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.
Another admission that undermines the plaintiff's case.
Uh-huh.
You're very optimistic. I love optimists who disagree with me, particularly if they're of a sporting disposition. Care for a small wager on the outcome of the trial? :-)
Evolution isn't on trial in this case. That trial happened in 1968.
Well, a few of us get it.
I've had too much experience with judges ignoring laws and facts to make such a wager. If it was a jury trial, I might be tempted.
Another admission that undermines the plaintiff's case.
Of course evolution isn't random and undirected. Changes in allele frequency are random and undirected. Genetic mutations are random and undirected. Evolution is not. Instead, it is guided by the natural selection process that weeds out the more useful of these random and undirected happenings.
I fail to see how this supports ID.
That didn't come out quite right. Try this instead: 'Instead, it is guided by the natural selection process that favors the more useful of these random and undirected happenings.'
That case is not on point. The Dover school board has stated that evolution would be taught in its schools. It merely stated that students would be informed that evolution is not a 'fact' and that there are other views.
Miller has admitted that evolution is not a fact. If evolution is not a fact, there are other possible explanations for life.
Despite the assertions of both parties, this trial is really all about the truth of evolution. It may not be on the surface, but it's there; and everyone knows it. Sort of like a pink elephant in a room. It's there even if no one admits to seeing it.
* ID has no scientific standing.
* Supreme Court precedent has established that material taught in public schools must serve a clear secular purpose and not have religious motivations.
* The case currently being heard is about whether a statement required in a science class in a public school district is constitutional.
* The statement promotes ID as an alternative to the ToE and refers students to a specific text.
* That text is a reprint of a creationist textbook, who's only change was the replacement of 'Creationism' with 'Intelligent Design'.
* Creationism was found to be unconstitutional in EDWARDS v. AGUILLARD in 1987.
Connect the dots.
No I don't, as you well know since I explicitly discussed the meaning of "establishment". Indeed that's what we're debating. And just to maintain clarity, correct me if I misunderstand or mistate our disagreement:
You hold that the establishment clause only prohibits the government from officializing or favoring one religion or sect over another.
I hold that the establishment clause prohibits government from advancing religion generally, absent a valid secular purpose for a policy that may have that effect.
The fellow who penned those words, one Fisher Ames, would probably know a bit more of the original intent of same than you and I. In his words:
Kinda blows your liberal reading of the establishment clause right out of the water Stultis.
Why? I apologize for asking again, but how is this applicable? There was not a single school to which the establishment clause would apply at this time, nor would there be for several generations. How can a completely irrelevant point "blow my argument out of the water"?
Taken to its logical conclusion your reading of the establishment clause would ban anything respecting religion from the public square.
No, under my logic, including all conclusions therefrom, the government, first off, cannot "ban" anything respecting religion from the public square. They're restricted from doing so (or certainly should be) by the free exercise clause. What we're talking about is what the government itself does through it's own actions, policies and laws.
Under my logic, including all conclusions therefrom, even the government actually can do any number of things "respecting religon" except those things that advance religion (or inhibit it, see above). In fact, under my logic, government may even advance (or inhibit) religion provided this is not the purpose or principal effect of a policy, and is incidental to a law or policy with a valid secular purpose.
Respecting religion and respecting an establishment of religion are two entirely different notions and you'd do well to understand that.
I do. Isn't that what I said just above? (Ironically I actually wrote that before reading this sentence!) So we agree here I think, that "establishment" doesn't mean, as many knee-jerk secularists maintain, just anything whatsoever touching on religion. We seem to agree that it means actively favoring or advancing religion, and mainly disagree as to whether prohibitions apply to the general advancement of religon, or only the advancement of specific religions, sects, doctrines, etc.
What the 1A say, in simple English, is that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, ie no Church of England,
Argument by bald assertion. Besides, there was no American equivalent to the "Church of England" at the time of the Constitution, nor had there been for some time. I'll have to check some references later to be sure, but I don't think there was even one state at the time of the consitution that established a single church or demonination. All establishments were either multiple or general.
or prohibit the free exercise thereof. The free exercise clause makes your respecting argument null and void as does American history.
How? Aren't I the one holding that the establishment and free excercise clause are consonant in that they are both general prohibitions on congress? You're the one arguing that one clause in the same sentence is meant to be taken very specifically and is quite limited, while the other should be understood generally and with little or no limit. What do you see in the sentence itself to justify that?
It's also worth bearing in mind, which is frequently forgotten today, that "establishment of religion" had a much broader connotation in the American colonial and early republican context than it did in the European context.
Historically incorrect, the establishment clause was narrowly written prohibiting Congress from establishing one religion as favored over another.
No, it's not. In fact I *think* (again I'll have to check some references) that it was not only generally true, but absolutely true. That is I don't think there was even one state at the time the Constitution was adopted that followed the European pattern of establishing a single church or demonination. (If there was an exception I wanna it would have been Maryland and the Catholic church.)
