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.
But he issued a 138 page opinion and ruled that there was a violation of the establishment clause. He should have dismissed the case on summary judgment motion before the case ever went to trial. There was no violation of the establishment clause. It took the judge 138 pages to come up with a rather contrived reason to say there was.
The problem is that the Lemon Test requires that the motives of the lawmakers or government officials must be taken into account and if they had an improper motive, then the court must strike down the law or the action. The Lemon Test is idiotic and this is where it will lead.
Don't blame the school district, blame the Lemon Test. Blame the courts. This is their doing. The judge should have spent 138 pages chastising himself for not dismissing the case on Summary Judgment motion. But it appears he had an agenda too.
I just want to echo the correctness of your analysis and extend it.
The Dover case is clearly a case of an activist judge wanting to re-invigorate the bogus separation notion. Moreover, if the local mandate of religious tract or Siddartha were an establishment of religion then the federal government would be prevented by the first amendment from "making a law respecting [that] an establishment of religion."
The fact that the establishment clause has been deliberately misinterpreted in this backwards way is a major reason these over heated debates are taking place across the nation. Whether the view is popular or not, the first civil right is a guarantee that local religious establishments will not be messed with by the federal government. How we got to where a certain group of citizens could send down federal lightning bolts on any local opinion that strikes them as Christian is amazing.
Notice also that the local citizens of Dover took electoral action to make their science education consistent with the views of those defending evolution in this thread. But that is not good enough. We must re-build the Wall that never existed.
The decision to mandate the teaching of id in the classroom was reached in October 2004, mid-year.
The lawsuit to stop the mandate was filed in December 2004.
The idea was to stop them from formulating the curriculum for the next school year.
The Dover School Board made a run at introducing religion into the classroom, split words if you want, but that's exactly whet they did. They mandated that teachers discuss science vs. religion in a public classroom...that's wrong on so many levels.
If you want your children to learn about religion as an alternative to science, send them to a religious school.
The people who voted the school board into office booted them out as a result of their decision.
The people of Dover spoke, the Courts upheld their decision...end of story.
I can't think of a more perfect example of the system working.
One last question.
Did the Dover School Board also mandate parochial schools to make their students aware of the gaps and problems involved in the theory of creation?
They didn't.
Why didn't they?
That's the beauty of the "gaps" argument: the more transitional fossils you find, the more gaps you get, so transitionals actually only reinforce the lack of transitionals.
Maybe it's because in most people's experience, simply pumping vast amounts of raw energy into a system tending toward disorder does not generally cause that system suddenly to start tending towards greater order, even if it does make the thermal equations work.
Just a thought.
I have a reasonably good understanding. The 2nd Law is a pretty tough concept.
And please point me to scientific FACTS or REAL SCIENTISTS who say that evolutionary theory somehow escapes the 2nd ????
Evolution doesn't escape the 2nd Law. But it doesn't violate it either.
One of the biggest lies by evolutionists is to claim their "theory" is somehow exempt because the universe is not a closed system?
No evolutionist says this, only you.
Now rather than try and insult people, try bringing some real science to the table.
Certainly. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that
where S is the entropy of a closed system and t is time. Thermodynamic entropy is defined in a reversible process in which an amount of heat δ Q is introduced to the system as
In irreversible transformations, the entropy of a system can be shown to obey the relation
That is, the change in entropy of a system can be shown to be the integrated sum of the heat energy divided by the temperature that goes into the transformation process at hand. You're correct that this concept applies to all systems, but your attempt to handwave the law for 'evolution' fails for two reasons:
1) In real systems, actually measuring entropy is quite difficult. One possible way to do it requires the measurement of heat capacity at both constant volume a set of states over an integrable range of states between the reference and desired state. Unless you can at least semi-accurately quantify the entropy difference between two states, any application of the 2nd law is impossible. It may be quite possible that the entropy of 200 lbs. of primitive microbes has more entropy than a 200 lb. human, for example.
2) The entropy of a system can very well decrease in a system, as long as energy is input into the system. The 2nd Law still applies to such systems, and the amount that the entropy can change in such a subsystem depends empirically on the equation(s) given above. Increase the energy input, and the entropy can decrease, subject to the limits imposed above by the 2nd Law. If entropy of a subsystem could never decrease, ice could never freeze in your freezer, for example.
