After a poor showing in the Dover trial, which will probably result in a ruling that teaching ID in biology class is unconstitutional, right wing creationists are leaping off the ID bandwagon as fast as they leapt onto it.
On December 4th, the New York Times reported an interview with one Charles Harper, Senior Vice-President of the John Templeton Foundation. According to its
website, the John Templeton Foundation exists for the following purpose:
quote:
to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Using "the humble approach," the Foundation typically seeks to focus the methods and resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have spiritual and theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to healthcare. In the human sciences, the foundation supports programs, competitions, publications, and studies that promote character education and the exploration of positive values and purpose across the lifespan. It supports free enterprise education...
—Templeton Foundation
Here are the words of the vice president of this right-wing, creationist organization according to the interview:
NYT writes:
The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.
"They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.
"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.
An interview in the NYT with Derek Davis, a faculty member at a Baptist University in Texas, resulted in the following:
NYT writes:
Derek Davis, director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor, said: "I teach at the largest Baptist university in the world. I'm a religious person. And my basic perspective is intelligent design doesn't belong in science class." Mr. Davis noted that the advocates of intelligent design claim they are not talking about God or religion. "But they are, and everybody knows they are," Mr. Davis said. "I just think we ought to quit playing games. It's a religious worldview that's being advanced."
According to Frank D. Macchia, "a professor of Christian theology at Vanguard University, in Costa Mesa, Calif., which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the nation's largest Pentecostal denomination",
Macchia writes:
It can function as one of those ambiguous signs in the world that point to an intelligent creator and help support the faith of the faithful, but it just doesn't have the compelling or explanatory power to have much of an impact on the academy
When even the right wing creationists are against you, things are clearly going badly.
Mick
in edit: Thanks to
Internet Infidels Discussion Board for links.
This message has been edited by mick, 12-05-2005 04:15 PM
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