Thoughts in a Haystack

If you haven't seen this yet (and if you haven't, then shame on you because it means you haven't been reading Pat Hayes' fine blog, Red State Rabble), there is a new Kansas University student group, KU Students for Science. As one of its members puts it:

“We want to tell people what exactly science is, what is the scientific method,” said Dimitra Atri, a graduate student in astrophysics and member of the new group. “We see (evolution) as a fact like we see that the Earth is round.”

They have a blog here and a nice write-up in the Lawrence [Kansas] Journal-World here.

In the way of showing how much this organization is needed, the article cites John Calvert of the Intelligent Design Network, on the fight over the Kansas Board of Education, where moderates recently ousted enough of the religious conservatives on the board in primary elections to seemingly guarantee the reversal of the creationist science standards imposed by the old board in 2005.

Oh, and in case anyone might think that those standards weren't creationist, he added this:

Calvert said such groups [as KU Students for Science] aren’t neutral. He said they are “evangelists” for a “materialistic theory of origins.”

“They have their own gospel, and it’s a different gospel,” he said.

Of course, Calvert is wrong about evolution being per se a materialistic theory of origins, as the support of theists who are scientists, such as Ken Miller, Francis Collins, Fr. George Coyne and many others, show and as the acceptance of evolutionary theory by many religious organizations demonstrates. What Calvert really is saying is that evolution is not compatible with his narrow sectarian theology that he wants to impose on everyone through the use of public tax money. Nor is Calvert justified in saying that evolutionary theory is a "gospel" to those students in this new group.

But Calvert can be presumed to know his own heart, so any past claims that his crusade to change the science standards was all about the science, and not about his gospel, stand refuted.

For the sake of the next generation, let's hope there are lots of young men and women willing to show Calvert and the others who would pervert science into sectarian religion just what they think of them.