Freethought Nation

What is "Intelligent Design" Creationism?

""Intelligent Design" creationism (IDC) is a successor to the "creation science" movement, which dates back to the 1960s. The IDC movement began in the middle 1980s as an antievolution movement which could include young earth, old earth, and progressive creationists; theistic evolutionists, however, were not welcome. The movement increased in popularity in the 1990s with the publication of books by law professor Phillip Johnson and the founding in 1996 of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (now the Center for Science and Culture.) The term "intelligent design" was adopted as a replacement for "creation science," which was ruled to represent a particular religious belief in the Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987. ...."

http://ncse.com/creationism/general/wha ... reationism

U.K. scientists find 'lost' Darwin fossils

"LONDON (AP) – British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years....."

This new Discoveroid post lists several other cases involving their version of free speech: JPL Discrimination Lawsuit Next In Long String Of Free-Speech On Evolution Controversies. Besides the cases we've mentioned, they include the Guillermo Gonzalez tenure denial affair at Iowa State University in 2006, the peer review scandal involving Stephen Meyer and Richard von Sternberg, plus an even older controversy from 2005 at the University of Idaho.]

This is how it looks to us: The First Amendment’s establishment clause has, so far, prevented the religious doctrines of creationism and Intelligent Design from being promoted in public school science classes. Now the Discoveroids are attempting to use the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee to protect advocates of creationism in their private employment. But the First Amendment only prevents the government from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” — not private firms or organizations.

The Coppedge case is a clever vehicle to use as a wedge. JPL’s status as a private employer is ambiguous. It’s managed and operated by the California Institute of Technology, does research for NASA, and enjoys government funding. It’s not your typical private enterprise, but it’s a good place to use as a precedent for the Discoveroids’ version of free speech.

It will be interesting to see if the Discoveroids get anywhere with this strange claim of an employee’s “freedom to promote creationism” in the workplace. We doubt that they’ll be successful; but it’s interesting that they’re branching out, as it were. It seems to be an acknowledgment that “Teach the Controversy” has been a failure.