Creationism gets another defeat: the Cobb County case about the textbook stickers has been settled, and the bad guys have surrendered.
In an agreement announced today, Cobb County school officials state that they will not order the placement of “any stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions, or other warnings or disclaimers bearing language substantially similar to that used on the sticker that is the subject of this action.” School officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes.
I will make my by now familiar disclaimer: this is very good news, but no minds will have been changed by this decision. This is a stopgap success, and we need to press on to improve science literacy, rather than just not degrading it further.
In fact, those same unchanged minds are, as we speak/type, hard at work coming up with ways to circumvent this agreement. Just like pancreatic cancer, it’s an example of adaptation at its finest.
Oh, the evolving irony of the evolution-denier.
School officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of biology in biology classes.
As a secular humanist denizen of Cobb County, that news suprises and delights me. Especially since I have a child who will be going to school in Cobb County in the next few years.
School board’s press release.
It’s pragmatism, plain and simple.
They settled for a tad less than $200K for plaintiff’s legal expenses.
Losing at trial would have cost millions more.
http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/news/2006/20061219_EvolutionCase.htm
Common sense in Cobb? That’s almost unbelievable.
ThIS desishun is totallie WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!! I will haf a mager repourt poasted on teh DI website which sho0ws what a totallie wrong desishun thi sis.
Yes, I am an laywer and scinetist.
The scary part: I’m not sure we can be certain the above is someone making fun of Luskin.
I thought it was the real deal myself. ;-)
Um, I’m a high school biology teacher in Cobb, and this is the first I’ve heard of the decision… think they’re keeping it from us??
I got a lot of backlash from the KIDS in Cobb. Mommy and Daddy Christian are teaching them well…
I don’t think this will last. Bill Dembski is probably already hard at work making fart noises as a rebuttal, and since there is no way to mount a defense against fart noises the decision is bound to be overturned.
But seriously? That dude needs something like Brain Bean-o.
Slightly OT (but not that much, after all):
Behold the new incarnation of ID!
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19225824.000?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19225824.000
that’s some weird stuff, aureola.
It must be really weird to have a job where you show up everyday, and after morning prayers, spend the next 12 hours deluding yourself into believing you’re really doing science.
The depths of this sort of self-deception are difficult to imagine.