Posted on 09/27/2005 9:12:23 AM PDT by Junior
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, the first witness called Monday by lawyers suing the Dover Area School District for exposing its students to the controversial theory, sprinkled his testimony with references to DNA, red blood cells and viruses, and he occasionally referred to complex charts on a projection screen.
Even U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III was a little overwhelmed.
"I guess I should say, 'Class dismissed,'" Jones mused before recessing for lunch.
Dover is believed to be the nation's first school system to mandate students be exposed to the intelligent design concept. Its policy requires school administrators to read a brief statement before classes on evolution that says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps." It refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.
Intelligent design holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms. It implies that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force.
Eight families sued, saying that the district policy in effect promotes the Bible's view of creation, violating the constitutional separation of church and state.
Miller, whose cross-examination was to resume Tuesday morning, said the policy undermines scientific education by raising false doubts about evolutionary theory.
"It's the first movement to try to drive a wedge between students and the scientific process," he said.
But the rural school district of about 3,500 students argues it is not endorsing any religious view and is merely giving ninth-grade biology classes a glimpse of differences in evolutionary theory.
"This case is about free inquiry in education, not about a religious agenda," said Patrick Gillen of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., in his opening statement. The center, which lobbies for what it sees as the religious freedom of Christians, is defending the school district.
The non-jury trial is expected to take five weeks.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs began their case by arguing that intelligent design is a religious theory inserted in the school district's curriculum by the school board with no concern for whether it has scientific underpinnings.
"They did everything you would do if you wanted to incorporate a religious point of view in science class and cared nothing about its scientific validity," attorney Eric Rothschild said.
Miller, who was the only witness Monday, sharply criticized intelligent design and questioned the work that went into it by one of its leading proponents, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, who will be a key witness for the district.
The statement read to Dover students states in part, "Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered." Miller said the words are "tremendously damaging," falsely undermining the scientific status of evolution.
"What that tells students is that science can't be relied upon and certainly is not the kind of profession you want to go into," he said.
"There is no controversy within science over the core proposition of evolutionary theory," he added.
On the other hand, Miller said, "intelligent design is not a testable theory in any sense and as such it is not accepted by the scientific community."
During his cross-examination of Miller, Robert Muise, another attorney for the law center, repeatedly asked whether he questioned the completeness of Darwin's theory.
"Would you agree that Darwin's theory is not the absolute truth?" Muise said.
"We don't regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth," Miller responded.
The Dover lawsuit is the newest chapter in a history of evolution litigation dating back to the Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee nearly 80 years ago. More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that states may not require public schools to balance evolution lessons by teaching creationism.
You make a prediction (species A is related to species B) and you look for genetic or fossil evidence to confirm or refute your prediction.
Untrue? Because you say so huh? Well I know it is defined, but I doubt that it has actually been found to exist in exactly that defined format. However that matters little as the explanation for why it is is found in so many otherwise configurations.
Jackie Gleason(Confirmed Atheist) was once asked by Larry King(Confirmed Atheist). What would he say if he woke up and was confronted by God after his death. A very sheepish grin and "Oops, I was wrong." I hope you have a better answer when that time comes.
I do not support current intelligent theory either by the way. This is a Rodney King approach, and will never work.
Creationist Untruth CD101 Rebutted.
Jackie Gleason(Confirmed Atheist) was once asked by Larry King(Confirmed Atheist). What would he say if he woke up and was confronted by God after his death. A very sheepish grin and "Oops, I was wrong." I hope you have a better answer when that time comes.
What are you going to say to Ahura-Mazda?
Not a thing. He doesn't exist.
Circular logic, works every time.
Because he's not in the Bible? Your God isn't in the Zend-Avesta. How does an impartial observer discriminate between the positions?
Assertion without evidence. You said the geologic column does not exist. It exists to a large degree in sediments everywhere, and there are several places having all the components. This is the apparent opposite of what your incoherent garble seemed to be trying to say. We're talking about verifiable real-world evidence here. Your claim is false, to the extent you managed to make any sense.
"...the words are "tremendously damaging," falsely undermining the scientific status of evolution." ~ Junior
I doubt it. If the teaching of metaphysics in tax-payer-funded classrooms (under the guise of science) from 1838 to 2005, I doubt if it will now.
NOW you see there's nothing circular, right?Claim CD101:
The geological column is a fiction, existing on paper only. The entire geological column does not exist anywhere on the earth.Source:
Huse, Scott, 1983. The Collapse of Evolution. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, p. 15.Response:
- The existence of the entire column at one spot is irrelevant. All of the parts of the geological column exist in many places, and there is more than enough overlap that the full column can be reconstructed from those parts.
Breaks in the geological column at any spot are entirely consistent with an old earth history. The column is deposited only in sedimentary environments, where conditions favor the accumulation of sediments. Climatic and geological changes over time would be expected to change areas back and forth between sedimentary and erosional environments.
- There are several places around the world where strata from all geological eras do exist at a single spot -- for example, the Bonaparte Basin of Australia (Trendall et al. 1990, 382, 396) and the Williston Basin of North Dakota (Morton 2001).
Links:
Matson, Dave E., 1994. How good are those young-earth arguments? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-gc.html#G3
Morton, Glenn, 2001. The geologic column and its implications to the Flood. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/ or http://home.entouch.net/dmd/geo.htmReferences:
- Morton, Glenn, 2001. (see above)
- Trendall, A. F. et al., (ed.), 1990. Geology and Mineral Resources of Western Australia, Memoir 3. Geological Survey of Western Australia. State Printing Division, Perth.
