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Intelligent Design case decided - Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board loses [Fox News Alert]
Fox News | 12/20/05

Posted on 12/20/2005 7:54:38 AM PST by snarks_when_bored

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To: Dimensio
Good point. Darwin's theory is actually a hypothesis. It has never been proven, therefore the "Theory" classification is intellectually dishonest.

I suspect the misclassification was adopted by Atheists who are afraid of Christians and the message they bring, much as how "pro abortion" became "pro choice". Lacking a relationship with Jesus, Atheists are desperate for substance in their lives, and will attempt to create an alternative to Christ - did you know that some alcoholics, trying to get clean actually worship door knobs rather than accept Jesus in their lives?

I know this is a very bad time of the year for Atheists, and this thread is bringing out the confusion, hate, fear, and lack of tolerance that rules their life.

Why else would they feel they must keep school children from hearing the word of God? What are you so afraid of?

If your side were so sure God did not exist, that creationism, intelligent design, whatever, had no benefit or merit, you wouldn't bother with it any more than if your kid had to take Chinese or underwater basket weaving or high speed BB stacking.

No, the reason you are so desperate to keep even the slightest reference to God away from our children is because you are desperately afraid they will find a relationship with Our Lord, and you will be alone.

Have a Merry Christmas (you'll find it easier if you repent 1st)

1,661 posted on 12/20/2005 9:03:19 PM PST by 4woodenboats (Luke 2: The Real Christmas story)
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To: caffe
aeronautical engineering and physics

So what, exactly, are his qualifications regarding biology?

but then again, I could just be aware of the guy's existence and am making false claims

No, I'm willing to admit that you are quite likely telling the truth here. But if I want information about evolution, I'm going to take the word of a biologist over a physicist. Even if he's also an aeronautical engineer. Kind of like how if I need work done on my car's engine I take it to an auto mechanic rather than a heart surgeon -- the surgeon may be expertly qualified in his field, but that doesn't mean that he necessarily knows how to change an oil filter.

Just try and use some brains - one does not need to be a believer in darwin to be a great scientist and one can be a believer in biblical creation and be a great scientist.

Oh, I don't doubt it. It's entirely possible to be a skilled chemist or phycisist without having a clue as to the workings of evolution.
1,662 posted on 12/20/2005 9:05:30 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Protagoras

> How come you aren't out shooting up your high school or something like the rest of your Godless brethern?

Perhaps because I'm not you, or like you.


1,663 posted on 12/20/2005 9:07:09 PM PST by orionblamblam (A furore Normannorum libra nos, Domine)
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To: 4woodenboats
Darwin's theory is actually a hypothesis.

No, it isn't.

It has never been proven, therefore the "Theory" classification is intellectually dishonest.

You demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of science here. No "theory" in science is "proven". Theories cannot be proven. Theories in science have not been proven and they will never be proven. That is not how science works.

I suspect the misclassification was adopted by Atheists who are afraid of Christians

Yet another dishonest creationist equivocates acceptance of evolution as a theory with atheism. Why do creationists lie so much?

Why else would they feel they must keep school children from hearing the word of God? What are you so afraid of?

Why are you bringing up a discussion of atheism versus Christianity when the topic at hand is evolution versus Intelligent Design? I know that a number of dishonest creationist sources claim otherwise, but not everyone who accepts evolution is an atheist. The majority of those who accept the theory of evolution as valid are theists.

If your side were so sure God did not exist,

You are dishonestly misrepresenting "my side", so nothing you draw from this statement has any meaning. Is your position so abysmally weak that you have to lie about those who don't agree with you?
1,664 posted on 12/20/2005 9:08:21 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Dimensio; 4woodenboats
4woodenboats

I know that some dishonest creationist is going to jump on this and claim I meant something other than what I really meant, so I need to clarify now that when I say that evolution is not a hypothesis, I mean that evolution has moved far beyond the "hypothesis" stage and is now a well-accepted and well-established theory.
1,665 posted on 12/20/2005 9:09:46 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Coyoteman

Would you like to tell me exactly what science was used in terms of attaching an age to these skulls? Perhaps later you would like to discuss Piltman?