In order to consider a system where dS/dt is guaranteed to be greater than zero at all times, you have to consider the source of energy input as part of the system. Biochemical processes constantly take in heat from the sun (and geothermal energy in many cases). There is no doubt that the entropy of the earth-sun system is increasing - this occurs with every fusion reaction in the sun's core that produces the energetic radiation; it also happens in the environment as heat and waste products are output from biochemical processes into the earth's environment. The intermediate system, life, can very well have a localized entropy increase as it is only part of the system as a whole. In fact, according to the 2nd Law, the ordering of a subsystem requires an increase in entropy of the system around it as a whole.
The totality of this is that the Laws of Thermodynamics, while holding universally true, can't really be applied in a sweeping statement to the constituent lifeforms of the biosphere.
This is why that, absolutely nowhere you will find any entry in any peer-reviewed scientific journal that evolution is somehow prohibited by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and why such an assertion has absolutely no truth to it whatsover. (A basic link describing the definition and practical use of entropy.)
Aspiring (still in grad school).
Its a perfect example of the system over working.
The federal courts were not needed here. The audacity of the separation metaphor is now apparent in your analysis.
Not only must the public schools be free of anything that someone thinks they can trace back to Christian convictions, but now private parochial schools must be confronted by the 'superior' viewpoints of the evolutionists. The free exercise of religion is absolutely gutted for private parochial schools without so much as a pause.
I hope science recovers from this near death blow in Dover.
Read the opinion. It took him 138 pages because he had to document in detail the numerous misrepresentations and lies of the ID advocates.
Strikes them as Christian? In the case of Dover. It WAS Christian, plain and simple. And the school board members who testified admitted as much in court. Their fool plan was doomed from the start when they started telling half truths in their depositions. I suppose they should just take the words of Randy Wenger from the TMLC:
"But even with God’s blessing, it’s helpful to consult a lawyer before joining the battle, the speakers said. For instance, the Dover area school board might have had a better case for the intelligent design disclaimer they inserted into high school biology classes had they not mentioned a religious motivation at their meetings, [Randy] Wenger said. “Give us a call before you do something controversial like that,” he said. “I think we need to do a better job at being clever as serpents,” Wenger added."
Think about the implications of that statement, and then get back to me, on whether such sentiments are what you want representing your faith.
Why wasn't Jodie Foster charged as an accomplice for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan?
That was irrelevant to the question of whether or not the Dover School board established a religion. Even if they intended to establish a religion, it is clear that they fell way short.
Can you show me how that two sentence statement amounts to an establishment of a religion? I have posted a link to the constitution and so far no one has taken me up on the challenge.
Generally speaking, when someone argues that an observable process violates some law of nature, I'm skeptical.
If you would be more specific I might listen. I am aware that the problem of abiogenesis is deep and unsolved. But evolution is observable in real time. There is no phenomenon required for evolution that has not been observed. Mutations, insertions, duplications, chromosomal mutations -- all have been observed. None violate any laws of physics; nor does selection, the source of information, violate any law of physics.
My faith and your faith are completely irrelevant to the constitional question of whether or not the actions of the Dover School board established a religion. Care to answer why you would think it was?
Um, no, that is simply confusion on your part.
2) You don't know the difference between a logical fallacy and a false assumption.
In fact, I do. Feel free to demonstrate otherwise instead of sputtering about it.
3) You don't seem to be familiar with even introductory level philosophy of God.
All philosophy of gods is introductory level BS.
4) You don't seem to have read my posts on a previous thread regarding Alvin Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" in which I believe we established that if you accept evolution you have destroyed it because there is no plausible basis for believing evolution equipped homo sapiens with reliable reasoning faculties (crude summary).
It's still crap no matter how many times you repeat it.
Aspiring (still in grad school).
Close enough to respond to caffe. Hope you get that PhD soon.
Me too - which reminds me - time to stop playing on FR and get back to work.
It is extremely relevant, since the board members made the laughable argument that they wanted to advocate ID in order to improve the quality of science teaching and not for religious purposes.
Can you show me how that two sentence statement amounts to an establishment of a religion?
It disparages an accepted scientific theory for the sole purpose of promoting specific religious beliefs.
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