From Newsgroup: talk.origins

https://scienceandculture.com/2025/12/ten-myths-about-dover-no-5-discovery-institute-supported-dover-school-board-policy/

There is no doubt that the ID perps did not want the Dover rubes to
teach ID in their public schools. At the time that Dover hit the fan
the ID perps were paying someone to make sure that the bait and switch
scam went down and that any rubes that wanted to teach ID would be told
not to teach ID and would be sold the switch scam instead. There is no
doubt that the Discovery Institute was promoting teaching intelligent
design in the public schools as it was one of the 5 year objectives of
the described in their Wedge document.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
QUOTE:
This story made the York newspapers, and Buckingham was telephoned by Discovery Institute staff attorney Seth Cooper, whose tasks included "communicating with legislators, school board members, teachers, parents
and students" to "address the topic of ID in a scientifically and educationally responsible way" in public schools. He later stated that
he made the call to "steer the Dover Board away from trying to include intelligent design in the classroom or from trying to insert creationism
into its cirriculum [sic]", an account Buckingham has disputed. Cooper
sent the book and DVD of Icons of Evolution to Buckingham, who required
the Dover High School science teachers to watch the DVD. They did not
take up the opportunity to use it in their classes.
END QUOTE:

The ID perps admit that it was Cooper's job to make sure that ID was
never taught and that the bait and switch go down instead.

https://www.discovery.org/m/2020/08/Seth-Cooper-Statement-Kitzmiller-Dover.pdf

QUOTE:
Taking things from the top, between August of 2003 and August of 2005 I
served Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture as a legal and public policy analyst. In keeping with Discovery Institute's long-held
public policy position, I frequently reiterate to legislators, school
board members, teachers, parents and students across the country that
the legally and pedagogically appropriate way to treat the topic of
evolution in public schools is to fully teach the scientific arguments
for and against the contemporary version of Darwin's theory as well
chemical evolutionary scenarios for the origin of the first life.
Although I served at an institution supporting scientific research into
the new theory of intelligent design and consider myself a proponent of
the same, in all my time at Discovery Institute I consistently held to
our public policy position that public schools should not mandate the
teaching of the theory of intelligent design.
END QUOTE:

The bait and switch scam had become Discovery Institute's public policy
with respect to teaching ID when they decided to start running the bait
and switch scam instead of give the rubes any ID science to teach in the public schools in Ohio March 2002. It looks like Coopers foul up cost
him his job in August 2005, since the Discovery Institute made him write
his statement on the issue Dec. 2005 and he was no longer in that position.

At the time that Dover hit the fan the ID perps at the Discovery
Institute was the only organization promoting teaching intelligent
design in the public schools. The ID Network had removed their teach ID
scam propaganda from their web site once the bait and switch started to
go down and were concentrating on selling the obfuscation and denial
switch scam. Other creationist organizations like the AIG and ICR
promoted teaching scientific creationism and did not support teaching
ID. They viewed ID as competition, and correctly viewed ID as
competition that their supporters would not want to teach because it did
not support Biblical creationism.

Neither the Discovery Institute's Utah Law review article nor their
teach ID scam booklet claimed that ID should not be mandated to be
taught in the public schools. The ID perps never retracted what they
claimed in the Utah Law review article nor their teach ID scam booklet.
Wells (even though he knew that the bait and switch was going down on
the Ohio rubes) claimed in his ID spiel to the Ohio board that there was enough scientific support for the ID scam that it could be forced into
the curriculum. Even the Santorum amendment stupidity that they were promoting at the time Dover hit the fan (and still continue to promote
in their current teach ID scam propaganda) did not rule out requiring ID
to be taught. The ID perps only started their "not required" to be
taught prevarication after the bait and switch failed in Dover (I do not recall it being an issue until then). I do not recall that the
Discovery Institute had an education policy at that time. They were
only promoting teaching the ID scam as FAQs on their web page, and in
their teach ID scam booklet that was available to download from their
web site when Dover hit the fan.

The bait and switch became policy for the ID perps after Ohio in 2002,
and Seth Cooper was the one charged with making sure that the rubes only
got the obfuscation and denial switch scam. The bait and switch had
gone down dozens of times by the time Dover hit the fan and Cooper had
likely gotten complacent and did not follow up to make sure that the
IDiotic creationist rubes had either dropped the issue or bent over for
the switch scam (I think that, at that time, every group of creationist
rubes had dropped the issue and not taken the switch scam. Ohio was the
first and only taker of the obfuscation and denial switch scam, at that
time, that I recall). No creationist rubes had been stupid enough to
try to teach the ID junk after the ID perps told them not to do it. The problem with the Dover creationist rubes was that they were too ignorant
and stupid to understand that it was the Discovery Institute that was
selling the teach ID scam. So they didn't take the hint that the teach
ID scam was too bogus to be considered to be a viable dishonest ploy to
get creationism into the public schools.

Prevarications about "mandating" and "not requiring" ID to be taught
only started after Dover. Before Dover the ID perps were just claiming
that ID could be taught, but their policy was that it would never be
taught and they were running a stupid bait and switch scam to make sure
that no one tried to teach the creationist junk in the public schools.
The ID perps temporarily removed their "not required" wording from their education policy in 2013 when both Louisiana and Texas tried to use
their switch scam junk to teach ID (their current education policy has returned to the "not required" prevarication). Both states claimed that
they were not requiring ID to be taught, just allowing teachers to teach
it if they wanted to, but the ID perps ran the bait and switch on them
anyway and reminded them that the switch scam was supposed to have
nothing to do with ID nor creationism (Louisiana had called what they
wanted to teach both ID and creationism). So "mandating" and "not
requiring" are just lies that the ID perps still have to tell when
selling the teach ID scam to creationist rubes. The ID perps do not run
the bait and switch on the science side, but the scam is run on their
own creationist support base.

Ron Okimoto





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