Conservatives Against Intelligent Design
This is a new group I’m trying to get off the ground. The reason for the ‘conservatives’ part is simple. Like it or not–and for reasons that kind of upset me–the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate has become a right vs. left thing. As the Republican Party become more and more theocratic everyday, it’s easy to understand why Intelligent Design has suddenly become a rallying point for many conservative state legislators and officials out here in flyover country. The Left hasn’t helped anything by pointing fingers and both consciously and unconsciously implying a correlation between ‘progressivism’ and evolution. A correlation that’s rationally false but one that’s been pushed ever since Karl Marx attempted to get Charles Darwin to endorse his book, continuing on through Alfred Russell Wallace’s avowed socialism, Robert Trivers’ membership in the Black Panthers, and, near as I can tell everyone on scienceblogs.com.
But, as bitter as I am, I don’t want to point fingers. For while those guys imply that evolution and leftism go hand in hand, I’m no better since I say the same thing about evolution and libertarianism/classical liberalism. And wow am I off track. Where I was going with this was that it was typically Republicans sponsoring these ID bills. So liberal evolutionists would lump in ID with the rest of their complaints about Republicans. Republicans would go on the defensive, and equate evolution-support with liberalism. Now, we have people like Sally Kern (state rep in Oklahoma) supporting these bills with perceived immunity, confident that the people who actually vote for them are creationists, like themselves.
From personal experience, that isn’t necessarily the case. I know plenty of conservatives and Republicans that are vehemently against Intelligent Design in all its forms being taught in the classroom. I’m one of them. I know far fewer who are creationists. My hope is that by organizing, collecting names (and credentials) of bonafide conservatives against ID, we can show the Republicans that this is not by any stretch a partisan issue.
It’s to that end I’m attempting to do this. I live in Oklahoma, and we have a creationist bill in legislation right now, HB 2107. I’d love to see this quashed, I’d love to see similar stuff killed in Kansas as well. It’s in these areas particularly we need to make our voices heard. Anyway, comments, feedback, ideas on how best to do this would be appreciated. I’m just throwing the idea out there for now, seeing what sticks.
Petitions like those many of us filled out on the Union of Concerned Scientists webpage for endangered species are the most likely possibility. This isn’t intended to be a special interest group or anything, but a very specific tool that can be added to our arsenal as we fight the perversion of science by a party that’s lost touch with reality.
Conservatives and Leftists alike can email me with suggestions at:
nikhil-rao - at - ouhsc.edu
In the next month or so I hope to have a webpage up for Conservatives Against Intelligent Design and a petition you can fill out over the web including your name, degree, university affiliation, and location. I just wanted to get a buzz going and hopefully get some feedback from older and wiser heads.
I see no other comments have been made. In case no one has emailed you about your assertion that Marx tried to get Darwin to endorse his book, you should check out:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA002_2.html
Comment by ray — April 3, 2006 @ 11:52 pm
Thanks for the link. I’ll be sure to delete that from my mental list of socialism-evolution syncretists. It’s still a long (and sad) list.
Comment by IndianCowboy — April 4, 2006 @ 2:38 am
Indian Cowboy, I missed your comment on my post on my blog but have followed it up. (Sorry I’ve been real busy and some how missed the notice).
Thanks for the visit and the comment.
Comment by bigdumbchimp — April 4, 2006 @ 9:59 am
[...] Some may remember my Conservatives Against Intelligent Design post from two weeks ago. I’ve been in contact with older and wiser heads since then, crammed for a midterm, and started working on a webdesign (if my hand cooperates, you’ll love the logo). Within the next couple of months, I’ll hopefully have a page and mission statement up, as well as a way for people to sign showing their support (and political affiliation). As before, I’m looking for any other classical liberal, minarchist, libertarian, conservative, or Republicans who wish to either lend a hand in webdesign/maintenance, writing articles, or just have advice (I’ll take the advice from people of any political persuasion). Wish me luck. [...]
Pingback by OK so I’m not really a cowboy. » Blog Archive » Welcome Tangled Bank (51) and Skeptics Circle (32) — April 12, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
[...] One of the reasons I’m in the process of founding Conservatives Against Intelligent Design is because many leftists have made the categorical mistake of associating creationism with right-of-center political ideologies. Many of the Christian Right have made the corresponding error of associating evolution with leftist political ideologies. [...]
Pingback by OK so I’m not really a cowboy. » Blog Archive » The Evolution Debate: Categorical Mistakes — April 28, 2006 @ 11:58 am
[...] Turning this around, imagine that Person A expresses a distaste for the Intelligent Design. Person B then makes some remark implying Person A is of a decidedly leftist persuasion, like himself. Person A takes umbrage and decides to start a movement called Conservatives Against Intelligent Design (launching at the end of the month-ish). In addition to making a total ass of himself, Person B has alienated a lot of people who, like Person A, aren’t particularly socialist, but aren’t ID supporters either. Best case scenario is that people like Person A no longer voice their opinions, fearing they’ll be lumped in with people like Person B. Worst case is that people like Person C, who was on the fence about evolution-creation but was definitely conservative, and Person D, who’s a political opportunist, throw their hats in the ring in support of ID (I’m pretty sure this is the real reason for the strength of the ID movement). They’ve taken advantage of Person B’s conflation of one issue with an entire ideology and used this as a weapon against B. They’re not taking the opposite position on that issue in order to say ‘Hey we’re different from this guy.’ [...]
Pingback by OK so I’m not really a cowboy. » Blog Archive » Baseless Elitism: The Dangers Of Inductive Reasoning — May 24, 2006 @ 4:54 am
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