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> I think we will never make progress unless we get better organized > politically. Ideally we would form an NGO who's specific mission > is to proactively and aggressively battle creationist movements. I disagree completely. I can't stress this enough, any indication at all that we take the creationist/ID movement seriously will ONLY serve to increase the public perception that there IS a controversy. We CAN'T get bogged down arguing details, because it makes it look like we have something to argue against. There's NOTHING to argue against, their movement is based on misquotes and nonsense. It's ALL PR, it's all spin. There's no substance to it. And treating it like there's something to argue, discussing any points with them will, WILL, be seen by the public as a tacit admission that we think they are worth arguing against. And that serves their cause, not ours. What we could do, is set up a body as an advisory on science teaching in schools. Join palaeontologists and geologists with physicists and chemists to look at school science curriculums and propose changes. That way, we get to discuss evolution in the context of school courses with appearing to be involved in a debate with the ID movement. We have to treat the ID movement as a joke. Laugh them off, wave away their arguments as nonsense and waffle. Dismiss them as not having understood the subject. Treat them as irrelevant. We have to make it look to the general public like we don't see them as a threat. Make it look like we pity them for their obvious misunderstanding of the subject. I'd almost like to call their bluff and ask them to put forward a course in ID just to see the content. They have no leg to stand on. Let's not treat them like they do. This is not a science debate, it's a PR battle and they're winning because we're appearing to take them seriously. Breandán -- _______________________________________________ For the largest FREE email in Ireland (25MB) and 20MB of online file storage space - Visit http://www.campus.ie
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