Intelligent Design case decided - Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board loses [Fox News Alert]

Fox News | 12/20/05

[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.

[MineralMan]

"bo·gus ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bgs) adj.
Counterfeit or fake; not genuine: bogus money; bogus tasks

Therefore, you think some are not genuine.

So some are genuine? Which ones? "

---

A fair question. Religions are invented by homogenous societies to serve the needs of that society. Therefore, any religion so invented is not a "bogus" religion.

Scientology was invented by an individual. The society formed around that individual's invention. It is a "bogus" religion.

On the question of which religions I believe to be "true," the answer is none.

Atheism is simply not a religion. It is a simple disbelief.

[Dimensio]

We have a federal judge who has essentially ruled that the theory of evolution -- whose evangelistic proponents haveh has yet to produce a single fact in support of it -- cannot be criticized in the classroom as a matter of law.

We have FReepers here who have essentially misrepresented the ruling of a federal judge. How unsurprising.

[narby]

Here is love note to marx from your pet:

A few lines from Darwin to Marx, in an age when there were no telephones or e-mail and all communication was written, is about the same importance as "kiss my arse".

They lived in the same time period, in the same country.

And besides, the science of evolution has progressed light years beyond where it was in Darwin's time. He just get's his name on the theory for credit.

While Marx's theories on communism are virtually dead and gone.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

And I got post # 900.

[benjibrowder]

It supports it, but it cannot be proven.

[The Lumster]

The Dover school board did not violate the constitution.

The first amendment begins "Congress shall make no law". To my knowledge congress has made no law regarding the teaching of intelligent design one way or the other.

If congress made a law mandating the teaching of I.D., then that would be unconstitutional. Since the Congress has made no such law, the federal court has absolutely no standing to decide this case.

I see no constitutional authority for a federal court to usurp the authority of the local school board in order to require the teaching of one "theory" over another.

[Fester Chugabrew]

If God is my Creator and sustains every particle of the universe, then I need Him whether I recognize Him or not. As for having the subject of God be introduced at every point of discussion in education, that would be awkward and unseemly. Not even the theory of evolution is so intrusive. (As if I thought you would argue that evolution must be mentioned on every playground. LOL! Only at the monkey bars.)

But you digress. I merely wish to point out that a federal judge has ruled that atheistic science is the only credible science. He apparently feels it is within his qualifications to make such a ruling. Does this ruling further substantiate the theory of evolution in some way? If so, how?

[RunningWolf]

A few months ago they said the Civil War never happened and I could not prove it even though I had great relatives that were in the conflict and their fathers fought in the conflict (lived into the early '60's).


This is a piece of C. Maniacs 'evidence gambit'

So much for these sorts

Wolf

[highball]

the theory of evolution -- whose evangelistic proponents haveh has yet to produce a single fact in support of it --

Nonsense. There is plenty of evidence to support the theory, or it wouldn't be a Theory. You are aware of the scientific meaning of the word, no?

The evolutionists are clearly desperate to seek such a ruling rather than to debate the scientific observations.

And more nonsense. Scientists have put their cards on the table. ID has refused to ante up.

ID has no research, no testing, no peer review, nothing to back it up. Its own proponents have admitted that it is not testable.

ID is welcome to join the game at any time, but ID keeps insisting that the rules be changed to accomodate it. Sorry, but life doesn't work that way. We won't re-define words or change the scientific method just to support any political agenda.

While we're at it, are you a supporter of ID? If so, are you aware that ID accepts evolution and a common ancestor as givens?

[Coyoteman]

the theory of evolution -- whose evangelistic proponents haveh has yet to produce a single fact in support of it

Here is a "fact" -- a handsome young lad at that.

---

Fossil: KNM-WT 15000

Site: Nariokotome, West Turkana, Kenya (1)

Discovered By: K. Kimeu, 1984 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.6 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7, 10), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Male (based on pelvis, browridge) (1, 8, 9)

Cranial Capacity: 880 (909 as adult) cc (1)

Information: Most complete early hominid skeleton (80 bones and skull) (1, 8)

Interpretation: Hairless and dark pigmented body (based on environment, limb proportions) (7, 8, 9). Juvenile (9-12 based on 2nd molar eruption and unfused growth plates) (1, 3, 4, 7, 8). Juvenile (8 years old based on recent studies on tooth development) (27). Incapable of speech (based on narrowing of spinal canal in thoracic region) (1)

Nickname: Turkana Boy (1), Nariokotome Boy

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=38

[furball4paws]

""Why not less complex?"

