Re: paleonet Re: time for gloves to come off

[Ed Venit <epv@xxxxxxxx>]

I certainly don't have the level of experience as everyone else on this 
list, so perhaps what I'm saying here may be a bit naive.  That being said, 
this strategy strikes me as just more of the same.  Scientists have been 
writing letters decrying creationism since Scopes.  And it's still a 
problem (and apparently a growing one!).  So why should we expect that 
similar strategy will produce different results?

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.  My 
understanding is that NCSE does some of this, but they are really more of a 
reactive organization dedicated to providing resources rather than a 
proactive political organization.  I think that there is a clear need for 
such an organization that can raise money from sympathetic folks, file 
lawsuits on the behalf of parents in at-risk school systems, and lobby (and 
educate) politicians and political bodies.


--On Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:20 PM -0400 Noel Heim <naheim@gmail.com> 
wrote:

> Ed and Others,
>
> The battle against ID/creationism should be waged through letters.
> However, I'm not sure writing defensive responses to articles in
> national publications will suffice on their own.  What we need to do
> is convince our local law makers that ID is not science and should not
> be included in any science curriculum, at any level.  President Bush
> can say all he wants about what he thinks should be included in
> science curricula, but ultimately it is not up to him.  It is up to
> local school board officials.  Elected officials at the state and
> local levels should be the targets of our letters, not the readers of
> the New York Times or Washington Post.  This is of course no easy task
> and it will certainly take more than letters from a few
> paleontologists and evolutionary biologists.  We need to convince our
> friends and family to convince their friends and family, and so on, to
> write to local officials explaining why they feel including
> pseudoscience in school curricula is damaging to our educational
> system and to society in general.  In essence we need to initiate a
> grass roots campaign and it needs to be preemptive.  The targets
> should not be focused solely on states or school systems that are
> currently considering teaching ID/creationism.  The ultimate goal is
> to convince our elected officials that the majority of their
> constituents want to keep real science in schools.
>
> Noel Heim
> Department of Geology
> The University of Georgia
>