id brouhaha

[Cometman]

>On Oct 4, 2005, at 5:11 AM, John Carvill wrote:
>>> David Casseres wrote:
>>> It is monstrous that the antiscience movement has gathered so much
>>> momentum that it shows up, in its most destructive form, on the
>>> Pynchon list of all places.  

>> This about sums it up. It's upsetting, depressing, mystifying,
>> angry-making, etc. to read about schools shoe-horning Creationism/ID
>> into the syllabus, but to find it creeping into the Pynchon list?   
>> It's > one of those jarring experiences that's so affecting because
>> so unexpected, like a little old lady swearing at you on the bus.
>> Grim times............

>Yes,  some p-listers have evidently been admitted to membership  
>without proper vetting.

hee hee, good one --
Operating from my own dogmatism, a Misesian libertarian but with a
sympathy for labor over management, let me explain it all:

point 1) If one is a parent, it must be shocking to _have to_ send kids
off to school and have no control over what they're taught, especially
if you are trying to build their moral code around a Supreme Being of
some kind, and instill morality based on their love (presumably mutual)
for a Creator. The "long novel" of any good religion shows the
development of kindness and compassion, shows good rewarded and evil
punished, at the loving hands of the Author  

point the 2d) Intelligent design tries to poke holes in blind evolution
so as to make room for a source of goodness that isn't based on violent
competition - where's the harm in that, one might wonder?  Any student
interested in learning biology will certainly grok that evolution is
the relevant working hypothesis - horse breeders, dog breeders,
Mendel's beans have recorded repeatable experiments proving that
inherited traits can be selected.  ID doesn't deny this.  

point the 3d) I remember walking out of a dressing room after
performing in a skit for kids, wearing a partial Donald Duck costume
(had removed the head because it was warm) and one mother was Seriously
Pissed that now her son knew I wasn't Donald Duck, but a person.  I
guess in her family it was important that the illusion of Donald Duck
be preserved.  It's one of those things that stick in your mind, like
when you're creeping forward at 1/4 mile an hour in a parking lot and
somebody is walking in front of your car in a trajectory that they MUST
know won't intersect with yours, and they yell because you aren't at a
dead stop.  People are just irrational about some things.  I try to
anticipate this stuff and go along but sometimes it takes me by
surprise what they expect.  There are enough taxpayers who are fans of
the Long Novel of religion that apparently they think it's reasonable
to inject a reference to it in a technical course.  I personally don't
see any great value added by it (but no great harm)

point the penultimate) As a non-parent, it's shocking to me that the
government - abhorrent institution that it is - takes my money to pay
for 13 years of indoctrination in militarism, regimentation and
submission to authority.  ID is just another brick in the wall.  And
yet - I look back on my 13 years of militarism, regimentation and
submission to authority and am grateful to the teachers and the
textbook writers, the whole sick crew, even the freaking coaches
(freakin' militaristic buzzcut violence worshippers yelling "Let's see
some hittin'") WTF, libertarian-wise, there oughtn't to be a
government, no mandatory schools neither, 100% gold standard and no
fractional-reserve banking -- but it's really on the kid.  A truly
motivated person will either find a way out of school entirely and
learn more outside, or find a way to grow within the strictures which
are only painful if you grab them the wrong way. ID is another fad like
New Math (remember that crock'o'poo? - yet there was some interesting
matter behind it and it wasn't all bad) -- 

point the final)  there's a whole lot worse crap going on in schools
than the teaching of ID.  It's not nearly as bad as the abandonment of
phonics, or the proliferation of ADD diagnoses, or mandatory
psychological evaluation, not to mention the things the kids do to each
other.  But these are real people with real feelings, in the classroom
and on both sides of the dispute, so why not frame the dispute in Love
- which I believe somewhere somebody said IS the same as God?

After all, "There is a Hand to turn the Glass..."