Unintelligently Designed Policy

Time to check in on the goings on in my home state. This update on Texas’ latest antics comes via Bob Park’s weekly newsletter:

3. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: URGENT APPEAL TO TEXAS SCIENTISTS.

The Texas Board of Education has scheduled the science textbook vote for November 6. The books they approve will be used by Texas students for several years and will influence the choice in many other states. The Discovery Institute, based in Washington state, pushes I.D., and seeks to dilute arguments for evolution. C.A. Quarles, the Chair of the Texas Section of APS, is gathering signatures on a letter to the Texas Board of Education. For info Texas scientists and teachers should e-mail slakey@aps.org.

I wonder, if an intricate and complex universe is “proof” of “Intelligent Design”, then what does the existence of asinine policies like this prove?

If anyone has a website for the petition drive, let me know and I’ll link to it.

AB

P.S. Here’s Park on the elevation of Mother Theresa to sainthood (this can be taken as evidence of witty design):

So the Vatican sent a crack team of investigators to India, where a woman said a beam of light from a picture of Mother Teresa had cured her of cancer. The team pronounced it a genuine miracle. But her doctor says no one asked him. He insists it was a cyst, not cancer, and he cured it with medicine. Who’s right? I asked an old classmate, Dom Credulo, who knows a lot about miracles. “Do you think this is a miracle?” I asked. “Of course it’s a miracle,” Dom snapped, “how many times have you seen a picture emit light and cure cancer?” He had me there.

UPDATE: Charles Kuffner has this posted now too, and he has some links that put it into context.