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.
Then what did the "Intelligent Designer" do, if not create a design?
ID is creationism.
Besides the logic, you can tell it's the same thing because of the people surrounding the movement. The same people who promote Genesis creationism promote ID.
That's Dr. Fruitcake to you, son.
That is the killer point isn't it. People can claim that they reject evolution or promote ID for rational reasons until they are blue in the face; problem is, every single person who does so, without exception, is a convinced religious believer. So even though some of them think that they reject evolution rationally it is just Morton's Demon in operation.
And fervid believers in evolution cannot handle the tiniest bit of criticism, one must swallow the entire cathecism whole or be labeled a crank, knuckle dragging uneducated drooling idiot - even "wicked".
There is no possibility of rational debate with evolution fundamentalists.
Please provide a detailed biological description of what you mean by the word "kind" in this sentence.
As to prehistoric evidence about species changeover through the fossil record, I would say the evidence is not very persuasive or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I would like to see "the best" evidence available in the fossil record of species changeover; preferably in picture form
Don't ask me to understand why creationists won't accept the evidence; that is their problem. There is oodles of such evidence on PatrickHenry's home page, including a superb series of transitionals from reptile to mammal, and a superb fossil hominid series from our ancestors to homo sap. Take a look at ichneumon's homepage too. But expect to have to work your brain hard to understand the arguments. Very clever people spend their lives studying this stuff. You are not going to understand it all in 5 minutes, or 5 hours, or 5 days. The road to knowledge may start here, if you want to tread it.
ach.
ID is not a theory.
It relies on non-evidence instead of evidence (unlike the ToE), it makes no testable predictions (the ToE does), explains nothing ("goddidit" or "the invisible hand of the designer" is not an explanation), and cannot be falsified (the ToE can be).
Of course there is, just show us the physical evidence supporting your point of view and we'll discuss it.
Not really. Our design capabilities are quite limited. Our ability to solve problems is quite limited. Our ability to design does not compare to nature's
You are assuming that nature is not capable of innovative solutions that we would never dream of.
I suspect that many of our solutions have been and are based on what we see evolution producing.
"2) The Theory of Evolution presupposes life was created by natural forces. No scientific evidence exists about natural "creation" to my knowledge other than there is no other "scientific" explanation. I would love to hear or see the evidence if it exists.
No scientific evidence exists about supernatural "creation".
Abiogenesis uses the natural laws of physics, evolution uses replication errors and selection. Although they are linked, you cannot attack evolution by attacking abiogenesis because they cover different areas.
"3) Evolution of the type we are discussing has never been observed in recorded human history. Do plants and animals change? Yes. Have we ever observed them changing from one kind of animal to another or one plant to another? No. It is not factual to say we have observed species changeover.
You are using a definition of the word 'species' to mean the same as the creationist term 'kind'. Evolution does not and will never claim that one 'kind' changes into another 'kind' in one generation. What it does say, is that speciation will eventually vary enough to allow us to classify the start species and end species as different 'kinds'.
You might want to decide on which taxa corresponds to the creationist's term 'kind' and start using it instead of misusing the term species.
"As to prehistoric evidence about species changeover through the fossil record, I would say the evidence is not very persuasive or we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Not true, some would still doubt the fossil record even if it was perfectly continuous just because it conflicts with their belief system.
" I would like to see "the best" evidence available in the fossil record of species changeover; preferably in picture form.
Why rely on fossils, we have seen many speciation (scientific definition) events take place, both in the lab and in nature. If you really, really want to see fossil evidence of transitions between higher taxa, look at the Arteriodactyl to Cetacean sequence.
"4) Everybody has a point of view but that does not mean they are incapable of logic or reason that contradicts their assumptions. Science should be logic based on evidence. I want the very best single piece of evidence available that evolution is the explanation for the various life forms on earth.
Sorry, you'll just have to accept the mountains of evidence from dozens of science fields that all contribute to the science of evolution. The conclusiveness of evolution is not just based on one line or series of data points but the convergence of many different data sets taken from many sciences. Asking for one point seems an attempt to set evolution up for a fall, by ignoring other equally important lines of evidence.
Please cite where the Modern Synthesis of evolutionary theory states that (1) there is no life after death or (2) that raping and pillaging are morally permissable.
Because if you can't, I'm going to call you a liar.
Upon re-reading your original statement...
If intelligent design means that a Divine Creator put in effect the laws of evolution and biology and somehow directed the evolutionary process to produce an ultimate product, man, I can accept it. As a matter of fact, that is what I believe.
... that is a little different than what Miller believes. He says in his book that God created the universe & its laws, and waited for a living organism to develop that had the ability to appreciate Him. This is what's properly meant by "made in His image". Whichever kind of living organism came along that was intelligent enough to begin to understand & appreciate God, that's the species that God would interact with. In this sense, God was eager & prepared to be pleasantly surprised by His creation.
The point I was trying to make is that I'm not sure what the intelligent design people are stating verus what the creationists are stating.
Well, they try so hard to be big-tent creationists, one can never really pin them down. Was the designing done at several points along the evolutionary path? Or was it done at the beginning when He designed the physical laws & constants? Or somewhere in between? Their answer is always "sure, why not."
Quote mining of two posts? Wow.
Any chance you can back up that statement with an evolutionist ACTUALLY justifying rape and pillage? Like you said, just saying so does not make it so. With all due respect, you do not have a very evolved understanding of evolution and the nature of "survival of the fittest".
The attempt to paint those who believe in evolution as being without any moral character or moral code is a typical creationist ploy. A human being does not need a transcendant morality in order to be a moral agent.
BTW, I don't consider rape and pillage as meaningless either, only a meaningless red herring in the context you're using it in.
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