Also, just try and absorb the following from one of my favorite web sites:

No scientist would ever succeed in getting funding from major federal or private sources to investigate if evolution has really occurred or not. The evolutionist Richard Leaky approached the National Geographic Society to get funding to look for the ape ancestors of man, not to investigate if man evolved from apes. It is interesting to note that when the Society gave Leaky his funds, he was warned: “If you find nothing you are never to come begging at our door again.” With this motivation, Leaky soon found 40 specimens of the “human ancestor,” Australopithecus, whose very name, by the way, means “Southern APE”! Most evolutionists are dead certain that this very ape-like ape evolved into man because of certain arguable similarities to man in its teeth and pelvic bones. Perhaps you heard the story of the evolutionist who dug up a fossilized fragment of an ape’s jaw and promptly declared it to be an ancestor of man—he was so excited about the find he said, “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”

One of the problems with the similarity = evolutionary ancestry axiom is that evolutionists ignore it whenever it doesn’t fit their evolutionary scenarios. There are many instances of remarkable similarities between animals that evolutionists consider to be only distantly related. The eye of the squid, for example, is strikingly similar to the human eye. Sometimes almost the whole body and even the behavior of animals are obviously similar and still evolutionists argue they are not closely related! For example, many of the Australian marsupials have strikingly similar counterparts to certain North American placental mammals. There are both marsupial and placental mammal versions of mice, moles, rabbits, wolves, and badgers. There is even evidence that there once were both marsupial and placental saber-toothed tigers! Yet evolutionists consider marsupials and placental mammals to be only distantly related because their mechanism of reproduction is so different. Evolutionists believe that the primitive ancestors of marsupial and placental mammals split off from a hypothetical common ancestor about 120 million years ago, long before there were mice, moles, rabbits, wolves, and badgers, and have been evolving separately ever since. How then did both these separate lines manage to come up with such similar animals?

Incredibly, evolutionists explain away amazing similarities between animals they consider to be only distantly related by simply invoking “convergent evolution.” Convergent evolution is the unobserved and unexplained process whereby two very different animals independently evolve into two very similar animals by an incredible run of countless lucky mutational coincidences extending over tens of millions of years! It seems that some folks will believe almost anything, as long as it doesn’t appear in the Bible.




1,666 posted on 12/20/2005 9:15:30 PM PST by caffe
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To: benjibrowder; CarolinaGuitarman
Who said I was a creationist? Who said I didn't believe in evolution? What are doing, taking words out of my mouth? Huh, are you? Are you?

Are you serious? You're just trolling, right? DUmmy hear to make everyone look like a complete raving lunatic? Is it possible you didn't realize someone might click on your name and read phrases like "I do not believe in evolution (so sue me!)"?

Go ahead and change it. I dare you. Others will click on your name and see the truth before you edit it. Your only alternative is to leave it there for the world to see. Which is worse: to be caught in a lie, or to lie again to cover it up?

Other creationists, be honest. Is this the kind of person you want defending your side? He's like the morons in Dover who made sure you never had a chance with their perjury filled "defense" of your side.

1,667 posted on 12/20/2005 9:16:21 PM PST by Thalos
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Comment #1,668 Removed by Moderator

To: caffe
Perhaps later you would like to discuss Piltman?

Coyoteman can answer for himself, but he may have retired for the night. In the mean time, you should know that it's "Piltdown", not "Piltman".

Piltdown was a fake, just like the preacher Jim Jones. If you want to trade fake for fake, I think we can make a good night of it.

Let's see, Amee Simple McPherson... Marjoe...

1,669 posted on 12/20/2005 9:24:14 PM PST by narby (Hillary! The Wicked Witch of the Left)
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To: Thalos
Go ahead and change it. I dare you. Others will click on your name and see the truth before you edit it.

Not to worry: I got a screenshot.
1,670 posted on 12/20/2005 9:24:33 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Dimensio

Then perhaps I confused you with someone else who believed that if ID was actually allowed open for discussion in education, the poor children would never be qualified to become scientists. I also hope you agree that one may be a biologist or a physician and still reject Darwin.
Before I had children, I was a Registered Nurse and I don't feel any Doctor or patient had less confidence in me because I am a creationist. Actually, I was never asked. I somehow passed microbiology, anatomy and chemistry without swearing some oath to Darwin. I could even openly embrace the laws of thermodynamics!
Again, I thought you were the one who asserted the sky was falling if students did'nt have a complete Darwin indoctrination. Sorry about that.


1,671 posted on 12/20/2005 9:28:47 PM PST by caffe
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To: Protagoras
"The advocation of one theory on a given subject, while not even acknowledging a different theory is clearly not designed to further intelligent inquiry."

When no other significant, scientific theory exists, I find it inappropriate to teach alternate theories. While I'll agree that the ToE is indeed a theory (in the scientific sense, not in the common usage of the word), it remains the best scientific theory we have to explain the vast array of living things currently observed. Those who do advocate the teaching of ID under the premise that it's wrong to just teach one "theory" (and they generally advocate such without an understanding of the difference between a scientific theory and their version of the word) are implicitly advocating the teaching of any and all crackpot ideas about how the ecosystem arrived at its current state. That includes Scientology and Raelianism (both forms of ID, and both major advocates of it) as much as it does Christian creationism and Norse mythology.

