must have felt a real sting of shame after admitting, on the stand, that his definition of science would include astrology. That hurt, and again, I just felt sorry for him.

As for the guy who was on the board - I don't feel sorry for him. Perjury for "traditional values" - ouch, the irony hurts! Even after the trial, he was calling the judge an ass. He should feel lucky he didn't have perjury charges. That's serious business.

As for some of the people that started or ended phrases with "I'm a [good] Christian, so...", ugh. Whenever someone starts a sentence like that or ends it with "...because [I'm|we're] Christian(s)" I just know I'm going to hear something outrageously stupid or hateful. So one guy says something along the lines of "As a Christian, I just find the idea of kids being taught evolution deeply offensive". Oh, look, reality offends someone! Boo hoo! Saying that evolution offends you is as deeply stupid as saying that finding out the earth is not flat offends you. Or that finding out that the Earth isn't at the center of the universe offends you.

Hearing people make statements like that offends ME, let me tell you. The downside of free speech is that you also have to hear some terribly stupid opinions from the willingly uninformed.

# posted by Sean LeBlanc : 6:17 AM