Because that's not what the theory of evolution requires"

You have put your foot in it big time. There is no "upward direction" to evolution, only in finding more fitness. Consider parasites.

[thomaswest]

Intelligent Design has fizzled.

The movement called "intelligent design" appears to have passed its peak of support. Started about 10 years ago and promoted with millions of dollars from wealthy supporters at the "Discovery Institute", the plan to replace the Theory of Evolution has failed to attract a strong base of support.

1. Christian evangelical churches have mostly failed to embrace ID. Although initially attracted to a philosophical position that attacks evolution, evangelicals have become split along several lines.

1a. Biblical literalists are worried that ID does not support the Genesis accounts of creation and Noah's flood. ID thus takes momentum away from traditional criticisms of evolution. ID also fails to support the so-called Young Earth Creationists (YEC) who believe that the Bible requires the earth to have been formed about 6000 years ago (usually stated as 4004 BCE, from Bishop Usher).

Fundamentalists are particularly unhappy that ID leaves scientific skepticism about the flood completely unaswered. They are aware that the flood myth is vulnerable to serious scientific critiques, doubting that it could possibly have occurred. ID is not helpful to YEC believers, and they are very disappointed.

1b. Evangelicals have also become increasingly concerned that ID never mentions Jesus Christ--the core of their faith in salvation--and ID only mentions an "intelligent designer" rather than God. They have seen what ID critics have pointed out, namely that although everyone winks and knows that the "designer" means God, it also leaves the door open for any number of supernatural entities or dieties to satisfy ID, leaving both God and Christ out of it.

Christians have become disillusioned with ID because they realize that ID allows the Islamic Allah or Hindu deities as equal candidates for the the "designer", thus dethroning Christianity as the claimant. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church has been reluctant to embrace ID, suspecting it as part of the general Protestant "heresy".

1c. Moreover, major rifts have opened within the ID community as to how to promote ID in such court cases as the Dover, Pennsylvania case. Numerous players in the anti-evolutionist groups, such as Duane Gish, tax-evader Ken Hovind of Dinosaur Parks, and others have not only not joined ID but actively promote their own views in opposition. William Morris, founder of the "Institute for Creation Research, ICR" in California has voiced his dismay that his funding is dropping off as funds shift to ID (the "Discovery Instiutute"), so the ICR crowd is not happy with ID. One major website, www.answersingenesis.com, has extensive criticisms of evolution, but is, at best, lukewarm about ID.

2. Traditional Christian churches in the major denominations have not embraced ID either, because, for the most part their members have accepted evolution as a scientifically valid explanation of how life developed on earth. Mainstream Protestants have accepted evolution and rejected both YEC and ID. ID offers little to support their religious beliefs.

3. ID has failed to attract serious support in the scientific community, and practicing scientists find ID provides no guidance for experiments or descriptions of nature. ID has offered no explanations to explain life forms and relationships among life forms other than to say, "God did it." Moreover, ID is presented not in a smooth and compelling way that attracts people, but rather it is presented contentiously, with a chip on its shoulder against the "established evolutionists".

ID's major proponents, lawyer Philip Johnson and DI's Bruce Chapman and Stephen Meyers are not scientists and have little understanding of evolution or scientific processes. ID has been promoted by authors Dembski and Behe, who have developed abstruse concepts like "irreducible complexity" having to do with mouse traps and bacterial flagella that fail to find much popular understanding or support. Complex arguments from information theory, linked to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics--and in which IDists have been proved wrong ("conservation of information")--is not a topic that church-goers or school boards warm to.

From many words and essays trying to define irreducible complexity and specified complexity, ID has failed to specifically define where scientific observation and ID part company. In rejecting evolution, ID tends to agree with the "kinds"--vaguely related to species--mentioned in Genesis, but they have not been able to define what a kind is. ID also fails to account for why all mammals, for example, are remarkably similar in terms of body plan, metabolic processes, fetal development, blood, bones, and DNA---similarities which are readily explained by evolutionary theory. ID has also become trapped in accepting that some examples of evolution are routinely observed--which they accept as "microevolution"--while they reject what they call "macroevolution". ID has never been able to define a boundary between these two terms, which are not used by mainstream scientists. By accepting "micro-evolution", they have implicitly accepted the main tenents of evolution.

