Texas' Director of Science Curriculum fired for criticizing Intelligent Design

[Ice]

Yay, I'm saying that. And why not? They are biased, and likely to slant something like this to make it seem like she was fired for criticizing intelligent design.

CR

Hehe. If I remember correctly CR, you use sources like "guncite.com"

A little ironic here, yes?

[Crazed Rabbit]

Guncite is more a repository of information and factual data than editorializing. If someone can point out where they made anything up, I'll listen.

CR

[Banquo's Ghost]

Guncite is more a repository of information and factual data than editorializing. If someone can point out where they made anything up, I'll listen.

I'm sure that you understand that someone doesn't have to make things up to be biased. To be seen as unbiased, the source would tend to have a good deal of evidence to support both sides of an argument.

In many ways, I'd venture, bias is a good thing in that it forces the intelligent mind to search for more diverse sources. Not to mention making Backroom threads a lot more interesting.

[woad&fangs]

Guncite.com did have some bias but it actually wasn't too bad. It also provided links to pro-guncontrol websites so if they made up a bunch of Bull **** it would have been pretty easy to realize. I didn't bother to bash it in the debate because of that. There are very few sources that aren't biased. The Colbert Report and a magazine called The Week are the only news sources that I can think of that have no or almost no bias.

[English assassin]

"...implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral."

Yo. Bias dudes. The TEA itself says it must remain neutral on the question of intelligent design.

To spell that out, the TEA is unable to bring itself to say that telling lies to children in its care is wrong.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Strictly speaking, it's not 'lies' - it's just 'science which we have no facts to support'.

CR

[English assassin]

Strictly speaking, it's not 'lies' - it's just 'science which we have no facts to support'.

CR

This is some new use of the word "science" not to be found in my dictionary... Still, we seem to be more or less in agreement.

I discovered this week that one of my assistants is a creationist. Thanks to new Labour's equality Nazis, he is free to give me worthless creationist tracts. Whereas if I give him John Maynard Smith's classic "The Theory of Evolution" I will have discriminated against his religion, and he will have hit the compensation jackpot.

This urinates me off somewhat.

[Husar]

Thanks to new Labour's equality Nazis, he is free to give me worthless creationist tracts.

And you're free to throw them into the trash while he's watching, maybe he'll get the idea.

[Big_John]

Strictly speaking, it's not 'lies' - it's just 'science which we have no facts to support'.

CR

strictly speaking (hell, even loosely speaking), 'intelligent design' is no kind of science.

[Lemur]

Strictly speaking, it's not 'lies' - it's just 'science which we have no facts to support'.

That doesn't sound like strictly speaking at all, it sounds like loosely speaking with a tenuous grasp of the English language.

What kind of science do you have when there are "no facts to support"? How is that different from magic, witchcraft, astrology, Dianetics or spontaneous human combustion? (No, wait, strike that last one. At least there's some evidence for SHC, whereas there is none for ID.)

[Crazed Rabbit]

That doesn't sound like strictly speaking at all, it sounds like loosely speaking with a tenuous grasp of the English language.

What kind of science do you have when there are "no facts to support"? How is that different from magic, witchcraft, astrology, Dianetics or spontaneous human combustion? (No, wait, strike that last one. At least there's some evidence for SHC, whereas there is none for ID.)

Good grief, it was just a figure of speech to get in a joke about ID.
(Also, a lie is something you know is false, whilst ID'ers believe in ID)

I didn't think it was politics, but that it was very much related to science, and to her occupation. It was a talk given by a _scientist_, regarding Intelligent Design, which is part of the curriculum. How is it NOT related to her job description to announce such events ?

I think she doesn't have the power to announce such events solely by herself, which is the issue on that point.

CR