Let me start off by saying that this post will be offensive to people who would like to have their own personal religious beliefs taught in schools. Here's the news: President Bush just endorsed teaching intelligent design in schools. He slipped past further questions by saying that "people ought to be exposed to different ideas". You can't disagree with that, people should be exposed to different ideas. But this skirts the issue of appropriate venue for certain ideas as well as insinuating that schools should teach the comparative religions of the world outside of a college humanities elective.
Should Intelligent Design be taught in schools? Intelligent Design is not an actual theory, it.s more like the not-so-secret code for creationism. It is essentially the idea that life is too complex to have evolved by small changes over millions of years, but must have been created by an intelligent being who was presumably not evolved over time either but created by another previous intelligent being ad infinitum or possibly just magically poofed into existence. You see the problem here. Intelligent Design isn't a scientific theory, it's a lighthearted romp with creationism similar to the way crack is a lighthearted romp with the world of drugs. Intelligent Design is a religious façade and should neither be endorsed by the government nor taught in schools.
What.s more, the suggestion that people be exposed to different ideas is a deceptive attempt at the philosophical high ground. Yes, again, we should be open to all ideas. I'd even go so far as to say the more ideas we hear the better we are. Does this mean that we'll compare the idea that the stars in the night sky are the sprayed milk of the First Cow? Or that the earth rests upon the back of a Great Turtle? That we were slaves of some alien race who long ago overthrew their decadent masters? That some people can turn bread into fish? These are all fine stories and I like to read them, but we're limiting the discussion to things we want taught in public schools. Will we have to abandon a little math or science to add these stories to the curriculum? Will we have to abandon the lecture on critical thinking?
So yes, I'm incensed. George Bush may have whatever ideas he wants about the origin of mankind, but the Office of the President, or any part of the government, should not make disingenuous remarks about open-mindedness in an attempt to push personal beliefs into the public school system coverage of science.
The title, incidently, refers to an anecdote told by Steven Hawking about a scientist who gave a lecture on astronomy. After the lecture, an elderly lady came up and told the scientist that he had it all wrong. 'The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist asked "And what is the turtle standing on?" To which the lady triumphantly replied: "You're very clever, young man, but it's no use -- it's turtles all the way down."