4. Within the informed lay communities, ID has failed to gain traction because ID adherents single out the science of evolution to apply "intelligent design" to. ID does not attack the historical and descriptive sciences of astronomy, geology, archeology on similar grounds, nor does ID try to offer its "designer" thesis as an explanation for the sciences of biology, medicine, chemistry, and physics. This serves to undermine ID's claims to a broadly acceptable point of view and allows the IDers to be portrayed as having an axe to grind solely with evolutionary science.

ID has also suffered from adopting a seriously flawed logic, namely that by attacking evolution and "disproving" it, then that shows that ID creationism must be correct. Many have been quick to point out that even if the idea of evolution is found to have flaws, then that does not make ID correct. And in fact, very large understandings in science, such as evolution or the germ theory of disease or gravity, based on mountains of evidence, are rarely thrown out wholesale, but they become modified to incorporate new ideas. (This, of course, is not always true--the philogiston and caloric theories of heat have been abandoned entirely.)

This logical flaw and a general interest in science and technology is probably why a large number of political and social conservatives not only have not embraced ID, but actively defend evolution on dozens of internet forums and boards, such as Free Republic.

[bobdsmith]

I agree with you that evolution requires added complexity (or more accurately it has to explain increases in complexity documented in the fossil record)

[snarks_when_bored]

Your pet Darwin was a fraud! Here is love note to marx from your pet...

Darwin's 'thank you' note to Marx was the standard academic courtesy note; he thanks Marx for having sent him a complimentary copy of Das Kapital. Darwin also confesses to not being an economist, thereby absolving himself of any responsibility for judging the correctness or incorrectness of Marx's views. Clever guy, that Darwin.

[Dimensio]

You want evidence that virtually every economics department in this US, Canada, Britain, eastern and western Europe was dominated by Marxists for most of the 20th century? How long do you think that post would be?

This is a new cop-out. I've seen creationists demand that those asking for evidence of creationist claims shout "do the research yourself!" and I've seen "If you don't know already then you're an idiot/stubborn twit who won't believe any facts I present so I won't waste my time", but I've never seen the cowardly cop-out of "It'd take way too long for me to support my claim with evidence!"

[highball]

It supports it, but it cannot be proven.

I never said it could be proven. Obviously it cannot be proven - no theory can.

There is, however, as much evidence for the Theory of Evolution as for other theories, including Germ Theory, Atomic Theory, The Theory of Relativity and Gravitational Theory. Do you oppose those as well? If not, why not?

[MineralMan]

"I think the theory of evolution can account for increased complexity just fine. "

Yup. Consider the slime mold, one of my favorite lifeforms on this planet. Sometimes it's nothing but single cells. Sometimes it aggregates and crawls across the ground like a slug.

Or, perhaps, the human egg. One cell. Joined by another cell. It grows into a human being. From simplicity to complexity...amazing.

Those who cannot see that the slime mold and the human do not have some relationship are truly blind. And still, we have both slime molds and humans on the same planet at the same time. Truly Evolution does not always involve increased complexity, although it can.

[Jeff Head]

Spot on.

[cogitator]

Yes, there are churches that pick and choose from the Bible to come up with a theology that will be more popular that that, but that doesn't change the facts of how evolution and the Bible conflict.

Again, you are stating that "evolution and the Bible" conflict when in fact it is one interpretative position on the Bible (characterized as "literal") that is in conflict with evolution. Your Corinthians quote presupposes the existence of a literal, single Adam. Making that presupposition is predicated on a literal interpretive framework.

We could go on, and on, and on... and I've done so with theological scholars back-and-forth many times. I'm not going to go over point-by-point the arguments that I'm sure you can bring up. I hope what will suffice is the understanding that "picking and choosing" is not synonymous with advocating a non-literal interpretive framework for the Bible, and I hope you do not question the fervent faith of Christians who do not interpret the Bible in the manner you prefer.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

It's not just that he wants me to do the research, he is changing the claim. He originally said that EVERY economist followed Marx. And EVRY psychiatrist followed Freud.