As previously stated I am reluctant to sign on to the Intelligent Design debate for a number of reasons, however this article has some important details in who all is involved in this pitched battle and which sides they are on.

US Scientists enlist clergy in evolution battle
Reuters ^ | 2/20/2006 |

Posted on 02/20/2006 10:58:43 AM PST
ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) - American scientists fighting back against creationism, intelligent design and other theories that seek to deny or downgrade the importance of evolution have recruited unlikely allies -- the clergy.

And they have taken their battle to a new level, trying to educate high school and even elementary school teachers on how to hold their own against parents and school boards who want to mix religion with science.

While they feel they have won the latest round against efforts to bring God into the classroom, the scientists say they have little doubt their opponents are merely regrouping.

"It's time to recognize that science and religion should never be pitted against one another," American Association for the Advancement of Science President Gilbert Omenn told a news conference on Sunday. The AAAS has held several sessions on the evolution issue at its annual meeting in St. Louis.

"The faith community needs to step up to the plate," agreed Eugenie Scott, Executive Director, National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California.

Scott said many people held the "toxic" idea that "you are either a Christian creationist or you are a bad-guy atheist".  Well gee, you framed this article on this basis, and from Evolution’s inception one of evolutionists main thrusts has been to continually fight the bible, the church, belief, and the existence of God.

Recent court and electoral battles have made clear that judges and voters will reject efforts to sneak creationism into the classroom under the guise of making a scientific curriculum clearer or fairer, Scott said.

By a vote of 11 to 4, the Ohio Board of Education last week pulled a model lesson plan it had approved in 2004. The plan had permitted science teachers to encourage students to look at questions about evolution, something proponents of "intelligent design" call "teaching the controversy."

Last year in Pennsylvania, a federal court ruled the theory could not be taught in a public school and the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, which approved the teaching, was voted out.

Intelligent design proponents see the hand of God behind evolution because, they say, life is too complex to be random.

"As a legal strategy intelligent design is dead. It will be very difficult for any school district in the future to successfully survive a legal challenge," Scott said. "That doesn't mean intelligent design is dead as a very popular social movement. This is an idea that has got legs."

But pastors are speaking out against it (Intelligent Design) . Warren Eschbach, a retired Church of the Brethren pastor and professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania helped sponsor a letter signed by more than 10,000 other clergy.

(These Pastors and teachers in a statement Say:) "We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests," they wrote.  This is the whole sale acknowledgement of these 10,000 corrupt and perverse hireling preachers, many of which will turn out to be evangelicals and some will be fundamentalists that the God of “science” and the God of Evolution is above Scripture, and Above God – For the so called science of Evolution at its core was put forth by its founders as a denial of creationism and a denial of the existence of God and the core group of its proponents in the scientific community actively use this to deny the existence of God as well as block any mention of Him in school or collage curriculum as being “frightening”  and those that believe so as “ignorant” and akin to Islamic Terrorists.    

Catholic experts have also joined the movement.

"The intelligent design movement belittles God. It makes God a designer, an engineer," said Vatican Observatory Director George Coyne, an astrophysicist who is also ordained. "The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."
This man has obviously not read the bible,  and the book of genesis in particular in quite a long time. – I am not sure the Catholic Church will be pleased that this man has lent their name and the name of the Vatican to blowing off Intelligent design and Lauding the importance to that church the teachings of evolution.

Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association said some teachers feared losing their jobs if they taught evolution. "The pressures come from the students and the parents," he said.
And here we have what the real thrust of this Gerry Wheeler that this article is woven around – This debate has brought into question the ironclad teachings of evolution and their method for the last 50 years of bulldozing Christians, the Bible and God – and now parents are fighting back and in school districts – the national teachers Association is having some casualties among their science teachers.  So this is a fluff piece written by the NEA and NTA that they will not willing give up one inch of their turf to anything but Godless Evolution. But in so doing this article has exposed the Godless Corruption of Liberal hireling Pastors and Teachers in a broad range of denominations – and these unbelievers/apostates teaching the flocks of God is far more deadly than any science teach in a public school. Because their words are taken by their flocks as absolute truth.   

http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=uri:2006-02-19T233547Z_01_N19206908_RTRUKOC_0_US-SCIENCE-EVOLUTION.xml