Intelligent Design case decided - Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board loses [Fox News Alert]

Fox News | 12/20/05

[snarks_when_bored]

Fox News alert a few minutes ago says the Dover School Board lost their bid to have Intelligent Design introduced into high school biology classes. The federal judge ruled that their case was based on the premise that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was incompatible with religion, and that this premise is false.

[narby]

If you rejected your faith entirely then who are you praying to?

You worked very hard to miss my point, so I'll make it again and remove the trigger word.

When they (children in fundamentalist Bible school) discover they've been taught bunk, I (hope) they don't reject their faith entirely like I did. People who've been lied to for years tend to take it pretty hard when they discover it.

[caffe]

You are still in denial: not one tiny proof exists to support Darwin or Neo-Darwin evolution. Yet there is plenty of proof about how evolutionists are good at adaptation when their lies are exposed.

Again, I have many scientists in my family , even a Harvard graduate, and we are creationists with a capital C. Being a creationist has no bearing on the ability to understand science - it simply states you dismiss philosophy posing as science.

[RunningWolf]

This is how evolution proponents argue. It is wrong. And it does more to discredit evolution than any gap in the so called record.

I have said many times that the best case against this cult (and it is a cult mentality IMO) is to come here and see the products of its ideology in action.

Unfortunately for me, there have been a few that say I'm no better than they are. I don't agree with them on that, but I can see how they might believe that true based on my 'fur-balls' with them

Wolf

[Dimensio]

You are still in denial: not one tiny proof exists to support Darwin or Neo-Darwin evolution.

Science doesn't deal in "proofs". If you had any understanding of the scientific method you would know this.

Again, I have many scientists in my family , even a Harvard graduate, and we are creationists with a capital C.

This is not an uncommon tactic: appeal to unnamed friends or family members as "scientists" who accept creationism. No names are given, and rarely are we even told the field of science the alleged relative practices.

[narby]

the type of faith that I won't place in a mere theory.

Almost 1500 posts in this thread, and still people don't know what a scientific theory is. Sad.

[Coyoteman]

You are still in denial: not one tiny proof exists to support Darwin or Neo-Darwin evolution.

Since everyone knows scientific theories can't be proved, the next best thing we have is evidence. And there is a lot of evidence.

Here's one example now...

---

Herto skulls (Homo sapiens idaltu)

Some new fossils from Herto in Ethiopia, are the oldest known modern human fossils, at 160,000 yrs. The discoverers have assigned them to a new subspecies, Homo sapiens idaltu, and say that they are anatomically and chronologically intermediate between older archaic humans and more recent fully modern humans. Their age and anatomy is cited as strong evidence for the emergence of modern humans from Africa, and against the multiregional theory which argues that modern humans evolved in many places around the world.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/herto.html

[lonestar67]

The article concludes that this is a paradigm shift. Which by the way, I wish evolution proponents would read or acknowledge TS Kuhns work on Scientific Revolution which explains how scientific communities maintain consensus on theories such as evolution. The manner in which evolution advocates speak is inconsistent with historical scientific practice.

Moreover, the desire to see similarities between primates and humans so as to affirm the theory of evolution obstructs the view of differences. The study references these differences and is arguing that the 98% is inaccurate or irrelevant because we can now look at genomes in precise ways.

A comparable analogy would be going from a computer screen resolution of 256 colors to thousands. The possibilities of differentiation are much greater. Those differences are useful. Stigmatizing the observation of those differences hinders the scientific process.

[PatrickHenry]

It's unlikely that this decision will get appealed, as the newly-elected school board has pretty much said that if the plaintiffs win, it's fine with them, and they're not thinking of appealing. So this is likely to remain just a trial court decision, and it's technically not even binding on other trial judges in that same federal district. However, as opinions go, it's a hum-dinger, and it inevitably going to be influential -- especially as to the nature of ID, because the ID movement put its best scientists forward to testify.

A trial in another court, if appealed, would set a precedent in that particular federal appellate circuit. If it reached a conclusion different from the Dover case, it wouldn't change the Dover result.

There are eleven federal appellate circuits, each with its own geographical area, plus the DC circuit. If there's only one appellate case on a particular topic, although its not binding outside of that circuit, it can nevertheless be very persuasive on judges in other circuits.

It sometimes happens that different appellate circuits will come to different results on the same issues (in different cases, of course). In such a situation, the losing side in the most recent case will attempt to get the case heard by the US Supreme Court, to resolve the conflict among the circuits. Many of the mundane cases the US Sup Ct hears are of that variety. The idea is to have uniformity among all the federal circuits.

[xzins]

ID is a criticism of evolution.

[crail]

And the problem is that's all ID is.

[VadeRetro]

Keep telling yourself that. And God I hope you don't keep that tagline, unless you feel like getting hate mail in your Freepmail.

My canned response to this sort of nonsense follows, as copied from my FR homepage.

Here's something I posted online here on a thread where creationists were squealing at being the target of a crowd of liberal glitterati one enchanted evening at a fund-raiser for the American Museum of Natural History:

I've been telling you creationists not to give the Tom Brokaws of the world a chance to save science and science education from you. Going after science and science education was a bad idea.

Here's the theory. Don't do a bad thing. If you don't, then the Bad Guys don't get to play Good Guy while stopping you. They don't get to tar all of conservatism with the brush of being composed of antiscience witch doctors.

This is becoming the national issue I've wanted to somehow prevent. You're going to kill us in 06 or 08 or both.

[Coyoteman]

Which by the way, I wish evolution proponents would read or acknowledge TS Kuhns work on Scientific Revolution which explains how scientific communities maintain consensus on theories such as evolution.

Read it in grad school, along with my evolution studies. So?

[Jo Nuvark]

Darwin Quote #2.6. [Re: "lack" of transitional fossils]

But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms
must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in
countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" (Origin of
Species, 1859).

[VadeRetro]

You just have to keep pounding the point.

That has to be on page 1 of the Creationist Combat Manual.

[xzins]

I read more than one thread on JPII and evolution. I never ran across one in which JP said that he was an evolutionist. They all discussed what was proper Catholic theology.

There is no Catholic theology that rescinds the idea of God.

Therefore, the only version of evolution acceptable in Catholicism is one that has God as the creator and guide of all life.

[4woodenboats]

Sheez. Don't you get it? It isn't just "God" the judge would declare unacceptable by law, but the very notion that intelligent design can explain the organization of matter that behaves according to predictable laws. And again, this judge has declared atheistic science, and atheistic science alone, to be taught in a public academic setting. That's something Marx would do

Exactly. Thanks for that summation. This IS a 1st amendment issue, as any explanation of the how the world around us came to be other than those that complement atheism is being censured, so that our children may be indoctrinated into a Godless society.

Freedom of religion is in the 1st amendment.

Seperation of Church and state is not.

[Dimensio]

But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" (Origin of Species, 1859).

Yet another out-of-context quote that creationists love to cite (see #2.6).

[Dimensio]

This IS a 1st amendment issue, as any explanation of the how the world around us came to be other than those that complement atheism is being censured, so that our children may be indoctrinated into a Godless society.

Yet another creationist dishonestly equivocating evolution with atheism.

[xzins]

You are speaking of Young Earth movement creationists...true? You aren't speaking of theistic evolutionists are you?

[VadeRetro]

Not gonna catch up on this thread tonight placemarker.