Again, most, if not all, states that established religion had either multiple or general establishments, that is they recognized and supported either more than one church or sect or recognized and supported all churches and sects.
Since several of the states had established religions prior to, during, and after the ratification the evidence for that is quite clear. They didn't want their choice of establishments overridden by the federal government.
But if all those establishments were multiple or general establishments of religion, how the heck can that be "clear evidence" for the claim that congress really meant establishment to refer only single or particular establishments?!?
the establishment clause was a proscription on Congress. The free exercise clause on the other hand is an individual right. You see the difference?
They're both prohibitions on Congress. Both clauses after all refer to the same "shall make to no law" prohibition. They are also both -- like most such prohibitions in the Constitution -- in recognition of rights properly retained by or devolving to the states or to individuals. Both also protect both individuals and private institutions. Granted it may tend to be individuals who are affected by inhibitions to free exercise, but demoninations or other groups can also be effected.
Please excuse typos and misspells, I'm in a hurry...
I've never read where a supporter of ID or creation has denied natural selection (some would call it micro-evolution, which I think is a bad term). It's the claim by evolutionists that new species can result from natural selection. There is no evidence that this has ever happened. Absent such evidence, the IDers and even creationists have a valid point against the belief in evolution.
It supports ID because it undermines evolution. Of course, undermining evolution is not proof of ID, but it is evidence that there must be some other possible explanation.
There certainly is an element of faith involved with a belief in ID. The same is true for those who believe in evolution, whether they admit it or not.
* ID has no scientific standing.
I think that is a bit of a stretch. The primary evidence of ID is the evidence that evolution does not provide a satisfactory explanation for life as it is today.
* Supreme Court precedent has established that material taught in public schools must serve a clear secular purpose and not have religious motivations.
The Dover school board has not been trying to get the ID taught. they have even stated that evolution would be taught. They merely wanted students to know that there are other views about 'life'. Don't you believe in any academic freedom?
* The case currently being heard is about whether a statement required in a science class in a public school district is constitutional.
You're close. it's actually whether such a statement is unconstitutional.
* The statement promotes ID as an alternative to the ToE and refers students to a specific text.
What's so bad about that when even the star witness for the plaintiffs has admitted that evolution is not a fact.
* That text is a reprint of a creationist textbook, who's only change was the replacement of 'Creationism' with 'Intelligent Design'.
While I do not have personal knowledge that this is true, I will accept you statement as if it were; and i have no reason to question your claim.
I think it is fair to say that a majority of IDers also believe in creation. I would admit that I am one of them. On the other hand, I would say that a majority of those who believe in evolution are also secular humanists; which is also a religion.
* Creationism was found to be unconstitutional in EDWARDS v. AGUILLARD in 1987.
You need to read the case more closely; and I even agree with the USSC decision in that case. That case is not really all that relevant to this one.
Connect the dots.
I'm an expert in that area.
Obviously it's not possible to make such a calculation. To caluculate the probability of life arising spontaneously, one needs to know the mechanism by which it occurred. We don't know this mechanism, so the probability calculation is impossible. It's as if you see a cat on top of the roof of a 40 story building. What's the probabilty of a cat being on that roof? You can't answer that question unless you have some idea of how the cat got there. There would be one probabilty if the cat got there by jumping in the air to try to catch a bird, getting caught up in a tornado and being deposited on the roof, and quite another probabilty if the cat got there by walking through the door of the building without being noticed by anyone, entering a stairwell leading to the roof and climbing up the stairs.
All science rests on certain assumptions that are held to on philosophical, rather than observational grounds. For example, science must assume that the behavior of the universe is the same everywhere and at all times. That is, for example, if two massive bodies attract each other on earth in the year 2005, then these same two bodies would attract each other with the same force on a star 20 million light years away in the year 20000, on the planet Jupiter in 48 B.C. or at any other time and place you'd care to come up with. Obviously, we cannot test this assumption. We cannot make an identical observation at an infinite number of places at an infinite number of times. We accept this assumption because it allows science to proceed. For example we assume that the law of gravity is the same everywhere in the universe at all times because such an assumption allows us to, among other things, determine the masses of the earth, the sun, the moon, and other bodies in the solar system, indirectly determine the masses of distant stars, and indirectly observe the presence of planets orbiting other stars. Without such an assumption, much of the work done in science is not possible.
Another such assumption is that natural events are explainable in terms of natural causes. Again, without this assumption, science is not possible. However, if all of the observed events we can see are caused by some indetectable supernatural being, we would not be able to determine this empirically. Science cannot rule this out, but must assume that it is not the case in order to proceed. There are other basic assumptions that must be made in order for science to proceed. Such is the underlying philosophical basis of science.
Why single out evolution for the "there are certain gaps" treatment? There are gaps in ALL scientific theories. There are even greater gaps, for example, in theories of gravity than there are in evolution. The real point is not to teach that there are gaps in our understanding of evolution, and the ID proponents know this. The real point is to dishonestly use the fact that there are gaps in our understanding of evolution to imply that evolution is somehow on shakier ground than any other theory in science. This is fundamentally dishonest, which is why supporters of evolution are not at all content with this whole "there are gaps" ploy.
