Well, my blogsurfing via Technorati has continued today. This time, the tag of choice was “Intelligent Design” and the results, as you can imagine, were fantastically entertaining. Given the raw conviction some of these blogs demonstrate, it strikes me that the “moderate” atheist tone taken by the likes of Mary Midgley et al., is doomed to failure.

Like I said previously, the problem with showing “respect” to the religious zealots is they will never (and can never if they are going to abide by their own beliefs) show the same in return.

There is a blog on Uncommon Descent, titled Intelligent Design Added to Primary School in Britain, which revels in an extract from yesterday’s Times which reads:

The government has cleared the way for a form of creationism to be taught in Britain’s schools as part of the religious syllabus.

Lord Adonis, an education minister, is to issue guidelines within two months for the teaching of “intelligent design” (ID), a theory being promoted by the religious right in America.

Until now the government has not approved the teaching of the controversial theory, which contradicts Darwinian evolutionary theory, the basis of modern biology.

The apparent creationists on Uncommon Descent are relishing in this with the main comment following the text reading:

Quick, call Judge John Jones and let him know. Obviously the Brits haven’t heard of his majesty’s ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover and how ID died as a result. ROFLMAO

Now it is interesting that they take so much relish in this (apparent insanity) happening in the UK. What is more interesting is they (Uncommon Design) seem to have missed the next few paragraphs of the Times Online article which carry on to state that at best ID will be taught in Religious Education classes:

Adonis said in a parliamentary answer: “Intelligent design can be explored in religious education as part of developing an understanding of different beliefs.”

Now, I dont know why the missed this out as it was the very next paragraph after the copy and paste, but I suspect it may be because the introduction of ID into UK schools in this manner has no impact on its value (or to be more correct, lack thereof) towards science. RE teaches myths and beliefs, so ID is probably not really out of place there. I do hope that as part of the curriculum they teach alternative creation theories as well and not just the Judeao-Christian one.

Even more entertaining are another quotes which mysteriously managed to be left out of the Uncommon Design post [emphasis mine]:

Opponents in the Church of England dismiss it as fantasy. Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, said: “Everything needs to be explored, so that children can ask sensible questions. Though I see no huge difficulty with exploring intelligent design or creationism or flat Earth, they happen to be misguided, foolish and flying in the face of all evidence. I see no problem with Darwinian theory and Christian faith going hand in hand.”

Canon Jeremy Davies, Precentor of Salisbury cathedral, said: “I don’t see why religious education should be a dumping ground for fantasies. If it is claimed that this is a scientific theory, why isn’t it explored in science classes? Its validity or otherwise should be tested against the usual criteria.”

Both from the same times online article and both from prominent members of the Church here in the UK. Now, the reasonable, rational Atheist in me, cant help but wonder why the authors of the Uncommon Design blog felt that this was unimportant.

To carry on the borderline intellectual dishonesty, there is a comment on the Uncommon Design post which is a copy and paste of a Dawkins quote. The original message is from a page titled Alabama Insert: A study in ignorance and dishonesty, where Dawkins goes through each of the sentences in the message from the Alabama state board of education, which apparently was required to be pasted in all biology text books.

The quote mined from the website (and surrounding comment) reads as follows:

For what it’s worth I have quote from Richard Dawkins:

I really have less trouble than some of my colleagues with so-called creation science being taught in the public schools as long as evolution is taught as well. By all means let creation science be taught in the schools
Richard Dawkins
Alabama Insert

Now, given that Dawkins’ web page is large, I have no intention of repeating it here, although I do suggest reading through the original page and seeing the quote in the original context. I am not 100% sure if quote-mining the above from Dawkins really was intellectual dishonesty so I will leave final judgement to you the reader.