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.”
me ranting? LoL!
it's you sissies that are doing all the ranting. I just post FACTS, while you post nothing but impossibilies, and not a single FACT to prove your claim of evolution.
Science supports ID, it doesn't support the religion of Evolution. That is a FACT.
Internet access for institutionalized persons should be a privilege and not a right placemarker...
"It's really funny how the fundamentalist right is desperately reaching to programs even the far left has rejected, to try to justify their program of forcing religion into science class."
From what little I have read of their writings, I wouldn't classify ID proponents as "fundamentalists." Too many people toss that term about and don't have a clue what constitutes a "fundamentalist." It is actually a hateful term that only describes a very narrow group in Christianity. I would say that most ID proponents, that are Christian, could be described as "conservative evangelicals", when they are protestant. Those that are Roman Catholic I would describe as "traditional." However, I hesitate to describe Roman Catholics because of my lack of knowledge concerning them. Better to let them describe themselves. I am certain they wouldn't appreciate being called "fundamentalists."
Please don't stoop to stereotypes and hyperbole as you, in some cases rightly so, accuse those that hold either a creationist or ID viewpoint of doing.
Personally, I am mistified as to all the "heat and light" this topic generates. Reading of a "disclaimer" statement and making a book available in a library will hardly promote creationism (do you really think any child is really listening, or will read this book?). So, keeping the law in place will have little impact other than symbolic. Conversely, it is hardly going to undermine a totally "naturalistic" approach to science that predominates in the classroom.
Way too much paranoia and uncalled for angry out there. On both sides.
Hint: state your point without the personal attacks
Great catch. At first I thought it was just an error on his part.
The other clue that gives away everything is:
"I have several children all of which [sic] are home schooled." [emphasis added]
I nominate the last quote for the "Unintended Irony Award of the Month".
Actually, what you post are other people's words and the fruits of other people's labors. Even with the quotes where you give credit to the original author, you fail to give credit to the people who compiled them and inserted them in lengthy essays.
But your biggest problem is not plagiarism, but you lack of judgement. You are plagiarizing from loons who think the frog in a blendor is a good example of a failed prediction of evolution.
In the entire history of these threads -- all the way from 1720 to "circles are not elipses," this is the stupidest.
LOL. Hold on there sparky.
I will not take your bait re: comparisons of our children. I have 3, 1 has finished college, 1 in college, 1 in middle school. Suffice to say, I am immensely proud of each of them for their different approaches to the world and their respective (to-date) accomplishments. Sounds like you have some good ones going on as well. Congrats (and I mean that sincerely).
Your comment "we're not afraid of false doctrines" really says it all for me though. It puts your original statement on this thread in a somewhat different light "to educate means to present all materials and information to the student so that the revelation of truth will manifest", which makes it sound like you intend for the learner to discover the truth for him or herself. However, using phrases such as "false doctrines" indicates that while you may be exposing the student to other viewpoints, you have identified them as false FOR the student, so that the only "true doctrine" they see is the one you want seen that way.
The cool part: they're your kids and you are free to raise and educate them as you see fit. I applaud that you take it so seriously (not too many do anymore it seems), regardless of our disagreement.
"An intelligible communication via radio signal from some distant galaxy would be widely hailed as evidence of an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the message sequence on the DNA molecule also constitute prima facie evidence for an intelligent source?
Machines, as defined by French Biochemist and Nobel Laureate Jacques Lucien Monod (1910-1976), are "purposeful aggregates of matter that, utilizing energy, perform specific tasks." By this authoritative definition, living systems are also recognized as machines. A living organism fulfills the definition of a machine all the way down to the molecular level.
Back in the mid-1700's, David Hume successfully invalidated the "machine" analogy in biologic systems because we could only guess at what existed at the molecular level.However, the phenomenal discoveries in the last few decades have finally and unequivocally demonstrated that living systems are, in fact, machines - even to the deepest, molecular level. machines, regardless of how simple, are built, created, they don't just appear by magic.
"It has only been over the past twenty years with the molecular biological revolution and with the advances in cybernetic and computer technology that Hume's criticism has been finally invalidated and the analogy between organisms and machines has at last become convincing… In every direction the biochemist gazes, as he journeys through the weird molecular labyrinth, he sees devices and appliances reminiscent of our own twentieth-century world of advanced technology." (Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 340.)
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance! (George Wald, "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954.)
Sir Arthur Keith, a famous British evolutionary anthropologist and anatomist, declares:
Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable. David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion)
H.S. Lipson, a Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester (UK):
In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it. (H.S. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin, vol. 31, May 1980, 138.)
That says it all.
If you want to "observe" something, toss a frog in a blender then let the mixture of everything needed for life to create itself sit in the sun. Of course, that would be cheating, but if evolution theory is correct, the frog should remake itself.
________________
You state that the above is "exactly what evolution theory states", can you point me to the page in Darwin's book where it states this.
I did not know that they had blenders in his day. I wonder if he was a daquiri or a margarita kind of guy.
GREAT catch!
Another Anti-Evo Serial Plagiarizer nailed again....
I'm glad you finally admit that. Now, since the TOE has nothing at all to do with magic, and ID has everything to do with unprovable, magical creation events, perhaps we can now comfortably thow ID overboard per your excellent refutation of its foundations.
"Boo hoo! Your posting from textbooks pdf files and clips from other web sites! WAHHHH!"
That is what you are saying. You can't counter the evidence, so you attack the person who presents it to get off the subject.
That's weak.
Not to mention all that quote mining.
The reason why we are experiencing this Troll attack is simple: the IDers are getting their asses handed to them in court, and their supporters are desperate to distract the lurkers from this horrifying spectacle. Having no more coherent arguments to make their case than their bretheren in the Dover Court room, they resort to the only viable tactic available to them: disruption.
Recycled troll "newbies" showing up on these threads with extensive ping lists and the usual list of laughably ignorant arguments, quote-mined quotes, and bald-faced attempts to sucker us into flame wars while their compatriots ride the abuse button like a hobby horse are to be expected.
The Grand Master of DarwinCentral has spoken; our duty is to obey --- Please don't feed the Trolls!
There are a few conservative Catholics who oppose evolution. I wouldn't call them traditionalist, since the Catholic church has never opposed evolution as a matter of dogma.
Personally, I am mistified as to all the "heat and light" this topic generates. Reading of a "disclaimer" statement and making a book available in a library will hardly promote creationism (do you really think any child is really listening, or will read this book?). So, keeping the law in place will have little impact other than symbolic. Conversely, it is hardly going to undermine a totally "naturalistic" approach to science that predominates in the classroom.
This may be because you're not a scientist. Those of us who are scientists are very sensitive to religious or political interference in what we do. In the 1990s, there was vehement and vocal opposition form the science community to attempts by the postmodernist left to politicize science. That threat was fought off. The threat now comes from the fundamentalist right, and it appears all the more dangerous because it has the backing of the President and the Senate Majority Leader.
You mean, it has nothing to do with FACT and science. TOE has everything to do with magic, because it just assumes complex machines "appeared" out of nowhere. TBBT is also part of TOE whether you like it or not, and also depends completely on magic.,p> ID does not depend on magic. It offers a more plausible explanation, whether you agree or not. Just because we can't understand how doesn't mean it can't be. TOE uses the same belief in something unexplainable on and more fantastic scale to explain things. In fact, ID is the more believable because the evidence is right in front of us. A DNA molecule even for the simplest bacterium contains more structured language and information than an entire set of the enxcylopedia Britannica set. To think it appeared magically by itself is absurd.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.