Did Kitzmiller decision help inspire "academic freedom" bills?

The National Center for Science Education reports that the seventh "anti-evolution" bill has been introduced in a state legislature in 2011, and that this bill is also the second such bill introduced in Tennessee (actually, it looks like it might be just a companion bill to a bill introduced in the other house of the legislature). The Darwinists seem to be surprised by these bills, but what I find surprising about these bills is that there are not more of them being introduced and not more of them being enacted into law -- after all, these bills merely reflect the majority opinion that both the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of evolution should be taught in the public schools. I cannot help but feel that these bills are partly a response to the censorious Kitzmiller v. Dover opinion, which says,

. . . we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID.

Though the above statement only prohibits requiring teachers to criticize evolution theory, the ruling must certainly also have the effect of deterring teachers from criticizing evolution theory on their own. These so-called "anti-evolution" or "academic freedom" bills are partly attempts to make "lawsuit-proof" laws that would counter such intimidation. Kitzmiller was a Pyrrhic victory that has really backfired on the Darwinists.

As I pointed out before, the Darwinists are victims of their own "Red Queen hypothesis" -- they must run hard just to stay in place.

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Massive effort by Darwinists barely derails "academic freedom" bill

The Darwinists are of course crowing about their recent "defeat" of an "academic freedom" bill in New Mexico. But despite a massive effort, the Darwinists merely won by the skin of their teeth -- a committee voted by a bare majority of 5-4 to table the bill. The website of the National Center for Science Education says,

Members of NCSE, NMSR, the New Mexico Academy of Sciences, and the Coalition for Excellence in Science and Math Education were on hand at the committee meeting to express their concern about the bill. Also, a legislative analysis reported (PDF) that the state Attorney General's office described HB 302 as "vulnerable to legal challenge on grounds that its definitions and application are unconstitutionally vague" and the Administrative Office of the Courts warned, "If enacted, HB 302 may result in litigation if the law is interpreted to provide teachers with the latitude to advance certain concepts, such as creationism or intelligent design, as science."

The Panda's Thumb also has an article about this.

After all these years, the Darwinists have made no headway against the fundies and other critics of evolution theory. The Darwinists are victims of their own "Red Queen hypothesis" -- they have to run hard just to stay in place.

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Darwinist fallacies

This blog has become nearly inactive while the evolution debate has continued virtually unabated at other blogs and websites -- e.g., Panda's Thumb, Uncommon Descent, Why Evolution is True, National Center for Science Education, Evolution News & Views, etc.. I have mostly lost interest in the debate because I feel that the Darwinists are not debating the real issues. I feel that a large part of the debate is based on fallacies promoted by the Darwinists. These fallacies are:

Darwinists claim that there is no credible or plausible scientific evidence against evolution. So Darwinists claim that the only arguments against evolution are that (1) no one was there to see it and (2) evolution theory conflicts with Genesis and other religious stories of creation. Therefore, Darwinists claim that religion is the only basis for doubting evolution theory. Darwinists think that therefore all they have to do is persuade the clergy to accept evolution, and then the clergy's congregations would follow like sheep. I am tempted to puke on the shoes of the clergy just to show that I don't give a flying fig about what they think about evolution.

Darwinists claim that those who question evolution just don't "understand" it, so think that educating more people about evolution would increase public acceptance of it. But many of evolution's biggest critics understand evolution very, very well. And "understanding" evolution is a two-edged sword -- it can increase doubts about evolution as well as decrease them. For example, learning about co-evolution greatly increased my doubts about evolution.

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