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.
So, you are saying the following?
ID is NOT a creationist theory.
The designer designed but did not create? Who are what implemented (created) the designs?
You forgot Haida:
Long ago no divisions existed between humans, animals and spirits. All things of the earth, sky, and, water were connected and all beings could pass freely between them. The Raven was a trickster full of supernatural power. He stole the sun from his grandfather Nasshahkeeyalhl and made the moon and stars from it. The Raven created lakes, rivers and filled the lands with trees. He divided night and day, then pulled the tides into a rhythm. He filled the streams with fresh water, scattered the eggs of salmon and trout, and placed animals in the forests. The first human was hiding in a giant clamshell and Raven released them onto the beaches and gave humans fire. Raven disappeared and took with him the power of the spirit world to communicate and connect with humans.
"Shattering the Myths of Darwinism".
"Darwin's Black Box".
"Darwin on Trial".
Not Biblical creationism. There's holes in Darwin's theory. I'm not a scientist, I can't debate with scietists or use much scientific terminology. I read the books, they're convincing, and Darwin's theory and its promoters are not.
Have a nice day!
Do you believe that mislabeling Darwin as religion somehow diminishes Darwin? What do you have against religion that compels you to use the term as a negative?
If nothing means anything, which is the foundation of Darwinism, then I get to be my own god.
2) We have observed humans making ferarri engines. We did not observe anyone making life.
Sorry, but neither idea works. Evolution isn't plausible to me and I've never seen anybody build a Ferarri engine.
We get to jump on you for such small reasons? Cool.
I was unaware that "principles" had the ability to intelligently design anything.
ID works very hard to avoid any discussion of the designer, for very obvious reasons. It changes the nature of the discussion from that which has been designed to what did the designing in the first place.
The problem there is, of course, pretty straightforward. If the designer is not of the material world, how does the non-material work on the material? (Which btw, is one of the creationist arguments against evolution - how does something come from nothing - can't have your cake and eat it too, y'know). If the IDer admits that the designer is of the material world, then we can conduct scientific experiments on the designer. Since both sides of the coin lead the IDer to an untenable position, all discussion of the designer must be squelched.
It is simply presupposed by many an evolutionist, which is why an evolutionist and atheist like Richard Dawkins can write based on his evolutionary thinking that there is "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference". (1 and (2 above then are nothing but purely logical conclusions that flow from the materialist premise. Put another way, what other choice would a good atheist have, other than the Modern Synthesis, to prop up his belief?
Cordially,
Being able to control large numbers of people with superstition and myth is one of the Darwinistic adaptations that humans developed to enhance their species. Ironic ain't it?
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
— Albert Einstein
"Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium", 1941
Agreed. You read demagoguic nonsense written for a non-technical audience, and you admit you don't understand the arguments, but rather than trying to fix the obvious problem my educating yourself, you instead choose to argue from a position of ignorance.
Do you find this debate tactic works well in other situations?
"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can
comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking personwith a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism" ___ Albert Einstein
"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."
So what about the passage that God made man in his image and likeness?? Doesn't that contradict mere chance creation of some creature which could appreciate Him?
And what about the immortal soul? If the latter was the case, did the soul as well as the body evolve, or is the soul somthing God created just for man?
Then, do animals have immortal souls?? Perhaps they do, but just like intelligence, they are qualitatively different from the soul of man.
This is really "heavy" stuff.
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