Posted on 09/26/2005 12:14:08 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
Members of the national and international press gathered outside the federal courthouse in Harrisburg this morning for the start of a trial that could determine the fate of intelligent design in public school.
The BBC, London Guardian and People magazine were among news agencies outside the courtroom, where the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover began at 9 a.m.
Julian Borger, a Washington-based reporter for the Guardian, said the interest in the United Kingdom is in the American school system. He said people in the UK don't have the ability to vote on what is or isn't taught in school.
"There are a small percentage of people who believe in intelligent design," Borger said, "but some also believe it's a peculiarly American phenomenon."
BBC producer James Van der Pool said: "There is no single view in the UK. There's a curiosity about how something like this can create such a stir.
"Evolution is more accepted in the UK," he added. "Our interest is whether there is anything in this (intelligent design). Is it an American affair and is it going to come over here (the UK)?"
The federal court case filed against the Dover Area School District and its school board over mention of intelligent design in biology classes was to begin with opening statements by the district's attorneys and those representing 11 parents who filed the suit in December.
The parents, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, were expected to argue that the school board had religious motives in requiring a statement about intelligent design to be read in biology classes. They also contend intelligent design is based on religion.
The school board's attorneys from the Thomas More Law Center,
a Michigan-based public interest law firm that often represents Christians who say their rights have been violated, were expected to argue that the board had a secular purpose in mentioning intelligent design as an "alternative theory" to evolution and intelligent design is scientifically sound.
Intelligent design says living things are so complicated they had to have been created by a higher being, that life is too complex to have developed by evolution as described by biologist Charles Darwin.
The parents and their attorney assert that intelligent design is akin to creationism.
The first week: After opening statements, the parents' attorneys will begin to present their case. Their witnesses are expected to testify at least through the first week. Once the parents' attorneys have rested their case, the defense will have an opportunity to call witnesses.
Brown University professor and biologist Kenneth Miller was expected to take the stand first for the parents.
Miller, who teaches in Brown's Department of Biology & Medicine, is known nationally for his opposition to teaching "intelligent design" as part of public school science courses.
He has said that intelligent design fails to hold up to scientific tests, and that it is a philosophical concept that is not scientifically rooted.
Miller's testimony is scheduled to conclude tomorrow.
He will be followed by fact witnesses -- or those who can testify about the events that frame the case -- that neither side would publicly name.
Wednesday's testimony is expected to steer back to science with Rob Pennock, a Michigan State University professor of science and philosophy.
Pennock wrote the book "Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism" and edited "Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives," both published by The MIT Press.
Pennock is expected to share time Wednesday with intelligent design historian Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University.
Forrest has written several scientific publications about intelligent design and co-wrote "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design," with Paul R. Gross, published by Oxford University Press.
The book details the "wedge strategy" intelligent design proponents use to slowly push the concept into mainstream national education politics, according to the book's sleeve.
ACLU staff attorney Paula Knudsen said Forrest has researched the evolution of the creationism movement into the intelligent design movement, and she is expected to show the links between intelligent design and its alleged ancestor, creation science and creationism.
The week's final witness is expected to be Jack Haught, professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and director of the Georgetown Center for the Study of Science and Religion.
He has written several books, including "Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation," and "Deeper Than Darwin: Evolution and the Question of God."
In a 2002 interview with the National Center for Science Education, Haught said intelligent design's scientific arguments are "theological diversions, not scientifically fruitful suppositions."
All media seats taken: As scientific, philosophical and theological witnesses converge on Harrisburg, so do representatives of the media.
The 40 courtroom seats available to the media have been grabbed by both local and national members of the press, ranging from The York Dispatch to the New York Times and National Public Radio.
The court's clerks have been expecting a hearty showing from the public as well.
About 40 courtroom seats are available to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. They will be distributed on the ninth floor, beginning an hour before the start of the trial. Spectators must be seated within 15 minutes before court is in session.
Passes may not be reserved in advance for members of the public.
