Teaching the Contraversy: A response to Austi

I am afraid I find your argument sufficiently difficult to follow. The segment I was able to comprehend -- your distaste for Stanley Fish -- is one I no doubt disagree with, but we can leave that for another debate (over backgammon, perhaps). I lose you in the second paragraph. You're quite right to bring up John Stuart Mill, in particular because if you had continued to read the article, you would discover that Fish brings up John Stuart Mill making the same point. I think I understand the Millian-Thompsian position that we need stupidity and error in our society for the truth to be true, and the smart to be smart. The fact of the matter is, though, that stupidity and error will exist in our society forever, and it's something you don't really need to worry about promoting as you do by stating that "teaching the debate is OK." Teaching the debate is OK, but not as you seem to suggest it is. It is a debate that should be taught in humanities classes or the social sciences, not in a biology class. Why? Because if it is the case that we haven't been "fighting hard enough" for our beliefs, it seems like letting people in Kansas teach the blatantly wrong sounds like an awfully bad strategy for winning the fight. Our ideas, meanwhile, will bring them to their needs because our"ideas" on Intelligent Design are true and their "ideas" are false. We will win the argument because we have the evidence. That's the end of the scientific debate, really. I don't wany any kids in America to be taught this garbage, and I will not be cutesy (ie. Mill's argument) about letting it happen. If you have a committment to the truth -- and what makes this debate so nice is its rather obvious black and white of truth and false -- then you should care what happens in Kansas.