Terrorism

"Terrorists and conservative governments are mutually dependant. Terrorists need conservative governments to wage war on them, creating martyrs and more recruits, while conservative governments need terrorists to scare the electorate into re-electing them and giving them more draconian powers. What a beautiful symbiosis." -- Felix Dance, letter to The Age 9 Nov 2005-11-10

Christian fundamentalism and its latest ploy: Intelligent Design

" … the answer to who is pushing [Intelligent Design] in America seems to be the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank based in Seattle. But Australia is feeling the intelligent design pressure, too: in August, federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson commended the idea of teaching it in schools.

"Junk science is seen in such things as the proliferation of anti-global warming think tanks and institutes all receiving funding from oil companies, notably Exxon. ID and creationism, its older sister, are in this category.

"Their closely co-ordinated publicity tries to insert biblical literalism into science classes in secular schools by sloganeering instead of a body of scientifically observed phenomena. Such science has no natural flow, no real vitality of its own. It has to be pushed along by devotees, and they have deep pockets and a sense of high destiny. But it has no experiments. All of its existence is based on picking holes in evolution. Intelligent design's big slogan is irreducible complexity. To this end its supporters cite the eye as a complex mechanism that could not have evolved, but must have been designed uniquely. This can be refuted by a single middle-school science lesson on the evolution of the eye from groups of light sensitive cells on flatworms up to the complex but imperfectly functioning eyes that we now possess."

From An intelligent design of the times, by Juliette Hughes, The Age, 22 October 2005