Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Returning to Dover [evolution trial in Dover, PA: week 2]
York Daily Record [Penna] ^ | 03 October 2005 | TERESA MCMINN

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.”


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: crevolist; dover; evolution
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 161-180181-200201-220 ... 581-582 next last
To: PatrickHenry

He's been added to my little black box. The newbies never know when to keep their heads down.


181 posted on 10/03/2005 12:42:00 PM PDT by Junior (From now on, I'll stick to science, and leave the hunting alien mutants to the experts!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 164 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor
BTW, you should know there's another guy called Nathan Zachary, from Manitoba, posting on Free Dominion. By an amazing coincidence, he signed up for Free Dominion the exact same day you registered on Free Republic! I found a considerable number of America-bashing posts from him up there, relating to the cross-border outbreak of mad-cow. I decided I better warn you because while we have many wonderful Canadian posters here on FR, we don't like the kind of person who posts here and bashes the US elsewhere. And if you got mistaken for this other Nathan Zachary, people would think that's what you were doing.

Wonderful. Perhaps FreeDominion's moderators should be notified that Nathan loves the US really and is just trolling in FreeDominion.

182 posted on 10/03/2005 12:42:18 PM PDT by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 171 | View Replies]

To: Nathan Zachary; All
Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum is a well known expert having an intimate knowledge of the fossil record. He says there is no record.

"Dr Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum" placemarker.

183 posted on 10/03/2005 12:43:35 PM PDT by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 178 | View Replies]

To: Thatcherite

If you're around long enough, you can recite the quote mined nuggets verbatim. They're constantly recycled.


184 posted on 10/03/2005 12:45:23 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 183 | View Replies]

To: Gumlegs

Colin Patterson alert! We need your most excellent expose of that ancient pile of poop.


185 posted on 10/03/2005 12:45:28 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Disclaimer -- this information may be legally false in Kansas.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 183 | View Replies]

To: Nathan Zachary

Do you know what anthropologists do?


186 posted on 10/03/2005 12:46:24 PM PDT by anguish (while science catches up.... mysticism!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 178 | View Replies]

To: Nathan Zachary

Do you mean this Colin Patterson?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html


187 posted on 10/03/2005 12:46:57 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 178 | View Replies]

To: js1138
Here we go, back to cosmic evolution again. I know, a singularity, which came from a blackhole, which existed in nothing, therefore consisted of nothing, and came from who knows were because space never existed, blew up for reasons unknown and made the universe and everything in it from absolutely nothing.

Here we go with the magic again. That is belief a leap of faith, religion and has no basis in science. Just say, God did it. It's more believable. " Spores, or organic molecules drifting in space are not intelligent designers.

(Your evolutionist pals theory, not mine) He said these spores contained DNA which he claimed came from intelligent life which came from "elsewhere"

188 posted on 10/03/2005 12:48:34 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 176 | View Replies]

To: wallcrawlr
I wish these guys were more predictable than

A BASS ON A HOT SUMMER DAY!
bass

Wolf

189 posted on 10/03/2005 12:51:06 PM PDT by RunningWolf (tag line limbo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 165 | View Replies]

To: js1138
Any theories on who it was?

Hard to say; so many anti-Evo sneak-back disruptor Trolls -- so little time.

190 posted on 10/03/2005 12:51:06 PM PDT by longshadow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 180 | View Replies]

To: Nathan Zachary
...transitional means from a fish, then a fish with fins turning into legs, then gills becomming both lungs as well as gills, then becomming more defined over time untill the gills are no longer needed and dissapear.


191 posted on 10/03/2005 12:52:44 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 178 | View Replies]

To: Nathan Zachary
Kathleen Hunt is a hoax
My name is Thomas Veil.
192 posted on 10/03/2005 12:53:01 PM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: my sterling prose)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 178 | View Replies]

To: Thatcherite

Excuse me? show me an American bashing post from FD. I work in MB and live in ND.


193 posted on 10/03/2005 12:53:04 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 182 | View Replies]

To: wallcrawlr

LOL I sent that to myself

I forgot,

Will you put me on your ping list?

