Posted on 12/20/2005 7:54:38 AM PST by 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.
"The decision was a case of gross judicial activism -- telling a school board what they can and can't include in the curricula of their schools. Parents who are offended by the idea of intelligent design being broached in a science class have the option of electing new school board members. The judge should have kept his nose out of it. This is a perfect example of what is wrong with our federal judiciary."
Have you paid any attention to this case, or are you opposed to the findings based on knee-jerk reaction, grounded in your personal belief?
First, school boards do not have the right to include anything they want in their curricula. They must adhere to standards and laws, as long as they are a public, tax-supported organization.
Second, the judge did not "put his nose in it" - a case was brought before the courts by the plaintiffs, in this case parents who sought to hold the school board to said laws and standards.
Third, the voters in the district DID elect new board members, en masse apparently.
And fourth, gosh! you're right! How dare those darn courts adjudicate laws!
You can add me. I remember more than a few years back some lady called in the police and the local news channel because an alien was in her backyard. The picture was a great plasmodium growing on one of her bushes. She was sure it was the blob's cousin.
I haven't been tickled like that for many years.
You sound like one, for example.
Right, im an archeological fraud. Ok.
Intelligent design is the stock-in-trade of science. It no more needs to prove itself than your existence needs to prove itself.
Open your eyes. If the matter around you is retaining its integrity, you have physical evidence of intelligent design.
Wrong
First of all, there is nothing called "Separation Of Church and State" in the constitution. The idea that it does has been a classic "big lie" that a lot of uninformed people have bought into.
The first amendment reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Second, the first amendment's mention of religion limits the FEDERAL government from establishing a religion (i.e. The Church Of England), it does nothing to limit what a local school board can do. In fact, a case could be made that the Feds are violating the constitution when they limit the ability of the said school board from doing this.
What part of this does your apparently lacking education not allow you to understand?
Perhaps you were pieced together from Patrick Henry and Dimensio by a Chinese fossil hunter.
A few thoughts. You're quite right, a school board is not a monarchy or even an oligarchy...it is subject to the voters. What you're implicity endorsing is a "monarchy", or really, a tyranny of the judiciary. A judge is not a monarch, and yet the judicial branch in recent decades has acted like one...and, like a monarch, a judge cannot be removed except under the most extreme cases...in essence, a judge is a judge for life.
Secondly, the Constitution addresses the prohibition of Congress (not a school board or a state) passing a religious law. So, even though the judge used the Constitution as an excuse to insert his curriculum preferences into the town's schools, such an argument is not germane.
As for being sued, anyone can be sued for anything.
I am appalled that a federal judge is deciding curriculum. The people of the city or school district have that job. Nowhere does the Constitution give the federal government ANY right to decide what local schools teach.
If I turn into a fish will you believe evolution then?
Like many other fields, we have ways of finding and correcting our data and theories.
How, you ask?
Why, trowel and error, of course!
My feathers and Dimensio's claws.
"If I turn into a fish will you believe evolution then?"
Only if you leave a smooth transitional fossil record.
This is utter nonsense. You don't have to give your religious or philosophical beliefs to do science. All you need is a research proposal that has a likelihood of producing new data. I have been told by ID advocates that the heart and soul of current ID theory is information theory. This not a costly kind of research, and it can be done without any special preconceptions of what is expected.
If you have a research project that requires a supercomputer, you can make one with volunteers, like SETI online. Are you aware of the protein folding project which uses thousands of Internet volunteers?
The basic problem with ID is that it has no hypothesis that can be tested and no research proposals. ID is a parasitic meme that feeds on the research done by mainstream science.
The fundamental mode of ID research is to look at any new research finding and announce that you now have two gaps where you previously had only one.
You are advocating teaching the narrow, literalist view of Chritianity in public schools?
You realize that we have that pesky thing called the Constitution to scrap before we can do that, right?
And where do you get that 75% of Americans believe said literal interpretation?
When you get around to reading the judge's opinion, you will see that he basis his jurisdiction on a long line of cases that apply the First Amendment to the states. I don't like it either, but it's based on the 14th Amendment. It's Abe Lincoln's fault.
Also, when you read the opinion, you will learn that the judge found (as the plaintiffs originally complained) that the school board's activities violated the state constitution too.
I'll be one of the first to sign on if you can turn into something , um, more shapely.
Do you mean to tell me that we agree that students can separate the wheat from the chaff absent federal intervention? I'll be danged.
Merry Christmas!
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