re: #620 MandyManners

Demonize Dawkins? Not I. I just don’t like that particular comparison.

Between being forced to teach creationism as science, and being forced to teach that the holocaust never happened as history? I don’t see the problem; it’s an excellent analogy. Both are odious intrusions of ideology on fact. Both are sickening. No expert in either field would ever agree with such an edict, and most would openly fight against one.

In what way are the two situations not alike? Apart from content, they are identical, and the comparison has the added benefit of immediacy - no imagination is required to see a point that is familiar to all, and attempts to teach both are currently underway in the present. Any other comparison would need to reach for come hypothetical construct with little relevance, like comparing the teaching of creationism as science (which is actually being attempted in the here and now) with something remote and fictional, like attempting to teach alchemy as chemistry.

It’s an excellent analogy. I may have occasion to use it myself, and I won’t hesitate should the opportunity arise.