Those who are unable to be accommodated in the courtroom will be directed to an auxiliary room where the trial will be broadcast through a closed-circuit audio feed.
Why was it painful?
Seeing as it's a fatally flawed defense - YES.
Why did Sealion get banned? :(
No obvious reason. If I had to guess, it's probably because some troll filed a spurious complaint and a weekend mod suspended him without checking into it but, I don't know.
Meme duplication.
Then you clearly don't understand them.
You think the defendants would have him as a defense expert, if his book was fatally flawed?
Sure, since court arguments are based on what *sounds* good (i.e., what can sway the jury), not on what might actually be valid, true, or logically correct.
Remember "if the glove does not fit, you must acquit", and countless other courtroom ploys that were used (and worked) despite their flaws which would have been obvious to anyone who took the time to actually think about them?
Becuaee, oddly enough, I know Behe's 'real' research pretty well, on the physical chemistry of DNA. It's field in which I've also done some research. He wasn't a superstar (in case there's any doubt, nor am I), but he was a competent researcher. And Darwin's Black Box is so contrived, so tendentious, so easily refuted, it could only have been written by a true believer, or a charlatan. Either way, he traded in a good, albeit unspectacular, research career, and the respect of his peers, for the kudos of those who don't know any better.
Fortunately for this case, it's a bench trial instead of a jury trial. From what I've read of the orders he has issued, the judge seems more than competent enough to see through whatever smokescreens the defense puts up.
One hypothesis is that at some point, a mistake during the copying of DNA resulted in the duplication of a gene, increasing the amount of protein produced by that cell.
A hypothesis in this case is, at best, a SWAG, if not simply a WAG.
A hyposthesis is not a fact.
it's been a while since I read Behe's book, but if I recall correctly, his argument for ID was based not so much on an affirmative agrument for ID as is was the illogic of the evolutionary position. If some biochemical facts could not reasonably and logically be explained by the evolutionary model, there must be another explanation. until someone devises another model, one should not so readily discount the ID position.
One should also not underestimate the legal ability of the Thomas More Center attorneys. They are not light-weights. if this were to be a case decided by a jury, I think the defendants would win. With a judge, who can figure since judges could simply ignore the facts and the law.
Djinn
Science by attorney. Oh goody. PI = 3, here we come. School kids in Japan, South Korea and India are rejoicing at the steady weakening or their competition.
Frankly, I think the fact that the Dover Board is represented by the Thomas More attorneys speaks volumes in itself, and not in the defendants favor. If they're really interested in proving that their "intelligent design policy" is not religious in nature, why choose a firm that specializes in promoting Christian interests?
And not that this should make any difference to the outcome of the case, but they're up against Pepper Hamilton, one of the oldest and most prestigious firms in the country.
Although it's been a while since law school, IIRC, the fact pattern in this case almost mirrors one of the earlier Supreme Court "creation science" cases where one of the state legislatures tried to get that into the classroom. Although your posts suggest that you would prefer to believe otherwise, if the judge follows the law, the Dover Board loses this one.
Nylon is a petrochemical. There are organisms and bacteria that digest crude oil.
Aside from philosophical/religeous implications, whether evoluntion or ID is true has no practical effect on the lives of anyone who does not derive an income from the dispute.
You are correct that ID has been totally barren. Evolution, on the other hand ...
Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Computation. Long, but very interesting.
Specific examples of Genetic Algorithms. Practical applications galore!
The origins of food biotechnology.
You find two genes in an adnvaced organism that are very similar, and have sequences consistent with duplication of a single gene, followed by a small degree of change. And we know that during cell replication genes can and do duplicate. You conclude that they were probably duplicates of a single ancestral gene.Your conclusion is a wild-ass guess?
Nylon is not a hydrocarbon, it's a polyamide, and nylonase hydrolyses it at the amide linkage, entirely different chemistry than the enzymes that oxidize natural hydrocarbons.
Aspirin is also a petrochemical. I would advise that if you get a headache, not to apply the same logic. Drinking 20W50 is probably not going to make you feel better.
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