Wolf


194 posted on 10/03/2005 12:55:14 PM PDT by RunningWolf (tag line limbo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 165 | View Replies]

To: Nathan Zachary
"Darwin for one: "

[snip quote mines]

So, Darwin earnestly considering the questions his theory brings up, questions he answers later on, is a statement of Darwin's putative belief that he should abandon the ToE? You really ought to read the book rather than regurgipost drivel from creationist sites that you believe will back up your claim. Darwin contemplated these questions not because he questioned his theory but because they were valid questions that needed answering, which he did in a later chapter.

"The late Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University:

Again you mistake contemplation of valid questions about the ToE for the author's consideration of abandonment of the theory. You are assuming that questions about the theory equate to abandonment. That is bad logic and nonsensical. In this case, Gould was questioning the consistency of the rate of evolutionary change and postulated that the rate of change could be inconsistent. His hypothesis has since been incorporated into the ToE because it fits observations and does not falsify adaptation.

"Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum and editor of a prestigious scientific journal:"

Now you have turned to another discussion of the necessity of gradualness in evolution. The question of transitionals raised by both Gould and Patterson, and explained quite convincingly by Gould, is in regards to the sparseness of intermediate species level fossils. Species as defined by science, not creationists. In other words, fossils that would be separated by a few tens of thousands of years. The transitional fossil sequences we have are millions of years apart and show a consistent and morphologically gradual change between taxonomic levels much farther apart than species - which is the lowest taxon of importance in these discussions.

The rest of your quotes I do not know enough about to rebut, but a number look to be based on the absence of continual intra-species fossils, something, that because of the difficulty in recovering fossils that are from short-lived organisms, are unlikely to be found.
Creationists are fond of basing their doubt of abiogenesis on probability, perhaps you could perform the probability calculations on the likelyhood of finding 3 or 4 directly connected sequential fossils at the species level. Don't forget to include the number of species possible in 500 million years, the geologic upheaval from tectonics, difficulty in the preservation of bones, weathering of exposed fossils, dispersion of both bones and fossils by erosion, the percentage of earth searched for fossils - don't forget the depth of the strata, and any other condition likely to bear on our recovery of a specific fossil.

When you have finished the calculations, please post them. I would be very interested in the calculations themselves as well as the result.

195 posted on 10/03/2005 12:56:13 PM PDT by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: RunningWolf

ahhh...the days of flipping a top water frog over some dense lillypads in the lakes of northern MN...those were the days.


196 posted on 10/03/2005 12:56:33 PM PDT by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 189 | View Replies]

To: PatrickHenry
Actually, I've been doing a little quote-mining of my own:

"Moore is right about one thing; Americans are the dumbest people on the planet. "

posted (by an incredible coincidence) by that other guy called Nathan Zachary, on the Free Dominion website, on 7/15/04.

I'm sure glad our Nathan Zachary isn't a hostile anti-American jerk like the one who posts on Free Dominion.

197 posted on 10/03/2005 12:57:41 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 185 | View Replies]

To: js1138

Nice feet, where's the lungs? I catch plenty of catfish. they can live a long time out of water. just because a fish flips itself across short bits of land and go into other ponds doesn't mean it's evolving. In fact there is not even a hint of anyhing 'evolving' on that fih, whaich has been observed for hundreds of years.


198 posted on 10/03/2005 12:57:41 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 191 | View Replies]

To: RunningWolf

yep, I knew what you meant. check your Freepmail.

DONE.


199 posted on 10/03/2005 12:58:54 PM PDT by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 194 | View Replies]

To: Dimensio
So are you saying that we are created to make the designer's life more convenient,...

Well, on a tangent, I once heard a very good homily and, inter alia, the priest noted that we are said to be "the salt of the earth" and that one major reason we use salt is to add flavor and zest to food. Now one respectable conclusion one can draw from that analogy is that people exist to add flavor and zest to the universe. Kind of a cosmic soap opera.

200 posted on 10/03/2005 12:59:13 PM PDT by edsheppa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 161-180181-200201-220 ... 581-582 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson