Thread by @travis_view

Merry Kitzmas!

Today is the 16th anniversary of the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, which held that Intelligent Design Creationism is essentially religious and therefore teaching it in public school violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmille…

It wasn’t a given that Kitzmiller v. Dover would be ruled this way. In the 90s/2000s there was an organized push to corrupt public school education by teaching Intelligent Design.

This was executed through the “Teach the Controversy” campaign.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the…

The movement to teach Intelligent Design in public school had powerful allies. President Bush advocated for the teaching of intelligent design in schools. Senator Rick Santorum tried to include “teach the controversy” language in a 2001 education bill.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_…

But The Discovery Institute’s true goals were made clear with the leak of the “Wedge Document.” This document laid out an ambitious, decades-long public relations strategy to take over culture and politics with their religious worldview.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_str…

The Wedge Document revealed the religious nature of the Discovery Institute’s goals in unambiguous terms: They sought "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.”
ncse.ngo/files/pub/crea…

A key piece of evidence in the trial concerned the Intelligent Design textbook Of Pandas and People. Earlier drafts of the textbook referred to “creation theory” but this phrase was replaced with “intelligent design” after teaching creationism was ruled unconstitutional in 1987.

In one draft of the textbook, a sloppy copy/paste job led to the inclusion of the phrase “cdesign proponentsists.”
This “missing link” between creationism and intelligent design was further proof that the latter is just a relabeled version of the former.

If you have two hours to spare, I can highly recommend watching the NOVA documentary “Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.” It dramatically lays out the whole story of Kitzmiller v. Dover and includes interviews with many of the key players.

At the time, the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover felt like a huge victory for skepticism and empiricism.

The forces of ideologically-driven unreality were held back in at least one area of public life.​​nytimes.com/2005/12/21/edu…

Today, between QAnon, the satanic panic revival, and election fraud conspiracy theories it can feel like forces of unreality are ascendent.

But on this Kitzmas, it’s good to remember that the fight for truth, skepticism, and science is worthwhile and can yield victories.