I find it as inappropriate to teach ID as factual or scientific in public schools (except within the confines of a philsophy or religious studies class) as I do to teach that Yggdrasil is the foundation of life as if it were scientific in some way.

Find me a truly scientific theory that performs as well as the ToE in explainations of the source of the modern Earth biological ecosystem and I'll gladly stand behind it as being entirely appropriate and necessary for presentation in the science class of every kid in the nation. I'm no ToE fanatic who can't be convinced otherwise, but I'm not about to give up a working, functional, testable, scientific theory for thinly-veiled religious beliefs cloaked in shaky mathematical modeling.
1,672 posted on 12/20/2005 9:31:41 PM PST by NJ_gent (Modernman should not have been banned.)
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To: caffe
Then perhaps I confused you with someone else who believed that if ID was actually allowed open for discussion in education, the poor children would never be qualified to become scientists.

That depends on how it's presented. If it's presented as science to children, then they will be at a fundamental disadvantage because they will have a completely inaccurate view of what science is.

I also hope you agree that one may be a biologist or a physician and still reject Darwin.

That depends on your particular field of study and/or practice, as well as how much of evolution you reject. I would certainly not trust a physician who refused to accept that strains of bacteria can "evolve" resistance to antibiotics.

I could even openly embrace the laws of thermodynamics!

What has this to do with the theory of evolution? You're not one of those who ignorantly thinks that evolution supposedly violates the laws of thermodynamics, are you?
1,673 posted on 12/20/2005 9:33:50 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: narby

What can I say? It's late and I have'nt thought of old Pilt for years! I somehow see this topic float up on the screen and can't resist responding.

I know it was faked but there are so many fakes, I can't keep them all straight. Perhaps some ambitious person, could post a list.


1,674 posted on 12/20/2005 9:34:04 PM PST by caffe
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To: caffe
I know it was faked but there are so many fakes

What other fakes are there? I can think of exactly one "fake", and it wasn't deliberately faked to fool science, but rather to make a buck off of tourists (and it's not clear that the "faker" had the expertise to even know he was faking anything). Please, share some of the "many fakes" with us.
1,675 posted on 12/20/2005 9:36:25 PM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: jbloedow; CarolinaGuitarman; snarks_when_bored
[And you'd be right. But that is not the case for evolutionary biology, which has been built upon, and validated by, an overwhelming amount of evidence, along multiple independently cross-confirming lines.]

Finally, a non-infantile response.

Don't lie, it doesn't become you. You received several responses which dealt directly with the merits of your claim.

I tempted to grant you your claim just in gratitude for an evolutionist willing to engage in the conversation at a post-pubescent level.

Don't get snotty, son. If you want a conversation beyond a "post-pubescent level", then you would be advised to not START your topic by being childishly sarcastic, as you were when you wrote:

Marx and Freud's disciples would have marshalled impressive defenses of their Prophets during the heady days of their dominance. Darwin is still in his heyday. But I'm sure it's oh-so-different in this case. Yes, that's right, it's different with Darwin..
Frankly, now I'm sorry I wasted my time on you. You don't deserve it. Instead of taking my straightforward response as an opportunity to leave aside your schoolyard asides and just discuss a topic on its merits, you couldn't resist starting out your reply with an insulting broadside against "evolutionists"

If you get abuse, you've earned it.

But I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Marxists and Freudians would have made exactly the same claim as you are making here.

"Would have"? If what?

As I explained in a previous thread, no-one is in a position to speak authoritatively to the extent of the alleged evidence for evolution, because it exists in a host of very specialized fields which require very parochial knowledge in order for one truly to decide for oneself about the state of the evidence.

This is a really lame attempt to cast doubt on the strength of the evidence and statements about its scope and validity. If you want to take issue with any particular piece of evidence, feel free, but this kind of attempt to raise a vague question about the evidence on the whole is just pitiful.

First, you're grossly misrepresenting the case when you employ half a dozen overblown qualifiers in an attempt to make it sound as if it's nearly impossible for any person to verify any point of evidence without, say, thirty years of expertise. Horse manure. Most of the evidence for evolution is very accessible with just an ordinary college education and some brushing up on a few specialized topics.

Second, you're "forgetting" about one of the biggest strengths of science -- its repeatability requirement. All evidence and research results, etc., must be verifiable by independent peers in the field. Almost *nothing* gets cataloged, described, or published without being checked and doublechecked and re-examined by countless other specialists in the appropriate field.

So the kind of "maybe someone's misrepresenting the state of the evidence, who could tell?" argument you're trying to make here falls on its silly face when you realize that it would require a vast conspiracy by all the researchers who have examined each particular piece of evidence. Uh huh. Sure.

