The evolution of creationism

I'm sure many of you are aware in some way or another of the relatively ongoing debate in the U.S. over the teaching of "intelligent design" (the "scientific" sort of creationism - as in God took longer than seven days to create the Earth, and dinosaurs have their existence acknowledged) alongside or in place of evolution. In fact, Kansas banned the teaching of evolution from its schools (in 1999 I think), though it repealed that ban fairly quickly. There have recently been noises from the president in favour of intelligent design, supporting some states' decision to teach it in schools. This has been echoed, so I understand it, albeit in a rather quieter fashion, by our own government.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for diversity and exposing children to many different views. But it seems to me that creationism of any kind should generally be kept to the religious studies classroom, rather than the science lab (where the folk in Kansas want it. Probably should have mentioned that before). Call me biased if you will. But if you want to define science as being essentially coming up with stuff based on observed fact and then (this is the key point) using empirical evidence to prove it, then evolution, whether or not it is described as a theory or a law, is science, whereas the idea that everything was carefully molded from a lump of clay by a bearded watchmaker is, in fact, rather not.

Uh-huh

Australian values are not what they seem...

Read it. It's interesting.

I'll be back....Now

So. Here I am again. Having one of my periodical forays into the world of blogging, none of which seem to last very long, though I always enter into them with the best of intentions. Let's see how long I can keep it up this time.
I know everyone is doing it, but I just have to mention our good friend in the US, Pat Robertson. Why no one has leashed this guy yet is beyond my ken. I suppose we can thank the First Amendment, which lets people say pretty much whatever they like, and lets them charge people to listen. Which is fine to a point, and indeed Pat is being ridiculed and lambasted right left and centre. The scary thing is, though, his is not an isolated view, and in fact there are people who listen to what he says and accept it as gospel. A disturbingly large number of people.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Pat Robertson is a televangelist in the U.S. of A. who goes about making statements like "[liberal judges are a worse threat than] a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings" and "[feminism encourages women to] kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." In other words, he's a moron. Yet a million people pay to listen to him.
Anyhoo, his latest gaffe is saying that the U.S. should send some "covert operatives" to assassinate Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela. He believes it would be cheaper than a war (probably true), and that the flow of oil would probably continue unabated. Rumsfeld, of course, has come out and said that assassinating people is not something that is done by the United States. Clearly bollocks, but the right thing to say under the circs. Of course, they're probably going to have to make sure nothing happens to old Hugo now, as it would look darned suspicious.
What is interesting to me is that citizens of the U.S. feel that their country is so righteous and 'good' that they can suggest this sort of thing as if it's no big deal. It's one thing for the government to decide that someone is so much of a threat that they need to be eliminated (I'm not even going there in this post), it's another for a civilian to suggest foreign policy without any real understanding of the issues. I reckon the man has seen too many action movies.

Here's footage of the man himself:
http://www.nowpublic.com/node/16873