…and this is a 
Another legal victory for evolution
Category: Creationism
Posted on: December 19, 2006 2:50 PM, by PZ Myers
Creationism gets another defeat: the Cobb County case about the textbook stickers has been settled, and the bad guys have surrendered.
In an agreement announced today, Cobb County school officials state that they will not order the placement of "any stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions, or other warnings or disclaimers bearing language substantially similar to that used on the sticker that is the subject of this action." School officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes.
I will make my by now familiar disclaimer: this is very good news, but no minds will have been changed by this decision. This is a stopgap success, and we need to press on to improve science literacy, rather than just not degrading it further.
Comments
In fact, those same unchanged minds are, as we speak/type, hard at work coming up with ways to circumvent this agreement. Just like pancreatic cancer, it's an example of adaptation at its finest.
Oh, the evolving irony of the evolution-denier.
Posted by: Dan | December 19, 2006 3:07 PM
School officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of biology in biology classes.
Posted by: Rey Fox | December 19, 2006 3:58 PM
As a secular humanist denizen of Cobb County, that news suprises and delights me. Especially since I have a child who will be going to school in Cobb County in the next few years.
Posted by: Deety | December 19, 2006 4:07 PM
School board's press release.
It's pragmatism, plain and simple.
They settled for a tad less than $200K for plaintiff's legal expenses.
Losing at trial would have cost millions more.
http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/news/2006/20061219_EvolutionCase.htm
Posted by: blader | December 19, 2006 4:30 PM
Common sense in Cobb? That's almost unbelievable.
Posted by: Fragano Ledgister | December 19, 2006 4:51 PM
ThIS desishun is totallie WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!! I will haf a mager repourt poasted on teh DI website which sho0ws what a totallie wrong desishun thi sis.
Yes, I am an laywer and scinetist.
Posted by: Casey Luskin | December 19, 2006 5:23 PM
The scary part: I'm not sure we can be certain the above is someone making fun of Luskin.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | December 19, 2006 5:58 PM
I thought it was the real deal myself. ;-)
Posted by: Kristine | December 19, 2006 6:10 PM
Um, I'm a high school biology teacher in Cobb, and this is the first I've heard of the decision... think they're keeping it from us??
I got a lot of backlash from the KIDS in Cobb. Mommy and Daddy Christian are teaching them well...
Posted by: lobsterlily | December 19, 2006 9:19 PM
I don't think this will last. Bill Dembski is probably already hard at work making fart noises as a rebuttal, and since there is no way to mount a defense against fart noises the decision is bound to be overturned.
But seriously? That dude needs something like Brain Bean-o.
Posted by: Dustin | December 19, 2006 10:24 PM
Slightly OT (but not that much, after all):
Behold the new incarnation of ID!
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19225824.000?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19225824.000
Posted by: Aureola Nominee, FCD | December 20, 2006 10:03 AM
that's some weird stuff, aureola.
It must be really weird to have a job where you show up everyday, and after morning prayers, spend the next 12 hours deluding yourself into believing you're really doing science.
The depths of this sort of self-deception are difficult to imagine.
Posted by: blader | December 20, 2006 3:25 PM