Posted on 09/27/2005 9:21:27 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The second day of a trial over what students should be told about evolution and alternative views of life's origins veered briefly into a discussion of faith.
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, a witness for eight families suing the Dover Area School District for introducing the concept of "intelligent design," was asked by a school attorney whether faith and reason are compatible.
"I believe not only that they are compatible but that they are complimentary," said Miller, who had earlier volunteered that he was a practicing Roman Catholic.
Pressed on that point, Miller was asked why a biology textbook he had written included a statement that evolution is "random and undirected." Miller said he had a co-author on the textbook, a 1995 edition, and that he missed that statement. He said he did not believe evolution was random and undirected.
It was the second day on the witness stand for Miller, whose testimony Monday made the landmark trial sound like a science lecture, with references to DNA, red blood cells, viruses and complex charts shown 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 said 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.
On Monday, Miller said the policy undermines scientific education by wrongly raising 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.
"What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what 'the stars foretell,' avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable 'verdict of history' - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973.
My postion is the conservative position, your's is the staist position. I have made ample posts regrarding the issue at hand, that is the power of local people to make decisions concerning theeducation of their children absent interference from the federal oligarchy. If you care to take any of that on, I'd be happy to debate you. If you're gonna whine about phantom bigotry and personal attacks then debate somebody else.
YEC INTREP
The first ten amendments have never been applied to the states. Some have been incorporated through 14th Amendment jurisprudence, some have not. Notable among those is the second amendment. And some simply don't lend themselves to incorporation.
Worth saying again. because it reinforces that politicians should not be able to mandate ID just because they like it.
But if you would like the 1980 amplification of Heinlein's view, in Expanded Universe where he lists symtoms of the general decline in society, one such symptom of decline is "i) The return of creationism—"
If almost everyone believed in Yahweh and Genesis, and less than one in a million U.S. citizens believe in Brahma the Creator, it would not change the constitutional aspect. Neither belongs in a science textbook in a tax-supported school. But if Yahweh is there, Brahma should be. - Robert Heinlein
Not quite
i) The return of creationism—If it suits you to believe that Yahweh created the universe in the fashion related in Genesis, I won't argue it. But I don't have to respect your belief and I do not think that legislation requiring that the Biblical version be included in public school textbooks is either constitutional or fair. How about Ormuzd? Ouranos? Odin? There is an unnumbered throng of religions, each with its creation myth—all different. Shall one of them be taught as having the status of a scientific hypothesis merely because the members of the religion subscribing to it can drum up a majority at the polls, or organize a pressure group at a state capital? This is tyranny by the mob inflicted on minorities in defiance of the Bill of Rights. - Robert Heinlein Expanded Universe1980Not much joy for the Dover School Board there
If almost everyone believed in Yahweh and Genesis, and less than one in a million U.S. citizens believe in Brahma the Creator, it would not change the constitutional aspect. Neither belongs in a science textbook in a tax-supported school. But if Yahweh is there, Brahma should be. - Robert Heinlein
Brahma? No sooner said than done!
This universe existed in the shape of darkness, unperceived, destitute of distinctive marks, unattainable by reasoning, unknowable, wholly immersed, as it were, in deep sleep.http://www.crystalinks.com/vedic.htmlThen the Divine Self-existent, himself indiscernible but making all this, the great elements and the rest, discernible, appeared with irresistible power, dispelling the darkness.
He who can be perceived by the internal organ alone, who is subtle, indiscernible, and eternal, who contains all created beings and is inconceivable, shone forth of his own will.
He, desiring to produce beings of many kinds from his own body, first with a thought created the waters, and placed his seed in them.
That seed became a golden egg, in brilliancy equal to the sun; in that egg he himself was born as Brahma, the progenitor of the whole world....
The Divine One resided in that egg during a whole year, then he himself by his thought divided it into two halves;
And out of those two halves he formed heaven and earth, between them the middle sphere, the eight points of the horizon, and the eternal abode of the waters.
From himself he also drew forth the mind, which is both real and unreal, likewise from the mind ego, which possesses the function of self-consciousness and is lordly.
Moreover, the great one, the soul, and all products affected by the three qualities, and, in their order, the five organs which perceive the objects of sensation.
But, joining minute particles even of those six, which possess measureless power, with particles of himself, he created all beings.
