This has been in the works for a few days, but now it's official. I am joining forces with Burt Humburg to write a detailed history of the Dover trial for Skeptic magazine. Burt, as I noted before, is the Typhoid Mary of the ID movement. He's not afflicted himself, but he appears to be a carrier; everywhere he goes finds itself up to its ears in ID activity - Kansas, Minnesota, now Pennsylvania. We're working on legislation that would prevent him from ever coming to Michigan. But in the meantime, it'll be fun collaborating with him on this article and I thank him for the kind invitation to do so. So if the blogging seems a little slow over the next few weeks, it's probably because we're trying to come up with 5000 words that tell the story of the Dover trial in a charming and ingratiating manner.
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I would love to see someone try to push the ID movement into the schools here in Oregon. It would be like the proverbial snowball trying to survive hell. Yet another great thing about my adopted state. . .Kansas on the other hand is going to go ahead and stupify it's children even further.
Treban should feel less confident given that outside of the I-5 corridor (portland-eugene-grantspass-medford) there is a huge impetus to embrace ID in the public schools, especially east of the Cascades. Oregon is "protected" only in that the mass of the population is concentrated in that corridor, especially Portland, and carries the state voting. It is not out of the realm of possibilities that ID/creationist activists can use their State legislature to open that can of worms, if certain GOP conservative powers reapportion the state's district boundaries.
On the off chance that the ID movement managed a redistricting and pushed it through the Oregon Supreme Court would never let it stand. Being that it is the least religious state in the country though, I doubt it would ever make it. Especialy as I have noticed a lot of the Christians that I know (I'm one of them) believe in keeping religion out of schools - except in comparative religions. Oregonians are realy quirky like that I'm coming to notice. I believe the main issue is that they don't want someone teaching their child something different from their own beliefs. Of course I don't get east of the Cascades very often either but they would never get a governor who wanted to get re-elected to support it either. Besides, Oregonians across the board are suspicious of things like re-districting - even conservatives - I'm learning that Oregonians take their politics real seriously.