Posted on 11/03/2005 11:39:36 AM PST by PatrickHenry
If the voters of Dover are smart, they'll toss out the present school board next week, elect a new one that will settle the case, and cut their losses.
I think this one's going out with a whimper.
That's kind of like hearing Bill Clinton tell the truth about his childhood.
The school board is going to have to eat the expense of this litigation. It will give pause to other school districts.
This is the only way your side can keep a monopoly in public schools. If you could persuade the public, you would. If you had the proof, you'd bring it out. If you even had convincing evidence, you parade it down every main street in every American city and town.
But you don't have a persuasive argument, so you don't present it. You don't have the convincing evidence, so you just pretend you do. And even though only 12 percent think materialistic evolution is true, you want to impose your illogical, eclectic and unpersuasive worldview on a captive audience of children with the tax dollars of those who oppose such nonsense.
BTW- another reason evolution is highly suspect: After 150 years of supposedly compiling evidence, monopolizing public schools and colleges, enjoying the support of liberals and the liberal media, and using the ACLU to suppress their opposition, and spending untold billions on research, we are still unpersuaded. And it's not because 88% of America is stupid. It's because evolutionists couldn't make a persuasive case if they had the entire GNP to spend doing it. |
Thanks for the ping!
(1) The statute [or state action, so let's substitute "the "school board's mandatory ID statement"] must have a secular legislative purpose:
They've blown this one completely. The school board is very much on record as having a religious purpose.
(2) The school board's mandatory ID statement's principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion:
Same remarks as above. Plus, the clear evidence that ID isn't science pretty much leaves any ID presentation in the religion category.
(3) The school board's mandatory ID statement must not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion":
This is the fuzziest prong of the Lemon test, but I can see it shaping up as an endless involvement deciding which creation accounts get presented in science class.
So, this case seems to flunk all three prongs of the Lemon test. And flunking only one will suffice to sink the school board. It seems that no matter what the Supreme Court thinks of Lemon, they won't want to mess with this case.
Actually, there are some folks who won't even listen to the "persuasive case" that scientists have built up for the past 150 years. Any wouldn't believe a word of it if they did.
You know, I think there may be some of those folks right here on FR, maybe even on this very thread.
If we'd had to wait for the majority in the South to desegregate public schools, they'd still be segregated.
Judges also hate being lied to from the witness stand....
While that will apply to "some folks," it doesn't make sense that 88% are not convinced and that most want evo and creation taught together so that the student can make up his mind. Evolutionists don't seem to want students to make up their minds. Whatever happend to "Think For Yourself" bumper stickers?
It actually has more to do with not teaching evolution at all in public schools in some states until the 1960's. And it has to do with the poor quality of instruction.
None of the schools I went to even taught evolution. That's why most people don't know what it is.
You'd think that. We'll have to wait and see.
Probably true if Dems were in charge, though it wouldn't be because a persuasive case against racism hasn't been made. The naturalist's worldview provides for the existence of race discrimination naturally, as Darwin well knew. It is only through coercion that slavery can continue in the modern world and only through coercion that evolution will remain a monopoly in the schools. Hence the use of the courts, rather than evidence, to stop ID.
Science is not a popularity contest. It is not democratic in the least.
What percentage of the population do you suppose could describe how a television set operates, and under what principles television transmissions take place?
My guess is less than 2% of the population. Yet, 99% of the population can turn a television set on and receive programming.
Polls do not measure scientific information. They can measure levels of ignorance of science, of course, but the have nothing to do with science.
If we begin teaching the sciences based on public opinion, we have lost the whole thing.
That's a variation of "people are stupid." However, the golden opportunity has appeared for your side. Now is the time to present your case both to the public and to the courts that evolution is a certainty. Yet that's not happening. Why?
"That's a variation of "people are stupid." "
Nope. It's a variation on "People are ignorant about science." That is a true statement. Ignorance is fixable. Stupidity is not.
Most people don't really care about evolution enough to bother learning anything much about it. They don't care about the science behind anything in their lives, for the most part. That makes them ignorant of science, not stupid. They know about other things.
Even if they learned something about evolution in school, that information has probably slipped into oblivion, along with algebra, trigonometry, and half the other stuff that was taught.
Ignorance is one thing. Stupidity is another. I don't mind if someone's ignorant about the Theory of Evolution. I do mind if they are deliberately stupid about it and unwilling to learn. There are many of the second type in this controversy.
People don't know what evolution is because it wasn't in your school?
People reject evolution because they DO know what it is. To say otherwise is to imply that you are smart enough to "get it" but the other 88% is in the dark. If evolution were a new idea of only a few years, maybe that would work. But you've had 150 years.
There are 2 reasons.
1. That's not what the Dover case is about.
2. It's already been done. And we're still waiting for ID to make any kind of scientific case for anything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.