THE EDITOR:

As a person who has marked English and Philosophy essays for almost 35 years I could not help but have a red pen approach to your borrowed editorial on the recent ruling by the conservative U.S. judge in the Dover, Pa. “intelligent design” case.

Below are my comments for that unknown writer:

1. Factual content: F. The judge did not rule that “ID” should not be taught. In fact, he recommended that it be taught in socials or comparative religion. He ruled that “ID” is not science and so should not be taught in a biology class. Testimony from the “ID” experts showed that under their definition of science, astrology would be considered science and should be taught.

2. Science knowledge: F. Teaching ID along with Darwinism is like teaching the care and feeding of unicorns along with veterinarian science.

3. Religion: F. As Kenneth Woodward puts it: “But the designer God of intelligent design is no more necessary to Christianity (or other monotheisms) than was the deistic God of Newtonian physics. In both cases, God ends up being made in the image of an intellectual system, much like Aristotle’s unmoved mover. That is not the God of revelation.”

4. Argument: F. To argue that students should be free to study whatever is just silly. To follow that “fairness” argument to its logical conclusion would mean that biology classes would be required to teach every creation myth in human experience. My favourite is the spider story.

As you can see, the piece would earn an ‘F’ in any number of ways. If your readers are interested in an editorial that presents the Judge Jones ruling in an objective way, I recommend the Globe and Mail editorial from the same day.

Nanaimo