Writing in the National Review Online,(and please read the entire article) John Derbyshire makes a good argument why there is no reasonable basis for the president or anyone else to proclaim the teaching of intelligent design to students should trump teaching each of the other “pseudoscientific flapdoodle”
The title of the article is "Teaching Science--
The president is wrong on Intelligent Design.
...I caught President Bush's endorsement of teaching Intelligent Design in public school science classes. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," President Bush told a reporter August 2, "so people can understand what the debate is all about."
This is Bush at his muddle-headed worst, conferring all the authority of the presidency on the teaching of pseudoscience in science classes. Why stop with Intelligent Design (the theory that life on earth has developed by a series of supernatural miracles performed by the God of the Christian Bible, for which it is pointless to seek any naturalistic explanation)? Why not teach the little ones astrology? Lysenkoism? Orgonomy? Dianetics? Reflexology? Dowsing and radiesthesia? Forteanism? Velikovskianism? Lawsonomy? Secrets of the Great Pyramid? ESP and psychokinesis? Atlantis and Lemuria? The hollow-earth theory? Does the president have any idea, does he have any idea, how many varieties of pseudoscientific flapdoodle there are in the world? If you are going to teach one, why not teach the rest? Shouldn't all sides be "properly taught"? To give our kids, you know, a rounded picture? Has the president scrutinized Velikovsky's theories? Can he refute them? Can you?
I think that proponents of each theory could argue the value of their view to be included in an educational curriculum and probably they should. But I also think that they certainly should not be taught in a class dealing with science. I would think that a philosophy class would be more appropriate. Do you agree? ..Maurice.
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