Posted on 08/10/2005 2:00:55 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
While members of the Dover Area School Board didn’t speak publicly about creationism until June 2004, private conversations about incorporating it into the biology curriculum started much earlier, according to documents filed in federal court this week. In late 2002 or early 2003, when Bertha Spahr, head of Dover’s high-school science department, requested a new biology textbook, she was told that a board member wanted half the evolution unit devoted to “creationism.”
Spahr’s remarks about the creationism requests for biology class were part of her sworn testimony in depositions taken this spring.
In other depositions cited in court documents, school board member Bill Buckingham said he helped raise money to buy the district copies of the pro-intelligent design textbook “Of Pandas and People” by soliciting contributions through his church.
Dover Supt. Richard Nilsen said in his deposition that, in the search for a new biology textbook, Asst. Supt. Michael Baksa gathered information from parochial schools but not other public schools. Baksa said in deposition that, in his research, he reviewed information from the Bob Jones University publication “Biology for Christians.”
Bob Jones University’s official creed proclaims a belief in “the creation of man by the direct act of God.”
With a First Amendment trial scheduled for Sept. 26, the Dover district is at the center of a national debate on the subject of intelligent design — the idea that life is too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have been created by an intelligent designer.
After board members voted to make intelligent design part of the school district’s ninth-grade biology curriculum, 11 district parents filed suit, arguing the board members were trying to force religion into science class.
The references to depositions were part of an opposition petition filed Monday by the parents’ attorneys. The petition had been filed in response to the district’s July 13 request for the case to be dismissed.
Richard Thompson of the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, which is representing the district, said he could not speak about depositions referenced in the documents filed Monday because he had not finished reading the material.
“First of all, there is disagreement to what really happened,” Thompson said.
Thompson also said the remarks made by some board members are irrelevant because the case should be decided solely on the statement in which students are told about intelligent design.
The plaintiffs’ opposition petition cites the U.S. Supreme Court’s three-pronged “Lemon test,” which states the following:
· a government action must have a legitimate secular purpose,
· it must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and
· the action must not result in an excessive entanglement of government and religion.
The plaintiffs’ response states that the Dover school board was motivated by advancing religion in science class and therefore the policy’s primary purpose is religious and unconstitutional.
“At the end of the day, the judge will make the decision,” Thompson said.
Attorney Eric Rothschild of Pepper Hamilton, who is representing the parents, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Judge John E. Jones III is expected to rule soon on the district’s request that the case be dismissed.
On Oct. 18, when its school board voted 6-3 to approve science curriculum changes, the Dover Area School District is believed to have become the first district in the country to include intelligent design in its high school biology curriculum.
Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex to have evolved solely through natural selection and therefore must have been created by some intelligent force.
Supporters say the policy simply gives time to alternative views to evolution.
Its critics say it’s not science, but a way of forcing Christianity into biology class.
In December, 11 parents filed a federal civil-rights suit against the district.
On Jan. 18 and 19, as part of the school board’s mandate, district administrators read a statement to ninth-grade biology students in which intelligent design was mentioned.
In the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s 1968 Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act violated the First Amendment. The act allowed the state superintendent of public instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools, most of them Catholic, for teachers’ salaries, textbooks and instructional materials.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court also struck down the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act, which provided funds to supplement salaries at nonpublic schools, again mostly Catholic, by 15 percent.
The court’s decision in this case established the “Lemon test,” which states the following:
· a government action must have a legitimate secular purpose,
· it must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and
· the action must not result in an excessive entanglement of government and religion.
Wonder if any of the futures markets allow trading on the outcome of lawsuits? I'd like to get a few bucks down on this one.
I know there have been a lot of crevo posts lately, but this is real, substantive news.
The lemon test?
I think my daughter explained this to me.
Every villain is lemons = EVIL.
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Eight Significant Court Decisions.
The Evolution Controversy. Scopes trial and some Supreme Court cases.
Selman v. Cobb County School District. The Georgia textbook sticker case.
Half the methods unit being given to creationism seems excessive. Hopefully they can give some of that allocation to study of the demiurge.
"Wonder if any of the futures markets allow trading on the outcome of lawsuits? I'd like to get a few bucks down on this one."
There are some online betting agencies that do trials. More stuff like...
Who will win the Scott Peterson Civil Suit?
or
How much will be awarded to Laci Peterson's family if they win?
Note, these are real, not kidding.
Is "some intelligent force" the product of evolution or was it also created by an even more intelligent force? Who do these people think they're fooling?
....she was told that a board member wanted half the evolution unit devoted to “creationism.” [emphasis added from shear astonishment]
Holy Mackerel! Half the Unit????? How about if someone proposed to devote half of math class to Numerology? These people aren't nibbling at the edges with "warning stickers" and talk about "shortcomings of Evolutionary theory"; they want to shoe-horn their weird unscientific notions into the classroom with both feet!
What's next? A law forcing half of all religious sermons be devoted to science? These people ought to quit while they're ahead.
I believe it. I did quite well on GWB futures last November. :-)
Creationists really don't understand that evolution has an intellectual content and that it isn't what they "know" from their creationist pamphlets. There is actually material to cover on the evolution side and you need to understand this stuff to understand 21st-century biology.
Real, substantive news obviously has no takers when it implies on-sided legal consquenses.
This looks exactly like a court case in, I believe, Alabama.
On another thread I have asked three times for any ID proponent to list the things ID has in common with science. There have been no takers. I can only assume that ID proponents are scared that they will be considered as bad as evos by creationists.
That's usually caused by the failure of Occam's Razor.
ID has nothing in common with science. That's why, in places like Kansas, they're trying to redefine science to include non-scientific stuff like ID. We've had at least one thread on this:
Conservatives Seek Redefinition Of Science In Kansas Schools [Evolution vs Creationism].
It's kinda like redefining marriage to it will include ... well, you know.
Okay, okay; you caught me. Can you imagine my sheer embarrassment for that misspelling?
Entities should not be needlessly multiplied, particularly in a full bathtub or during a thunderstorm.
Occam's twin-blade razor.
Entities should not be needlessly multiplied by 2.
Occam's women's razor
Entities should not be needlessly manufactured with pink plastic and have the price multiplied by 2.
Or astrology.
(Chicks dig that.)
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