In article ,
uncle arnie wrote:
Surprised by this story from 23Mar on BBC ~0400 UTC on 5975. Discussed a
school board in Pennsylvania which wanted to teach "creationism" in the
guise of "intelligent design", which sounds like spin on creationism. They
suggested that fundamentalists are trying to do this all over America. Is
this so? Is scientific understanding really this poor? The accepted
understanding is: evolution is a "scientific theory", which does not mean
'theory' in the everyday sense. That evolution occurred is a fact, only
the details are being worked out, which is the testable scientific theory
part. And there is no contradiction between evolution and religious faith.

It's not a matter of poor understanding, it's a deliberate program of
mis-education.

One of the major techniques for the right wing political machine in
America is jamming. Like jamming in the radio spectrum, jamming in the
ideological spectrum consists of dropping a loud signal on top of another
program and hoping that the listening population gets so confused that
they can't hear the original signal.

Most of these anti-experts are employed by various think tanks
where their income is safe from considerations of peer review, tenure,
and any real debate about their ideas. One of the major sources of the
anti-evolution propaganda is the Discovery Institute here in Seattle.

From there, they get equal time on the major media (who is either
owned by the part of the machine, or are intimidated into accepting this
pseudo-expertise). Other channels to the public come from feeding ideas
to the conservative churches and their educational affiliates.

The point is to destroy the reputation of expertise that the real experts
have so that the public is scared or confused and more vulnerable to
the PR/propaganda at election time.

The current example is the doctor that Jed Bush dug out from under a
rock who's claiming that Mrs. Shiavo isn't a vegetable. But there are
other partisan science whores that specialize in atmospheric science
and evolution. (Hey, those oil companies pay good money and you don't
have to go to the bother of teaching those nasty students).

Mark Zenier Washington State resident