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.
Aw, now ya gone and done it. Some YECer will go after you now.
It's too bad that an omnipotent God can't get all his believers believing the same thing.
"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."
Oh please. That is one of the silliest things I've read yet on FR.
I have to disagree. My complaint and argument is with those evolutionists who seem unable to accept the fact that not all creationists believe in the young Earth. They accuse creationists as a whole of distorting science because of the young Earth theory. When the creationist doesn't believe in the young Earth, there would be no need to distort anything. No one is forcing evolutionists to have those incorrect beliefs of creationists so it is their chioce to believe it. I object when they lump all creationists into one category and dismiss them off hand because of the beliefs of a few. I would guess that a lot of those creationists who believe in it don't even know why they do, and because of the way it was calculated, wouldn't know why it's probably wrong.
And the creationist can justify eugenics as an attempt to intelligently design specific microevolutionary changes to the genome to improve the lives of the children.
Look, we're human beings. How we got to be human beings instead of just another species of chimpanzee is an interesting question, but it's irrelevant to questions of morality. To form a moral system and answer moral questions, you start with the fact that we are human beings, with certain universal needs & values that flow from our status as humans, and work from there.
"Evolution is the theory which says that things like that just sort of happen."
No it is not, since engines are not living things that reproduce.
You're confusing evolution with the origin of life.
This accounts for the well known fact that there were no wars anywhere in the world prior to the publication of Origin of Species.
The one factor you haven't considered is how tiring it can be to rape and pillage all day. Sometimes I prefer to just lie on on weekends.
I thought Miller was stating that intellignet design means that God created organisms in their current physical state and no changes in form or substance occurred ovr the millenia.
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, I think He tried. He wrote all the important stuff down. Since man has free will, He's not going to stop them from doing stuff like this. I have a real problem with things like that... people deducing something from Scripture and expecting all others to teach it and believe it or "they're not Christian". I realise that I probably have incurred that wrath of some creationists. Oh well. There are other areas I disagree with them on.
They have no control of their impulses and more base thoughts, and believe every one is just as weak, therefore guns must be outlawed, because they can be used at weak moments.
This guy has the same argument. He is a weak individual, who relies on his firm belief that there is hellfire and brimstone waiting for those who sin, as the reason that most (who are religious) do not sin.
Hint: the Lord does not hold one's hand guiding them along the straight and narrow. They are free to choose, regardless of their personal beliefs.
Does the mass of evidence that Apollo landed on the moon convince those who promote the conspiracy that it didn't?
The fossil record is plenty good enough to show a progression of life on earth over time.
That's one of the most insulting things I've seen for quite a while.
Did ModernMan or SeaLion say anything like this?
Such as?
And before 1859 those things never happened, right?
"Survival of the fittest" is a term describing a process observed in nature and is neither a prescription for a society nor a military strategy.
Zactly
"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."
Research has shown that electricity passed through methane gas produces amino acids, the stuff of life. Early Earth had a methane rich atmosphere.
There is no scientific evidence for ID whatsoever. Using your criteria, it shouldn't be taught in science class.
BTW I am going to have spaghetti and meatballs for lunch!
Praise be the FSM and His Noodly Appendage!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.