Just how intelligent?

News that intelligent designers lost their Pennsylvania court battle today (YEAH!!) is not unexpected, but their responses are often worth a chuckle.

Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think-tank that champions intelligent design theory: "The judge thinks intelligent design is a supernatural explanation, but it clearly is not. So the entire decision is predicated on a false perception of intelligent design." Well, Casey, if the idea that an invisible, unmeasurable "designer" is behind the universe isn't a supernatural--or at least non-scientific--explanation, I don't know what is.

And, always good for a laugh, White House spokesman Scott McClellan: "The president ... believes students ought to be exposed to different theories and ideas so that they can fully understand what the debate is about." OK. Everyone spend ten minutes trying to figure out what that means.

What I've really never understood is why the creationists--and that's what they are--have never tried to force schools to teach the second creation myth in Genesis that starts at Gen. 2:4--you know, the one about the Garden of Eden. Why not expose children to the idea that God first planted a garden, then took mud and made a man and breathed into him so he could tend the garden, then later took him apart again to make a woman? That way they can understand what the debate is all about. Oh yeah, but first God made animals for the man to provide companionship.

Of course, they can't do that because then the absurdity of their position would be clear: Religious myth is not the same as modern science and shouldn't be taught in science class.