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Biology expert testifies. Professor: Intelligent design is creationism.
York Dispatch ^ | 9/27/05 | Christina Kauffman

Posted on 09/27/2005 9:10:31 AM PDT by Crackingham

Dover Area School District's federal trial began yesterday in Harrisburg with talk ranging from divine intervention and the Boston Red Sox to aliens and bacterial flagellum. After about 10 months of waiting, the court case against the district and its board opened in Middle District Judge John E. Jones III's courtroom with statements from lawyers and several hours of expert testimony from biologist and Brown University professor Kenneth Miller.

On one side of the aisle, several plaintiffs packed themselves in wooden benches behind a row of attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, Pepper Hamilton LLC and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. On the other side of the aisle, nine school board members, only three of whom were on the board when it voted 6-3 to include a statement on intelligent design in biology classes, piled in behind lawyers from the Thomas More Law Center. Assistant superintendent Michael Baksa and superintendent Richard Nilsen shared a bench with Michael Behe, a Lehigh University professor expected to take the stand in defense of intelligent design.

SNIP

Miller, whose resume is several pages long and includes a stint as a professor at Harvard University, was the first witness called for the parents. Miller co-wrote the Prentice Hall textbook "Biology" with professor Joe Levine. The book is used by 35 percent of the high school students in the United States, Miller said. His were some of the thousands of biology books in which school officials in Cobb County, Ga., ordered stickers to be placed, warning that evolution is only a theory, "not a fact." Miller also testified in a lawsuit filed by Cobb County parents, and a judge later ordered that the stickers be removed.

Yesterday, the scientist's testimony was at times dominated by scientific terminology, though he jokingly told ACLU attorney Witold Walczak he would do his best to explain things in the layman's terms he uses with his mother.

Miller said intelligent design supporters think an intelligent designer must have been involved in the creation of life because science can't yet prove how everything evolved. He said the intelligent design idea that birds were created with beaks, feathers and wings and fish were born with fins is a creationist argument.

Intelligent design supporters often cite "irreducible complexity" in their research, he said. "Irreducible complexity" means that a living thing can't be reduced by any part or it won't work at all. So those living things could not have evolved in the way Darwin suggested; they had to be created with all of their existing parts, Miller said.

Intelligent design proponents often cite the bacterial flagellum, a bacterium with a tail that propels it, Miller said. Behe and his colleagues claim bacterial flagellum had to be created with all of its parts because it couldn't function if any of them were taken away, Miller testified. But scientists have proved that the bacterial flagellum can be reduced to a smaller being, a little organism that operates in a manner similar to a syringe, Miller said.

One of the biggest problems with the scientific viability of intelligent design is there is no way to experiment with the presence of a supernatural being because science only deals with the natural world and theories that are testable, Miller said.

Some people might suspect divine intervention last year when the Boston Red Sox came back to win the World Series after losing three games in a row to the New York Yankees in the playoffs. It may have been, but that's not science, he said. And intelligent design proponents haven't named the "intelligent being" behind their supposition, Miller said. They have suggested, among other things, that it could be aliens, he said. He said there is no evidence to prove intelligent design, so its proponents just try to poke holes in the theory of evolution.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; crevorepublic; enoughalready; lawsuit; makeitstop; scienceeducation; yourmomisanape
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To: Dr. Hog
Except that it is naturally occurring.

Wrong. Evolution does not care at all how life came to exist. The very first life forms could have been zap-poofed into existence by a divine agent and evolution theory would not be false for it.
101 posted on 09/27/2005 10:59:01 AM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Thatcherite

In some if the previous creation/evolution threads that has happened but I don't remember specific names. I could go through them again but it would take some time.


102 posted on 09/27/2005 11:00:14 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: tamalejoe
Good analogy re: ferrari engine. It is baffling that they see an engineering blueprint like the human cell (complete with Golgi Apparatus, Mitochondria, ATP pathways, etc) and say "it made itself".

Fruitcakes. All of em.

103 posted on 09/27/2005 11:00:22 AM PDT by Windsong (FighterPilot)
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To: adam_az

First, I made no claims about being a person who believes in ID, but more importantly you have just thrown something out there as a "scientific theory" about life creation that is as "off the wall" as any of other stuff being condemned on here. If all there is to creating life is what you suggest, it should be easy to do in a lab. Do we have any experiment that verifies methane gas/electricity and primordial soup equals earth life?


104 posted on 09/27/2005 11:00:41 AM PDT by Dr. Hog
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To: b_sharp
Do what engineers do [evolution], break large jobs up into many small easily handled jobs [cells], start with the smallest jobs possible [bacteria/virii/prions], use trial and error to determine the best fit [mutation and selection], base new designs on modified old designs [common descent], and take a very long time [3.8 billion years].

Bravo.

