Listmania

There’s a sign-up list being put together by Creation Ministries International that they are calling ‘Creation Sunday’ as a response to the Clergy Project’s Evolution Sunday. (Of course, they didn’t bother to check on the name, which is already in use: Creation Sunday Resources: Evangelical Environmental Network.) They urge people to sign up, and say that they want to surpass the 10,000 signers on the Clergy Project statement by getting one million signers on theirs. They gloss over the fact that it was 10,000 clergy, not laypeople, who signed the Clergy Project list.

When you’ve had enough silliness with CMI, then go have a look at the Conservatives Against Intelligent Design site, especially the banner on the page. That’s worth a look all by itself. The mission statement is good, and I will quote it here:

Mission Statement
Filed under: Taking Action — admin @ 7:47 am

Conservatives Against Intelligent Design (CAID) was founded to give a voice to Republicans, Independent Conservatives, and Libertarians across the country who stand opposed to the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ and other forms of creationism in the classroom. In recent years Republican legislators at all levels of government have authored, sponsored, and voted for various anti-evolution bills with perceived immunity, confident that those who vote for them are creationists like themselves. CAID is intended as a wake-up call to these legislators, to remind them that the teaching of evolution is not a partisan issue, but rather one of the separation between theology and science.

CAID holds that there is no conflict between evolution and religion because each speaks to a different level of understanding and to a different level of explanation: Namely empirical versus metaphysical. Neither threatens nor invalidates the other. However, by their very nature alternative theories like ‘intelligent design’ rely on the supposition of a metaphysical creator and therefore stand outside the domain of rational empiricism. Science–being based upon the latter–has no room within it for theological supposition; therefore such theories must remain outside the science classroom, being more suitable for discussion in philosophy courses.

Darwinian evolution has continued to gain empirical and theoretical support in the nearly 150 years since the original publication of Origin of Species. Although scientists continue to debate the specifics of evolutionary pattern and process, these represent attempts to refine and clarify extant theory rather than supplant or disprove either evolution or natural selection as the dominant mechanism of change.

Because ecological, biochemical, genetic, and paleontological finds have failed to provide support for any competing theory; and because current alternative theories are fundamentally not scientific, it would be irresponsible and disingenuous to teach any theory other than Darwinian evolution in science courses in our nation’s public schools.

Signers so far include John Derbyshire. Now all we need is for George Will, Newt Gingrich, and Charles Krauthammer to likewise sign in.