This crap again? Speciation has been OBSERVED, both in the lab and in the wild. There is no question that new species of organisms can form as a result of the variation of allele frequencies in organism populations. That is observed fact. When presented with this fact, creationists tend to move the goal posts. They will say things like "it's just one fruit fly becoming another type of fruit fly, but it's still just a fruit fly," implying that what they really are looking for is change at a higher taxonomic level than species. However, evolution would predict that such higher level taxonomic changes will never occur all at once, but rather as a series of smaller changes, ie. speciation events. That is, we will never see dogs changing to cats, but we could see species A change to species B, which is very similar, which in turn might evolve into a new species C, etc. until you arrive at speices Z, which could be very different from species A. What creationists are really looking for is the appearance of an entirely new organism all at once, which sounds to me nothing like evolution, and remarkably like creationism. Observing a cat changing into a dog or some other transition into a new species that's entirely different from the parent species would do nothing to support evolution. It would, in fact, FALSIFY evolution, since evolution predicts only small changes.
False dichotomy. Even were your statement that evolution doesn't provide a satisfactory explanation for life as it is today true, that is not evidence for ID. Some explanation other than ID or evolution could be the correct one. There is absolutely ZERO scientific evidence for ID. That's right, none, zip, zero, nada, which is why ID has no scientific standing.
Good point. Singling out evolution for special treatment does raise suspicions, and is the weakest link in the creationist/ID legal chain. There should be an all gaps are created equal regime.
There certainly is an element of faith involved with a belief in ID. The same is true for those who believe in evolution, whether they admit it or not.
We seem to be in agreement that ID entails religious beliefs. This in and of itself does not make it unconstitutional if it is incidental and the primary value of the material has a clear secular purpose. Evolution faced this same charge in 1968 and was found to meet constitutional muster.
* ID has no scientific standing.
I think that is a bit of a stretch. The primary evidence of ID is the evidence that evolution does not provide a satisfactory explanation for life as it is today.
This ties in with the previous point in that scientific standing would supply the clear secular purpose. However, your claim of 'The primary evidence of ID is the evidence that evolution does not provide a satisfactory explanation for life as it is today.' does not make ID a scientific claim. ID would have to stand on its own as empirically testable and falsifiable. A knowledge gap is not evidence. Testable data defining what fills that gap would be.
* Supreme Court precedent has established that material taught in public schools must serve a clear secular purpose and not have religious motivations.
The Dover school board has not been trying to get the ID taught. they have even stated that evolution would be taught. They merely wanted students to know that there are other views about 'life'. Don't you believe in any academic freedom?
The problem here lies in how you are parsing the word 'taught'. I'm not trying to split hairs about it with you, nor am I accusing you of the same, but unless we find a definition that we both agree with we will not be able to move forward. Personally, I think that a teacher standing in front of a classroom, saying evolution is not a fact and ID is another alternative, and recommending a text on ID to explore that alternative meets a reasonable definition of teaching. I am open to listening to your views on my definition, though.
* The case currently being heard is about whether a statement required in a science class in a public school district is constitutional.
You're close. it's actually whether such a statement is unconstitutional.
A distinction without a difference. I'll accept your wording of it.
* The statement promotes ID as an alternative to the ToE and refers students to a specific text.
What's so bad about that when even the star witness for the plaintiffs has admitted that evolution is not a fact.
Nothing, as long as both ID and the text pass constitutional muster. If they don't, however, it condemns the statement to enjoy the same unconstitutional status.
* That text is a reprint of a creationist textbook, who's only change was the replacement of 'Creationism' with 'Intelligent Design'.
While I do not have personal knowledge that this is true, I will accept you statement as if it were; and i have no reason to question your claim.
I think it is fair to say that a majority of IDers also believe in creation. I would admit that I am one of them. On the other hand, I would say that a majority of those who believe in evolution are also secular humanists; which is also a religion.
I appreciate the stipulation regarding the content of the text. As for my personal beliefs, I too happen to hold a creationist viewpoint, in a philosophical sense. As for any religious definition of evolution, not only is it irrelevant to this case, but has already been addressed and decided by the Supreme Court in a case that found teaching evolution to be constitutional.
* Creationism was found to be unconstitutional in EDWARDS v. AGUILLARD in 1987.
You need to read the case more closely; and I even agree with the USSC decision in that case. That case is not really all that relevant to this one.
I found this section:
(b) The Act impermissibly endorses religion by advancing the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind. The legislative history demonstrates that the term "creation science," as contemplated by the state legislature, embraces this religious teaching.
to be quite relevant considering the text referenced is essentially a creationist one. And even on its own merit, if ID does not convince the court that either it does not endorse religious beliefs or any endorsement is incidental to a primary motivation that serves a clear secular purpose then it will meet the same results that creationism did.
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