105 posted on 09/27/2005 11:01:14 AM PDT by narby
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To: sr4402
The Evolutionist believes that there is no life after death and therefore can rape and pillage as his inclination desires. The believer, on the other hand, through the scripture, knows the result of this and is compelled to live virtuously since death will be done away with.

Please let us all know if you ever get a crisis of faith. Perhaps you should also notify your local police department that the only thing stopping you from venturing on a life of rapine and slaughter is your religious beliefs. They may want to keep a close eye on you.

106 posted on 09/27/2005 11:01:44 AM PDT by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
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To: sr4402
"Just saying so does not make it so. The Evolutionist can justify rape and pillage as survival of the fittest at any time. I do not consider rape and pillage as meaningless.

Survival of the fittest does not mean the survival of the most violent. Any fitness has to result in a reproductive advantage. Please, don't build silly little straw structures.

107 posted on 09/27/2005 11:01:51 AM PDT by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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To: Windsong
It is baffling that they see an engineering blueprint like the human cell (complete with Golgi Apparatus, Mitochondria, ATP pathways, etc) and say "it made itself".

When rational arguments fail (and on the ID/Creationism side, that's right at the start of the debate), resort to logical fallacies. This one is a double, an "argument from incredulity" applied to a "strawman".
108 posted on 09/27/2005 11:01:59 AM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Windsong
and say "it made itself".

It didn't make itself. It evolved after zillions of generations.

109 posted on 09/27/2005 11:03:59 AM PDT by narby
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To: b_sharp
Survival of the fittest does not mean the survival of the most violent.

However, "survival of the most violent" is exactly the impression that one gets from the Old Testament, so you can see where these people get their ideas from.

110 posted on 09/27/2005 11:04:21 AM PDT by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
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To: narby
"You know, I really dislike these people. It's too bad they've been thrown a slow pitch right over the plate that they'll knock out of the park. It gives them respectability that I wish they couldn't get.

Try not to build false dichotomies with organizations Narby. Even bad things can on occasion do good things.

111 posted on 09/27/2005 11:04:23 AM PDT by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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To: Crackingham
Intelligent design IS creationism by a different name.

It would be like calling evolution 'progressive adaptation,' and trying to pass it off as something different.

112 posted on 09/27/2005 11:08:32 AM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear-tipped Ballistic Missiles: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol)
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To: adam_az
Oh please. That is one of the silliest things I've read yet on FR.

It is not the first time we've seen that argument, and it won't be the last. It appears at least once a month I reckon, and usually attracts applause from others on the creationist side. I've never yet seen that argument flamed by a creationist (but in general creationists appear to be very careful not to flame the obviously flawed arguments of other creationists; it's like any lie is good enough, if it rejects evolution.)

113 posted on 09/27/2005 11:09:10 AM PDT by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
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To: b_sharp
Even bad things can on occasion do good things.

Oh, I know. It's just that the continued survival of these organizations requires that they occasionally have successes. And the IDers have just handed them an easy success. I'm sure they'll all gather donations for years after this based on their apparent ability to deliver.

114 posted on 09/27/2005 11:09:17 AM PDT by narby
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To: Crackingham

The prof's a political hack saying what he said for partisan purposes.

ID is not creationism.

It doesn't even say that the Intelligent Designer has to be sentient.....it could be an organizing principle.


115 posted on 09/27/2005 11:10:53 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It!)
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Comment #116 Removed by Moderator

To: Windsong

inquiry: exactly which "evolutionist" can you accurately cite as having ever said that a human cell "made itself"?

you would do well to attempt to read and understand what is actually stated by your opponents before trying to refute it.


117 posted on 09/27/2005 11:12:43 AM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: Thatcherite
but in general creationists appear to be very careful not to flame the obviously flawed arguments of other creationists; it's like any lie is good enough, if it rejects evolution.

That's very similar to how the left operates. They refuse to flame the real whackos on their side, like Cindy Sheehan when she says stuff like the foriegn fighters in Iraq are "freedom fighters". They just ignore it, because the whacko is on their side.

118 posted on 09/27/2005 11:12:49 AM PDT by narby
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To: sr4402
The believer, on the other hand, through the scripture, knows the result of this and is compelled to live virtuously since death will be done away with.

Because the Inquisition sure was a fun and virtuous time in history.
119 posted on 09/27/2005 11:13:10 AM PDT by Vive ut Vivas (Deity in training.)
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To: William Creel
I think that ID is a legitimate theory, it is not a scientific one though.

The word you are looking for is conjecture or hypothesis, not theory. To call ID a theory devalues real scientific theories, which are the end-point and ultimate purpose of scientific investigation. Nothing in science ranks higher than a theory.

120 posted on 09/27/2005 11:13:16 AM PDT by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
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