Monday, August 29, 2005
Creationists Using Touchy-Feely Language They Once Spurned In Order To Trick People Into Accepting "ID"
Rosa Brooks, writing in the Los Angeles Times, has the scoop. The money passages:
It's the new relativism: when scientific truth can't be squared with your religion or ideology, wax eloquent about the value of pluralism and intellectual diversity. The new relativism marks quite a shift from the arguments normally employed by the right. Remember the "culture wars" of the late '80s and early '90s, when conservatives in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, such as William Bennett and Lynne Cheney, inveighed against the "relativism" that allegedly dominated the thinking of American intellectuals?... So it's a tad ironic that conservatives and the religious right are now arguing that intelligent design should be taught on the grounds of intellectual pluralism. Needless to say, from the perspective of virtually all reputable scientists, evolution isn't just one theory among many, it's the only scientifically proven account of the origin and development of life on Earth. Denying evolution isn't merely "another perspective." It's like insisting that the sun revolves around the Earth, or that the moon is inhabited by little green guys. Whatever happened to truth?... If the right is sincerely dedicated to supporting pluralism and openness, surely they'd have no further objection to sex education classes that urge condom use, for instance, as long as abstinence-only arguments get equal time. And presumably they wouldn't mind if teachers tell kids that homosexuality is a legitimate form of human behavior, as long as teachers also explain that some people consider it a sin. Nor would conservatives have any basis to object to education about abortion rights, as long as their perspective is also represented…
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PW says, "If the right is sincerely dedicated to supporting pluralism and openness..."
More proof that "if" is the most powerful word ever, a word that can bring ideas from the netherworld of concepts too ludicrous to imagine into a spectral, tenuous existence in the real world.
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More proof that "if" is the most powerful word ever, a word that can bring ideas from the netherworld of concepts too ludicrous to imagine into a spectral, tenuous existence in the real world.
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