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.
Is this another theory taught as fact in our public schools?
Really has nothing to do with evolution. creationism, science, religion etc...
Secular Humanism and Scientism are religious (though not theistic) worldviews/belief systems. Material naturalism is a philisophical point of view. These are the belief systems taught to students when evolution is taught as "fact" and to the exclusion of other worldviews/belief systems. The teaching of evolution in schools violates the seperation of Church, and state if it is taught to the exclusion of competing worldviews.
Dover Intelligent Design Decision Criticized as a Futile Attempt to Censor Science Education
SEATTLE — "The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won't work," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, the nation's leading think tank researching the scientific theory known as intelligent design. “He has conflated Discovery Institute’s position with that of the Dover school board, and he totally misrepresents intelligent design and the motivations of the scientists who research it.”
“A legal ruling can't change the fact that there is digital code in DNA, it can’t remove the molecular machines from the cell, nor change the fine tuning of the laws of physics,” added West. “The empirical evidence for design, the facts of biology and nature, can't be changed by legal decree."
In his decision, Judge John Jones ruled that the Dover, Pennsylvania school district violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by requiring a statement to be read to students notifying them about intelligent design. Reaching well beyond the immediate legal questions before him, Judge Jones offered wide-ranging and sometimes angry comments denouncing intelligent design and praising Darwinian evolution.
"Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the Establishment Clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have been the end to the case," said West. "Instead, Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur."
"Anyone who thinks a court ruling is going to kill off interest in intelligent design is living in another world," continued West. "Americans don't like to be told there is some idea that they aren't permitted to learn about.. It used to be said that banning a book in Boston guaranteed it would be a bestseller. Banning intelligent design in Dover will likely only fan interest in the theory."
"In the larger debate over intelligent design, this decision will be of minor significance," added Discovery Institute attorney Casey Luskin. "As we've repeatedly stressed, the ultimate validity of intelligent design will be determined not by the courts but by the scientific evidence pointing to design.”
Luskin pointed out that the ruling only applies to the federal district in which it was handed down. It has no legal effect anywhere else. The decision is also unlikely to be appealed, since the recently elected Dover school board members campaigned on their opposition to the policy. "The plans of the lawyers on both sides of this case to turn this into a landmark ruling have been preempted by the voters," he said.
"Discovery Institute continues to oppose efforts to mandate teaching about the theory of intelligent design in public schools," emphasized West. "But the Institute strongly supports the freedom of teachers to discuss intelligent design in an objective manner on a voluntary basis. We also think students should learn about both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory of evolution."
Drawing on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines, the scientific theory of intelligent design proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. Proponents include scientists at numerous universities and science organizations around the word.
celebratory placemarker!
No. The court followed precedents correctly, and decided that ID is religion, and evolution is not.
If you want to say that the Supreme Court has misconstrued the establishment clause, you'd have a good point. They have.
It is true that the Supreme Court has gone way off the rails with this "separation of church and state" crap that isn't in the constitution. If the ID proponents had decided to fight on that point, they would have had truth on their side, and I would have supported them. But instead, they chose to attack firmly established science, not the bogus activist courts. Stupid move. They've wasted their time, money, and political capital, fighting an unwinnable fight.
Evolution is fact. Deal with it.
The culture warriors should have picked a battle that was winnable, and true to the constitution, rather than striking at a false boogyman, evolution.
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.
3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.
4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.
5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.
6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
Now, in case you missed that one, number 6 is the definition I am implying when I state "it is a theory". However, if I have to sit and give you the DEFINITION for each word since your "evolved" mind cannot handle inference, I will if that is what you want of me.
On to the differences between beliefs and theories. Beliefs are those in which there is a mental conviction of the truth and validity of a particular set of something. Theories are qualifiers for beliefs. If you have the belief God created the heavens and the earth, you believe in the theory of creationism. If you believe we came from pond scum, you believe in the theory of evolution.
Why is this such a hard concept for all of you? Why is it that you cannot grasp the "big picture" of an argument and have to resort to semantics in order to "dismiss" one person's "theory"? Makes little sense to me...
- plewis1250
That's a great idea.
Students could learn a lot about science through all the lies told by charlatans trying to give their endeavors legitimacy by misusing its name. ID would be an important part of such a lesson, but (sadly) only one part.
LOL! That's such a crock. The constitution says no such thing. Nice try though.
May I ask what it came from and how this thing came into existence?
READ & WEEP -- Directly from the Court's ruling:
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.
" Now, in case you missed that one, number 6 is the definition I am implying when I state "it is a theory"."
That's not the way it is used in science. To say that it is is a lie.
You just crossed into "beliefs" with your "missing link theory"
- plewis1250
There are stromatolites of very obvious biologic origin (mounds of layered sediment and bacteria) very similar to stromatolites growing today in Australia, in rocks reliably dated to over 3 billion years old.
We don't have an actual Young-Earth Creationist sighting now, do we? It's always sort of cute and quaint when they pop up, don't see them too much anymore.
If that's a federal issue, I can't imagine anything that isn't.
Gee, can't you step away from your defense of evolution to defend the Constitution?
You don't even need the interference of the federal court, but your fervor is such...
Bah, I can't go on. These threads are always nuts. I knew that already so what did I ever come on here for.
So is God reduced down to the level of mere Assistant? Is God's job description now Assistant to Mother Nature?
God Created.
He did not assist.
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