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.”
Anyway, back to evolution, the science of taxonomy.
For all that, there's a consistency in nature. A pattern. It's out there to be seen.
I don't like semantics and I don't like "It's all in the mind" unless something really IS all in the mind. Some things are all in the mind, but not everything.
Taxonomy is somewhat arbitrary, yes. It tends to fail as you go back in the fossil record to the divergence point between branches. The taxons tend to be based on specimens from farther up the branches where the distinction is clearer.
That wouldn't happen so much if evolution were false. That it does happen quite reliably points to evolution having happened.
If all the young ladies who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised.
Change whether to where. Two letters and we are in substantial agreement. 2500 years ago the sun went around the earth, but it wasn't the sun as we know it. It was a chariot or a phoenix bird. Then came a change in pattern. 500 years ago the sun went around the earth. Then came a change in pattern and the earth goes around the sun. 500 more years could bring another pattern and they will wonder how we could possibly not see reality as it really is. You are right the world has patterns and processes, but in addition we create this world in our minds, and no two minds agree completely. Nor should they says Emerson.
For a bad idea, Paley's metaphor sure has stuck around.
" Change whether to where. "
No. The world has patterns and processes whether there is an intelligence to recognize it or not. There could be no intelligent being and the universe would still be what it is.
"2500 years ago the sun went around the earth, but it wasn't the sun as we know it. "
No, it didn't. People were wrong. The world existed as it is whether we knew it or not.
"You are right the world has patterns and processes, but in addition we create this world in our minds, and no two minds agree completely. Nor should they says Emerson."
The universe cares not what we think. It is.
" For a bad idea, Paley's metaphor sure has stuck around."
That is not evidence it is right. Lot's of false ideas persist.
As the Red Queen said, words mean what I intend them to mean. Progress means to step forward, that is, in the direction you happen to be facing. Evolution means to turn out--like kneading bread dough.
Out for the night.
The old place just wouldn't be the same without us.
" The old place just wouldn't be the same without us."
Sure it would. It wouldn't know we left.
That's right. That's our job.
" That's right. That's our job."
The point is, the regularity of the universe exists regardless of what intelligence is aware of it or not.
Astrology has been around longer than Paley.
Isn't his first name Calvin?
You guys are getting desperate.
PH we need a new thread.
Who's the first witness scheduled for tomorrow?
Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn?
The two million year old man. Finally we will get some answers. Unfortunately, he remembers only his childhood, but, fortunately, as if it happened yesterday.
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