What metaphysics?
The metaphysics (supernaturalism) mentioned by Darwin in his notebook (I linked you to it)Darwinism/Scientism/evolutionism
Evolution is not "metaphysics." That you believe so indicates you do not understand evolution.
Tell it to Darwin - as I showed you, he said it was.
No. You showed me a third party who claimed he said that. You didn't provide a primary source.
I guess my problem is that I don't see anything wrong with the quote, even out of context. Perhaps you'd like to explain what you find amusing.
Matchett-PI: "Tell it to Darwin - as I showed you - he said it was. He was proudly quoted front and center by Michael T Ghiselin in his book Metaphysics and the Origin of Species
Junior:"No. You showed me a third party who claimed he said that. You didn't provide a primary source."
Go get 'em, tiger. LOL:
Collections of Darwin's writings
His complete works are being published as a set:
Darwin, C. (1986-). The Works of Charles Darwin. London, Pickering & Chatto.
A CD-ROM version of all Darwin's writings, invaluable for serious scholars, complete with Michael Ghiselin's classic 1969 The Triumph of Darwinian Method and bibliographies of Darwin's writings and technical papers about Darwin is available from Lightbinders Inc.
Collections of his writings are published as:
[snips] "..And his views on human psychology and the relation with biology (now called sociobiology) are collected in:
Darwin, C. (1985). Human Nature, Darwin's View. New York, Columbia University Press.
[snip]
His diaries and notebooks are also now available:
Darwin, C. (1987). Charles Darwin's Notebooks, 1836-1844: Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical Enquiries. London: Ithaca, N.Y., British Museum (Natural History); Cornell University Press. Also published as Darwin, C. (1987). Charles Darwin's Notebooks, 1836-1844, Cambridge University Press.
[Huge snip]
You still haven't shown that Darwin considered evolution "metaphysics." You have two mentions of metaphysics in your post -- one is the name of a book, and one is the name of a publication.
Two things:
[1] See #57 to obtain copies of what you *say* you want. They *are* available. Members of Darwin's own family have published his notebooks, letters and other previously unpublished personal papers and notes. I'm not your mother, you are quite capable of obtaining them yourself, since I have provided the links to them for you.
[2] Many credulous (and otherwise) Darwinists accuse others of "quote mining" whenever they are confronted with a Darwin quote that doesn't fit what they want others to believe about him.
There is nothing wrong with quoting someone as long as the quote doesn't remove a passage from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its meaning - a "contextomy". The context in which a passage occurs always contributes to its meaning, and the shorter the passage the larger the contribution. For this reason, the quoter must always be careful to quote enough of the context not to misrepresent the meaning of the quote. Of course, in some sense, all quotation is out of context, but a "contextomy", is a quote whose meaning is changed by a loss of context. The fallacy of Quoting Out of Context is only committed when a contextomy is offered as evidence in an argument.
None of the quotes I provided fall into the catagory of a "contextomy", since they do reflect Darwin's true beliefs as his family, friends and collegues well knew, and the Encyclopedia Britannica makes clear.
"I guess my problem is that I don't see anything wrong with the quote, even out of context. Perhaps you'd like to explain what you find amusing." ~ js1138
What I find amusing is the fact that you are willing to admit the connection Darwin makes between metaphysics and science/biology [Scientism/Evolutionism], and have no problem with that concept, even as you insist that you don't really think he believed such a thing. LOL
Below are the implications, and natural consequences for the *real world* of actually teaching and believing that:There was no place in Darwin's world for divine intervention, nor was mankind placed in a position of superiority vis-a-vis the rest of the animal world. Darwin saw man as part of a continuum with the rest of nature, not separated by divine injunction." ~Encyclopedia Britannica
This is being taught to the credulous in America's universities:
(Anonymous, Iconoclast of the Century. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Time December 31, 1999, p. 186) “Darwinism remains one of the most successful scientific theories ever promulgated. There is hardly an element of humanity – not capitalism, not gender relations, certainly not biology – that can be fully understood without its help.”
This is the sort of thing that can result "in the real world" from such "teachings":
THE DARWIN PAPERS VOLUME 1 NUMBER XII DARWIN AT NUREMBERG
"You still haven't shown that Darwin considered evolution "metaphysics." You have two mentions of metaphysics in your post -- one is the name of a book, and one is the name of a publication." ~ Junior
You have shown yourself as one who is unwilling to accept any reality than the one you have concocted in your own head.
For the intellectually honest, real-world mentalities who may be reading this, they may refer to my post here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1492190/posts?page=59#59
And for those who are still in denial, they could have taken it up with Stephen Jay Gould if he was still living because he said that "(Darwins's notebooks) include many statements showing that he espoused but feared to expose something he perceived as far more heretical than evolution itself: philosophical materialism -- the postulate that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products."
In addition, you may want to take it up with guys like Ernst Mayr, who said: "It is apparent that Darwin lost his faith in the years 1836-39, much of it clearly prior to the reading of Malthus. In order not to hurt the feelings of his friends and of his wife, Darwin often used deistic language in his publications, but much in his Notebooks indicates that by this time he had become a ‘materialist’ "
Or take it up with Richard Lewontin, who said: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Or William Provine, who said: "Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent. .... Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented." Etc., etc., etc. bttt
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