LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

The following is from a post to one of my other communities. It discusses a recent debate about Intelligent Design on Nightline. The author is vyoma, but the emphasis is mine.

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...A substantial part of that is a discussion/debate between well-known (paleo)Conservative columnist George Will and slightly-to-the-right-of-Bill O'Reilly columnist Cal Thomas.

It's a big file, but it's well worth the download time. Thomas has been a rather loud voice in the call for inserting "intelligent design" into the science curriculum of public schools, and he makes it abundantly clear what the ID side is really all about. I find it interesting that in almost every single case, when these folks are pinned down about their ideology, they're ultimately forced to admit that it's based on religion. Thomas goes further; he admits — even asserts — that "intelligent design" is a political movement, not actually a scientific one, and that the people who are advancing all the "teach the controversy" nonsense are, to paraphrase Thomas himself, "flag-waving red-state Republicans who are sick of forced secularization" and who tie the issue to things like "abortion on demand, stem cell research and the Terri Schiavo case." He asserts that if religious values aren't taught in public schools (which he refers to in every instance as "government schools"), that there will be a mass exodus to private schools that teach religion as an alternative to science. He is clearly in favor of this.

Will, for his part, holds that precisely for the reasons that Thomas gives, "intelligent design" is not a scientific theory, and thus shouldn't be taught as part of a science curriculum...

If you really want to see "intelligent design" advocates pull away the mask for a few minutes, in any case, the Nightline clip is absolutely worth the download. Next time some ID advocate tries to convince me that their pet apologetic isn't based on religion, I'm going to make them explain what Stephen Meyers and Cal Thomas have to say about it.