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I find it very, very frustrating when the state legislature decides the particulars of what I should teach in the classroom. This bill does not specifically force me, a LA teacher, to teach ID, or the mythical status of global warming, but it does represent law makers meddling in an area they are not experts.

This would be like the legislature directing doctors on the proper methods of suturing a wound, or instructing how to treat a form of cancer. Doctors wouldn't stand for that for more than a second because they are highly trained professionals that know how to do their job. Teachers are also highly trained professionals that know how to do their job without the state meddling directly in the goings on of the classroom.

The new law does not force teachers to teach ID, only makes it acceptable to teach ID as science. This bothers me. This bothers me almost more than I can stand. ID is NOT science. Science is a process of developing TESTABLE theories that can checked and re-checked for error. Until someone creates a litmus test for God, ID is completely unprovable. One might also argue that there is a giant invisible, undetectable yet all powerful beetle that pushes the earth around the sun. If we can't create a test that supports a theory, it's NOT a theory (nor is it science), it's just a nice story.

As a science teacher, my job is to teach science. I teach how to do science, not just words and definitions. I can't even begin to teach ID as science because it is not testable. I teach science as a method of answering questions through experiment and analysis of result. There is no way to do this reliably or reproducibly with ID because God doesn't settle down into a test tube very well.

Let's keep ID where it belongs, in religion classes, not in the science lab. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Science answers questions about the knowable and testable. If it doesn't fit into that category, then it probably fits into religion or philosophy. It is very silly to try and use science to influence religion and even sillier to try and use religion to do science.