Democracy Has Prevailed.

November 9, 2005

The most satisfying victory?

I have to say that perhaps the most satisfying victory from yesterday's elections was for a race that I wasn't aware was happening at the time it occurred:

Challengers unseated eight out of nine Dover Board of Education members yesterday in a tight race that centered on the issue whether the theory of intelligent design has a place in science classes.

The ninth member of the York County school board was not up for re-election.

The eight board members unseated were all are proponents of a policy -- now the subject of a federal court case -- requiring high school freshmen to hear a statement about intelligent design before biology lessons about evolution.
The unfortunate part is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article also states:

The challengers, who said the policy violated the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state, are not expected to revamp the biology curriculum right away.

"They want to have a discussion with the community and see the results of the court case. They are very interested in community input," said Sharon Wetzel, spokeswoman for Dover CARES, the slate of challengers.
If the new board already believes (correctly) that teaching Creationism Intelligent Design violates the Constitution, why not move right away to be rid of it?

Furthermore, why should the community have "input" into deciding what is and isn't science anymore than letting them have "input" on deciding, say, if 1 + 1 = 2?

While I congratulate the citizens who voted out the school board members who desired to turn a biology class into a religion class, I would expect the new board members to have the courage of their convictions and end this farce immediately.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Call me koo-koo, but didn't the Dover community already give its input by voting in EIGHT NEW school board members, all of whom believe 'Creative Religious Science Fiction' has no place in the real science classroom?

Maria said...

I missed the obvious. Thanks for stating it.