Gimmi a break! I don't have those in stock yet. I'll have to put 'em on the to-do list.
True, but the 1st Amendment has been incorporated, and that's the only one relevant to this case.
Fine. Do it in a private school, without my federal dollars, and not in the name of my government. If you want to press for a refund of your federal dollars to pay for it I'll even support you.
Just don't whine if an institute of higher education doesn't bend to your will and lower its standards to allow non science to be accepted for their requirements.
Of course this is all I wished from the beginning.
Yes! In fact, it should be mandatory for it to be presented that way. Would be far better than making a religion out of Darwinist dogma, by suppressing any contrary ideas the way schools are doing now.
"Evolution occurs everytime a seed sprouts or an infant is born."
I love it when people equivocate on the definition of "evolution". As Ken Miller seemed to imply, it was Universal Common Ancestry. This is also how Eugenie Scott defines it. Your statement has absolutely no impact on whether or not Universal Common Ancestry is true or false.
"Accurate statistical estimations (of future events) requires exact knowledge of the processes involved, and the statistical history of each component. Otherwise it is meaningless arm waving."
The question is, do we know if evolution has occurred? Some people want to say "yes we know it occurred, but we don't know how". However, if we don't know how it occurred, and noone saw it happen, what makes us so sure it did? If we do know how it occurred, why is it not subject to mathematical investigation? If it is subject to mathematical investigation, why doesn't someone pro-evolution do the math so that it can be publicly analyzed?
The point is to be accurate in describing the lay of the land. Secondary schools are not very good at candidly describing what is unknown, and the incompleteness of many scientific theories about how the universe works, and to the extent a better job can be done doing that, this near atheist things that is a good thing, not a bad thing. Awareness of ignorance is the first step to knowledge.
Slinging theocratic labels around in my view is not very constructive or helpful. And as to Deism in particular, some Deists might posit that God created something that would evolve in random ways, or chaos theory ways, or whatever. God might be bored with something that did not offer up surprises - to him, for his pleasure to savor.
Okay, thanks. The impression I get from RH's writings lead me to believe that when he made this general statement, he would have intended it to be really general. Belief, period. Whether in a religious context, or blind acceptance of any theory or mindset. His statement would be equally valid either way.
Making the analogy of a criminal trial proceeding to the fashioning of wise public policy strikes me as a very misguided analogy indeed. Focusing on motives have so often lead us astray in that regard. The fashioning of the dependency welfare state for the poor by LBJ may have been animinated by admirable motives. So what?
I have said before in these posts that I actually encourage teaching alternate materials in a voluntary elective setting. As for a statement in the science classroom, I'm not opposed to the idea in general, but the one on trial ain't it. My wording would probably be as unacceptable to the ID proponents as theirs is to me, however.
I would like to point out that before you can teach the frontiers of a scientific field, you must establish a solid foundation of the basics of that discipline. I'm not saying to hide the gaps - far from it. They are the most important part of the ToE in that they represent the challenges that must be faced by these future scientists. To understand the skills that will be needed to be successful in this, though, they must first learn what is already known.
Hitting them with an attitude that foments doubt in the beginning of their studies is a bad thing. And forcing this doubt on all students whether they accede to it or not is an unconscionable thing.
Your take on Deism is certainly a view some hold, although I am not one of them. I tend to tone down the chaos part a bit and believe that order is imposed through an ingenious set of physical rules. But my beliefs on creation also have no place in science. They are philosophy, and I accept that.
I'd say that judging the motives behind the policy decision is not only applicable here, but essential in determining if it passes constitutional muster. Based on Supreme Court precedent, the validity of a public school teaching material that may be deemed religious depends in part on whether it was intended as such or if it is merely incidental and the true reason for it to be taught has a constitutionally acceptable purpose. If one side says yes and the other says no, then someone has to make the call. And that is an interpretation of motive.
I wish I had had a more candid expose of what was unknown in science, and what was mere technology as to the properties of physical things, as opposed to a theory of what animated them, when I was in high school. What I got was dumbed down, and in later life, resented it. Coping with uncertainty and the unknown is part of life, and should be taught early and often, along with affording the intellectual tools to deal with it in a rational and calm and collected way. I wish statistics were emphasized more, as a discipline. Without that tool, one is so often lost in the maze of the madding crowd even more than would otherwise be the case.
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