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.
I stopped drinking French wines when I found out how good they were as allies and when I found domestic wine were just as good and cheaper.
Vive l'Vine
I also have been upset with the froggies in recent years. That said, there is no "e" in vin.
"That said, there is no "e" in vin."
There is when you mean "vine".
The fruits of microbial labor - pretty good stuff, no?
There is when you mean "vine".
Yes, they did not labor in vein.
Not labor. Metabolism. Yeast excrement. Yum!
[How does one know Byeltsin/f.Christian is "in a frenzy over on LP"?]:
The hyphens disappear from his posts.
I just looked and, no, they don't.
When he who does not partake of the fruits of microbial labor wakes up in the morning, that's the best he's going to feel all day.
Triflest thou with me? They toil not. Neither do they spin. They just eat and ... whatever.
Sound bad. Taste good. Effect even better, up to a point.
It's a pond scum thing. You can't get away from your heritage.
"The Evolutionist believes that there is no life after death and therefore can rape and pillage as his inclination desires."
I seem to recall a commandment forbidding one from bearing false witness against a neighbor. Perhaps I was mistaken.
The best pond scum has evolved. The result is all around us. The rest just wasn't up to the challenge.
Try the Italian wines. There's a Montepulcciano red called "Citra" that sells for about $8.00. It's remarkably delicious.
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Well Ichy,
talk about making your side look LOOK BAD
wouldn't this be a good time for you to get all sanctimonious..
LOL... HAAAA HA HA HA!.. ;-)
Wolf
Well, Wolfie, what I actually said was "Good post, Ichny."
But I can accept goof. Or trickster.
But remember, among some tribes Coyote was also bringer of knowledge and culture.
Wolf
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