The same goes for assessments of the "big picture" summary of the evidence in a particular field. And the same goes for the "biggest picture" summary drawing together findings across all fields. It has all been checked and rechecked countless times by the people most qualified to do so.

So when you try to imply that maybe vast subcollections of the totality of the evidence for evolution might somehow all be an "oopsy" that got overlooked because no one's in a position to doublecheck it, you're just being ridiculous.

So one must make an argument from authority, taking it on faith that those individuals who are truly in a position to speak to the nature of the evidence in the various scientific fields attest that the preponderance of the evidence is positive for evolution.

This whole paragraph deflates when you realize that it's not a matter of "individuals". There are many, many checks and balances built into these kinds of scientific assessments, and thus it ends up not being a matter of having to accept the "authority" of one "individual", it's a matter of having good reason to trust the process by which many eyes and minds cross-check findings and kick them around in every conceivable way to rule out potential errors.

FURTHERMORE, skeptics are always welcome to take a stab at finding any flaws they think might be there -- and do on a regular basis. This again provides yet another cross-check that increases confidence in the validity of the evidence.

If the body of evidence for evolution was a questionable as you try to imply, before long one of these skeptics would have homed in on one of the questionable things, spotted the problem, and issued a press conference or whatever blowing the lid off the "evolution fraud" you darkly imply might be hidden by the (allegedly) esoteric nature of the evidence. The "ID" folks would certainly have done so by now if they had found such a thing. And yet, there's a notable lack of such announcements. (Yes, I know creationists make such "announcements" on a regular basis, but to date their examples have been laughable examples of creationist misunderstanding or misrepresentation, rather than actual examples of "uncovered error".)

Go verify a representative sampling of the evidence yourself, if you're all that paranoid about its quality. Many people have, you won't be the first one.

What you find, however, is that often scientists are far more confident about the support evolution receives from the scientific fields in which they are not experts than the one to which they are qualified to speak.

This is utterly and completely false. Did you make it up, or parrot it from some creationist pamphlet?

Anyway, for anyone to claim that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming is silly.

Nonsense. The evidence for evolution *is* overwhelming. Hell, just the portion of the evidence accessible to proper examination and verification by someone with a couple courses in Biology and pre-college math is *still* overwhelming.

So stop the hand-waving, eh? You just look ridiculous.

At best you are saying that you take it on faith, based on authority and consensus, that this is true. Right now.

Horse manure, son. I myself have enough knowledge of the relevant fields to personally verify a large fraction of it, and have done so, and I'm by no means the only "evolutionist" who has done so. Go peddle your nonsense elsewhere.

1,676 posted on 12/20/2005 9:40:44 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Dimensio
Thats just plain unadulterated bullsh*t

Got anything else to offer?? Just what I thought.. NOT.

Wolf
1,677 posted on 12/20/2005 9:42:11 PM PST by RunningWolf (Vet US Army Air Cav 1975)
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To: conservative blonde
No, they are treated as sub-humans.

Sub-human, Really?
I usually associate that kinda thing with societies with a politico-theoracracy in charge. Islamic or militant Hindus come to mind.

Many have lost their jobs.

Dr. Michael Behe has tenure, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez is on track for tenure at ISU, Roger DeHart resigned from Burlington HS and now teaches Advanced Placement biology at a Christian prep school. And as of September, Richard Sternberg was still gainfully employed at the NIH. Who else?

Belief in evolution is part of the liberal doctrine.

Don't forget the communists, Nazis, and Freemasons ...

Many will be very surprised when they die and find out the truth.

Pascal's wager? Oh, How original! (again)

Even Darwin himself rejected his own theory before he died.

Lady Hope and her BS story? Fascinating, do tell. I haven't heard it in ages ...

(I think it's adorable when creationists say "doctrine", that's absolutely precious ...)

1,678 posted on 12/20/2005 9:43:15 PM PST by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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To: narby; xzins; furball4paws
More on the Nylon Bug here.
1,679 posted on 12/20/2005 9:43:45 PM PST by MRMEAN (Better living through nuclear explosives)
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To: caffe
I know it was faked but there are so many fakes, I can't keep them all straight.

Many fakes? I dont think so.

There was a recent "fake" bird fossil that made it to National Geographic. But it turns out that someone in China, probably just an untrained worker, combined two fossils they thought belonged together. It was found within days.

There have been some other honest misidentifications, later corrected.

One thing is certian. Creationists and IDers at the Discovery Institute *did not* find these problems. Other scientists found them, and corrected the problem. Which gives me confidence that I can trust the scientific community.

1,680 posted on 12/20/2005 9:44:06 PM PST by narby (Hillary! The Wicked Witch of the Left)
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