About that Ohio Intelligent Design "curriculum" ...

You don't even need to read all 19 pages of the proposed ID-based addition to the curriculum in Ohio. Just check out these tasty excerpts from the very first page alone:

"Critical Analysis of Evolution ... investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory ... investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory ... critically analyze five different aspects of evolutionary theory ... critical analysis discussion ... critical analyses of evolutionary theory ... How do scientists critically analyze conflicting data? ... Critical analysis ..."

Is it just me or does anyone else see a pattern here?

Given that those IDers are so fond of "critical analysis," one would think they'd be willing to subject their own pet theory to the same scrutiny, no? Let's find out by wandering over to the Discovery Institute search page and typing the words "critical analysis" into the search box, and hitting return.

Oh, dear.

Apparently, some people suddenly aren't such big believers in "teaching the controversy" after all, are they?

BY THE WAY, I realize I'm flogging this but there's just so much inconsistent idiocy floating around that it's worth pointing it out if you missed it the first time. Savour, if you will, the following excerpt, where the DI's Mark Ryland explains the DI's position on introducing intelligent design to the classroom (emphasis added):

MODERATOR (Jon Entine): I am curious about the Discovery Institute's involvement in the Dover case, where originally they were slated three people, affiliated with the institute were slated to give depositions, and then obviously pulled out. There was some kind of dispute about legal strategy, perhaps. And I want you to address that, because I think there is some belief, at least expressed in various newspaper articles, that there was a concern by the Discovery Institute that if this issue is decided on science, that intelligent design would be ruled as religion and therefore would fall under the Establishment Cause and therefore would be banned from being taught in science classes.

So, for fear of that almost inevitability happening, the Discovery Institute repositioned itself for tactical reasons, to be against, for teaching the controversy perhaps in nonscientific settings. I just wanted you to respond.

MARK RYLAND (DI): Sure, I'd be happy to respond. Let me back up first and say: The Discovery Institute never set out to have a school board, schools, get into this issue. We've never encouraged people to do it, we've never promoted it. We have, unfortunately, gotten sucked into it, because we have a lot of expertise in the issue, that people are interested in.

When asked for our opinion, we always tell people: don't teach intelligent design. There's no curriculum developed for it, you're teachers are likely to be hostile towards it, I mean there's just all these good reasons why you should not to go down that path. If you want to do anything, you should teach the evidence for and against Darwin's theory. Teach it dialectically.

Here, let me translate that for you. "We want to slap the crap out of biological evolution while being completely immune from even the slightest criticism whatsoever."

Does that sound about right?