Posted on 10/03/2005 6:22:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
After a weekend break from a court case involving intelligent design, the Dover school board officials will face business as usual. The board today will hold its first school board meeting since the trial began.
On Sunday, Dover school board member David Napierski said he sympathized with the time fellow members Shelia Harkins and Alan Bonsell have spent on the court case.
“I really haven’t seen it erode them from their duties,” he said. “It definitely has taken a lot of their time . . . I think it is sapping some of the people, too.”
The trial began Sept. 26 in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg. It resumes Wednesday.
Napierski hopes to attend at least one day per week of the trial.
“We’re seeing one side of the whole picture right now,” he said. “I think it’s going to go all the way up to the Supreme Court.”
He said dealing with the court case while running the school district is a “double-edged sword.
“I just hope and pray that our focus will stay on business,” he said.
School district residents might have a difficult time resuming day-to-day life as it was before the trial began.
Lonnie Langioni left his position as a school board member in Dover in 2003. He said the issue has divided the community and he wants folks to again be friends.
“We’re just going to have to let it run its course,” he said about the trial. “I’m just waiting for the day that this is all over and that the people of Dover can go back to talking to each other again.”
He said he follows the case and reads newspapers and articles online.
“It’s crossed all kinds of lines,” he said of the trial. “Dover is a great community. We all need to respect each others’ viewpoints.”
Former Dover school board member Barrie Callahan, a plaintiff in the court case, is ready to spend more time in court this week.
“The case needs to proceed,” she said Saturday. “I know the issue. To see it through the process is truly fascinating.
“You’re seeing the best of the best,” she said about attorneys. “It is an honor to be in their presence.”
She said she’s been following news of the trial posted online.
“It’s not about little tiny Dover,” she said. “This case really, really is important.”
UPDATE
Trial schedule: The trial resumes Wednesday and Thursday in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg and is scheduled to continue Oct. 12, 14, 17 through 21, 24, 27 and Nov. 2 through 4.
At stake: It’s the most significant court challenge to evolution since 1987, and it’s the first time a court has been asked to rule whether intelligent design can be taught in public schools. Experts say the case’s outcome could influence how science is defined and taught in schools across the country. The lead defense lawyer said he wanted to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Coming this week: Among the scheduled witnesses: Dover school district science teacher Bertha Spahr and Jennifer Miller and plaintiffs Cynthia Sneath, Joel Leib and Deb Fenimore.
Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University, also is scheduled. Forrest co-authored “Creationism’s Trojan Horse,” subtitled “The Wedge of Intelligent Design.”
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Essentially, these will be the defense arguments:Even though the four-paragraph statement is read to biology students, the district continues to teach evolution according to state education standards
The textbook “Biology,” co-written by Ken Miller, the plaintiffs’ first witness, is the book still used in biology class. The pro-intelligent design book “Of Pandas and People” is in the library, and administrators merely tell students it’s available.
[snip]
When the defense gets its turn, Thompson has promised, it will produce witnesses who will argue that intelligent design is science. And even if its proponents are religious, that doesn’t necessarily make intelligent design a religious concept, he points out.
One of the key defense witnesses will be Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Behe, who espouses the idea of “irreducible complexity” at the molecular level — the idea that if a single working part of an organism were to be removed, the entire system would cease to function. In testimony last week, Brown University biochemistry professor Ken Miller testified that Behe’s arguments for irreducible complexity have been proven incorrect.
Should we teach 2+2=5 alongside 2+2=4 just so 2+2=4 looks good when we prove it's right?
Oh, welcome to FR.
Thanks for the ping!
Which would put Holocaust-denial material on a par with mainstream history, white supremacist material on a par with mainstream social science, Ebonics on a par with English, etc.
In my view, to educate means to present all materials and information to the student so that the revelation of truth will manifest. Seems evolutionists however are afraid of letting their theories stand against opposing views. Why? If the theory of evolution is in fact the truth and supported by evidence you'd think the evolutionists would WANT their viewpoints compared to the opposition. Imagine how good they'd look if their theory were right. Now look at how bad they look because of their fear.
To paraphrase:
In my view, to educate means to present all materials and information to the student so that the revelation of truth will manifest. Seems Jews however are afraid of letting their theories stand against opposing views. Why? If the Holocaust is in fact the truth and supported by evidence you'd think the Jews would WANT their viewpoints compared to the Holocaust-deniers. Imagine how good they'd look if their theory were right. Now look at how bad they look because of their fear.
Get the point?
Students should first be taught the mainstream, consensus views on subjects. How will they have a basis for evaluating different positions, if they have no foundation? To insist that all viewpoints should be equally respected is a form of relativism I would think conservatives would not want to see expressed in our public schools.
Of course! It makes perfect sense to teach abstract algebra to first graders before they learn their sums. </sarcasm>
Comparing it to what? The "theory" that some unspecified entity did X with unknown methods and for inscrutable reasons? This is completely useless because it doesn't tell us what we should observe nor (what's even more important) what we shouldn't observe because such an unspecified designer is compatible with every possible observation.
So why should we teach something that is obviously not scientific in science class?
Oh and btw, welcome to FR
Absolutely! Students need to recognize what's right and what's wrong. If they are sheltered from seeing what's wrong how will they ever recognize what's right (and vice versa?)
The approach you suggest is called 'whole math'. The theory is if you let kids 'discover' the truths of mathematics for themselves, they will understand math better, and ultimately learn it more soundly.
In practice it's been an unmitigated disaster. Where it's been adopted, math scores have plummeted. Our experience with it, in fact, has been similar to that of 'whole reading'.
Interestingly, both are considered to be left-wing educational ideas.
And now the IDers want to implement "whole science". Sure, our students' science performance will plummet relative to the rest of the world. But if we just add some more self-esteem programs, they'll feel really good about themselves.
No comment on my #7, eh?
It took about 5 posts for the facade of reasonableness to vanish and reveal you as another ranter.
Oh well, enjoy your time on FR. There are lots of people just like you here to keep you company.
No, it hasn't. But thanks for playing.
If it wasn't you all wouldn't be afraid of teaching children about INTELLIGENT (I know, a foreign word for some of you) DESIGN.
Insults, even. Par for the course, I suppose.
You want to protect children from something try protecting them from those who'd convince them to kill your grand children or those who wish to turn them into drug crazed fiends. Protecting them from a God that loves them is only hurting them and OUR society.
Advancing your socio-religious agenda is not a good enough reason to shoehorn theology into science class.
It's really funny how the fundamentalist right is desperately reaching to programs even the far left has rejected, to try to justify their program of forcing religion into science class.
What was your old screen name?
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