Almost forgot...
Court rejects 'intelligent design' in science class

John Scalzi reminded me of this the other day, and handily provided a link to the ruling.

I enjoyed seeing not only Common Sense winning in a trial, but to see the issue (which I know I tend to get emotional about) articulated in clear, presise, legal language by a party without an agenda is pretty satisfying.

Let me give you an example (from the ruling):

"An Objective Observer Would Know that ID and Teaching
About “Gaps” and “Problems” in Evolutionary Theory are
Creationist, Religious Strategies that Evolved from Earlier
Forms of Creationism" (p18).

There. Let us have no more of this "Intelligent Design is science! Really! And it isn't at all related to creationism!" stuff.

That, or the numerous references Buckingham's (the school board member who tried the hardest to get itelligent design into his school's biology classrooms) complete, power-abusing, self-rightous, lying, bullying insanity:

"...there arose [during the trial] the astonishing story of an evolution mural that was taken from a classroom and destroyed in 2002 by Larry Reeser, the head of buildings and grounds for the DASD. At the June 2004 [school board] meeting, Spahr asked Buckingham where he had received a picture of the evolution mural that had been torn down and incinerated... Buckingham responded: “I gleefully watched it burn.” ... [Buckingham] demanded that the teachers agree that there would never again be a mural depicting evolution in any of the classrooms and in exchange, Buckingham would agree to support the purchase of the biology textbook in need by the students" (p 108).

"Subsequently, at the August 2, 2004 meeting, Buckingham opposed the purchase of Biology [legit science textbook], which was recommended by the faculty and administration, unless the Board also approved the purchase of Pandas [creationist textbook] as a companion text...At trial, Buckingham testified that at the meeting he specifically said “if he didn’t get his book, the district would not get the biology book.” (p 110).

Wow. That was a lot of quotationating. I will stop now. Happy Holidays!