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.
Humm, a stupid and ignorant troll with connections is a bad combination.
"If nothing means anything, which is the foundation of Darwinism, then I get to be my own god."
And what do many "evolutionists" watch on TV? Are they partial to CSI or Desperate Housewives? You can bring in whatever outside claims you want, but the fact remains that the theory of evolution has NOTHING, one way or other, to do with the prospect of life after death, anymore than it deterimines what television programs, beach reading or sports teams evolutionary biologists are partial to.
Put another way, what other choice would a good atheist have, other than the Modern Synthesis, to prop up his belief?
So you're saying that because some atheists support evolution, that therefore all evolutionists are atheists? I'm confused, not the least because I consider myself to be religious.
I wish they'd take that class a whole lot earlier than as freshman in high school. Science is taught as a discreet discipline starting early in elementary school. It should be understood by the time they get to middle school.
Some? The vast majority of them frequently use ad hominem attacks, the "immoral" one being very popular, as demonstrated by sr4402.
There is no absolute moral truth, yet I haven't knocked anyone off yet, or gone pillaging, or raped anyone. I take it that I'm just an aberration in the community of atheists, most of whom believe in the nonexistence of absolute morals. When do we get to see all the other atheists go on their rampage?
It does not require that there be absolute morals to convince humans to act in a way conducive to social interaction.
What Darwinism says, is that our current social habits are the result of the success of those habits in the past.
First they define evolution as religion, then they bash religion and faith.
incorrect: simple cause and effect relations within a social organization are sufficient to give rise to both practical and superstitious codes of ethics and mores.
I've never seen a Ferarri. I've seen icons, and I've seen people worship the icons, but I've never seen the god itself. I'm beginning to have doubts.
"Do we have any experiment that verifies methane gas/electricity and primordial soup equals earth life?"
Not yet - right now it just shows that amino acids can be generated in an environment similar to that of early earth. Amino acids are the basis of all life. It's one piece of the puzzle. Not too bad given that it's only been possible to research this kind of thing for the last 50 years or so.
Rest assured that evolution is merely a natural biological process and no one worships it. Reasonable people do defend the science behind it against superstitious anti-science radicals but, it really has nothing to do with religion.
You know, all this raping and pilaging is making me tird.
How about some murder and mayhem instead?
TonyRo,
Here's the deal. I'm an atheist. I grew up in the very same society you grew up in. I learned how to behave at my mother's knee, just like you did.
I learned all the rules of our wonderful society, just like you did. I'm not going to rape, loot, and pillage, anymore than you are. It would never occur to me.
Why don't I do it? Because it is not in my nature and not in my upbringing.
What keeps me from doing such things? A conscience, just like the one you have, along with a desire to do the right thing at all times.
Atheism and religion have nothing, really, to do with how individuals behave themselves. Individuals make those decisions themselves. Plenty of folks who call themselves Christians have done horrible things. So have some atheists. Plenty of atheists have led exemplary lives, as have plenty of religious folks.
The constraints you have against doing harm are more a function of your upbringing before you were even aware of what religion was. If you behave, it is because you learned self-control at the knees of your parents.
Religion does not guarantee good behavior, I'm afraid. We have far to many examples of the opposite. A lack of belief does not guarantee bad behavior, either. We have lots of examples of that, as well.
This is not about behavior. It is about the teaching of science. I wish we could stick to that subject.
Proponents of the TOE do say it.
Have a nice day!
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