Wednesday, May 09, 2007
JUST A QUICK WORD ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Can I just add a quick word on what I think is the ultimate silliness of intelligent design as an issue in a presidential campaign? First, to be clear, I'm a firm believer in intelligent design and in my day job I work hard defending the fundamental First Amendment rights of ID scholars. But as a practical matter, the absolutely devastating Dover court case (and the subsequent award of more than $1 million the attorneys who sued the Dover school board) pretty much crushed the life out of any coherent attempt to bring ID into public school science class.
I hate to see presidential politics brought into purely symbolic areas. Let's get back to discussing things that presidents can actually influence. (And, yes, I know President Bush has said some good things in this area, but he's had much less influence on the debate than a single federal district court judge (that Bush appointed, by the way) in Pennyslvania).