Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Amway Dick thinks Intelligent design should be talk about in science classes

DeVos: Intelligent design should be discussed in Michigan's science classes DeVos: Intelligent design should be discussed in Michigan's science classes By KATHY BARKS HOFFMANASSOCIATED PRESS September 20, 2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos says he thinks Michigan’s science curriculum should include a discussion about intelligent design.He says teaching intelligent design along with evolution would help students discern the facts among different theories. He’d like to see local school districts be able to teach intelligent design if they choose to, although he wouldn’t require that it be taught in science classes.“I would like to see the ideas of intelligent design that many scientists are now suggesting is a very viable alternative theory,” DeVos told the Associated Press this week during an interview on education. “That theory and others that would be considered credible would expose our students to more ideas, not less.”Intelligent design’s proponents hold that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by a higher force rather than evolving from more primitive forms. Some want science teachers to teach that Darwin’s theory of evolution is not a fact and has gaps.However, a federal judge in December barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes. The judge said intelligent design is religion masquerading as science and that teaching it alongside evolution violates the separation of church and state.Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has said that Michigan schools need to teach the established theory of evolution in science classes and not include intelligent design. She says school districts can explore intelligent design in current events or comparative religions classes.The State Board of Education last week postponed adopting new science curriculum guidelines until state lawmakers get more time to weigh in on what the state’s public schools science curriculum should be and how it should approach the teaching of evolution.House Education Committee Chairman Brian Palmer, R-Romeo, told the board that language adopted in curriculum standards should be broader rather than narrower to allow for changes in theory.He did not mention intelligent design, although critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan have said some Republican lawmakers are trying to “weaken” state standards to allow some instruction about intelligent design in science classes.The issue already has generated some controversy in Michigan. The Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center last year threatened to sue Gull Lake Community Schools over its policy that intelligent design can’t be taught as part of science classes. The law center represented the Dover school district whose policy was struck down.Two middle school teachers in the Gull Lake district in southwest Michigan had wanted to include intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution in their classes. The district banned them from doing so.The Gull Lake policy now leaves the door open for intelligent design to be taught as part of an elective class on controversial issues, district attorney Lisa Swem has said.The Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, funded by the candidate and his wife, gave the Thomas More Law Center $5,000 in 2002.DeVos told the AP this week that allowing school districts to include intelligent design in science classes lets them to “expose students to a multitude of ideas, ... to think through the challenges, to learn to discern between multiple theories.” It's clear now that Amway Dick is trying to send smoke message to the foaming at the mouth Christian right telling them that he believes what they believe.. First Stem cells now this DeVos is showing his right wing whack job card now cuz his "I'm a concern moderate businessman" act has all but failed him so he's appealing to the nuts that would vote for their own narrow world view instead of the common good of everyone.

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