Why Doesn't the National Center for Science Education Have an Atheism Project?

Why Doesn't the National Center for Science Education Have an Atheism Project? [Excerpts]

Jerry Coyne has an amusing post on the National Center for Science Education's outreach effort to Christians. Coyne, in a post titled "NSCE Becomes BioLogos," laments the rigorous efforts of the NCSE's Faith Project, which is a major outreach program to Christians and other people of faith.

Coyne quotes the NCSE: “The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit, membership organization providing information and resources for schools, parents and concerned citizens working to keep evolution in public school science education. We educate the press and public about the scientific, educational, and legal aspects of the creation and evolution controversy, and supply needed information and advice to defend good science education at local, state, and national levels....The National Center for Science Education is not affiliated with any religious organization or belief. We and our members enthusiastically support the right of every individual to hold, practice, and advocate their beliefs, religious or non-religious. Our members range from devout practitioners of several religions to atheists, with many shades of belief in between. What unites them is a conviction that science and the scientific method, and not any particular religious belief, should determine science curriculum.”

Coyne asks, perceptively: “So why does the NCSE, which supports every shade between faith and atheism, have a "Faith Project" but not an "Atheism Project"?”

Good question. The NCSE is an odd organization. To begin with, it's oddly named. It's not really a national center -- it's a small fringe organization based in Oakland. And it's hardly promoting science education; its primary activity is to supress critique of Darwin's theory -- that is, to suppress science, which is inherently dialectic, not dogma. "National Center for Selling Evolution" seems a better fit for the acronym.

The NCSE has had a "Faith Project," so to speak, for quite a while; people of faith have long been the target of NCSE litigation. For several decades, the NCSE has worked feverishly to prevent parents from determining the biology curriculum for their own children in their own schools with their own taxes. Parents who ask that the strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory be taught to their children are dragged to federal court by the NSCE, placed under injunction, and threatened with court-imposed financial ruin of their school districts.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/why_doesnt_the_ncse_reach_out_041191.html