Posted on 09/28/2005 4:11:22 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A former physics teacher testified that his rural school board ignored faculty protests before deciding to introduce the theory of "intelligent design" to high school students.
"I saw a district in which teachers were not respected for their professional expertise," Bryan Rehm, a former teacher at Dover High School, said Tuesday.
Rehm, who now teaches in another district, is a plaintiff in the nation's first trial over whether public schools can teach "intelligent design."
Eight Dover families are trying to have the controversial theory removed from the curriculum, arguing that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. They say it effectively promotes the Bible's view of creation.
Proponents of intelligent design argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
Aralene "Barrie" Callahan, a former member of the Dover school board and another plaintiff in the case, said that at least two board members made statements during meetings that made her believe the new policy was religiously based.
At a retreat in March 2003, a board member "expressed he did not believe in evolution and if evolution was part of the biology curriculum, creationism had to be shared 50-50," Callahan testified.
At a school board meeting in June 2004, when she was no longer on the board, Callahan recalled another board member complaining that a biology book recommended by the administration was "laced with Darwinism."
"They were pretty much downplaying evolution as something that was credible," she said.
In October 2004, the board voted 6-3 to require teachers to read a brief statement about intelligent design to students before classes on evolution. The statement says Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.
In a separate development Tuesday, two freelance newspaper reporters who covered the school board in June 2004 both invoked their First Amendment rights and declined to provide a deposition to lawyers for the school district.
Both are expected in court Wednesday to respond to a subpoena to testify at trial, said Niles Benn, a lawyer for the papers. Lawyers for the school district have questioned the accuracy of articles in which the reporters wrote that board members discussed creationism during public meetings.
In other testimony Tuesday, plaintiff Tammy Kitzmiller said that in January, her younger daughter opted out of hearing the statement - an option given all students - putting her in an awkward position.
"My 14-year-old daughter had to make the choice between staying in the classroom and being confused ... or she had to be singled out and face the possible ridicule of her friends and classmates," she said.
The Dover Area School District, which serves about 3,500 students, is believed to be the nation's first school system to mandate that students be exposed to the intelligent design concept. It argues it is not endorsing any religious view and only letting students know there are differences of opinion about evolution.
The non-jury trial is expected to take five weeks.
BTW, the ACLU blog says they're working to come up with transcripts of the testimony, but it'll take time.
Is this guy serious? I read the link you furnished - I thought I was reading an article in the Onion. This guy is arguing in the defense of the school board's decision?! Absolutely mind-blowing.
Pennock's throw-away line about a Matrix hypothesis, which he may have intended as a bit of humor, does not help his argument; especially in a bench trial.
Whether one agrees with ID or not, one cannot reasonably say there is no support for the position. Even Miller admitted that evolution is not 'random'.
It was a joke, and everyone in the courtroom would have recognized it as that. There is some humor expressed on occasion in even the most serious of trials.
There ain't no joking in baseball....
To quote someone: It was a joke, and everyone in the courtroom would have recognized it as that. There is some humor expressed on occasion in even the most serious of trials.
That did occur to me right after I made that last post. Touche
It's those "Do'ht!" moments that we all have that makes us tolerable to one another. Without them, we would all be insufferable bores ;)
It's boor.
I realize it's a joke, but it still makes a point for his opposition; that's all I'm trying to say here.
I did and what I'm disputing is that it was the founder's disdain of the rampant religious permeation of the schools
They had no disdain for religion in schools.
Here's pretty much how Adams appeared to have ended up concerning religion:
It's "D'oh!"
Pennock's throw-away line about a Matrix hypothesis, which he may have intended as a bit of humor, does not help his argument; especially in a bench trial.
Oh? So we should include equal time for the Matrix theory because it just might conceivably be true?
Whether one agrees with ID or not, one cannot reasonably say there is no support for the position. Even Miller admitted that evolution is not 'random'.
Oh c'mon. We've consistently been trying to explain to you guys that only mutations are random; natural selection is not random. Because of this, the overall process is "self-directed", in a sense, toward increased fitness WRT the current environment. There's no external intelligent person directing things. You still got nuthin'.
OK, I've looked at some of your comments in your previous post (187 ?). Where in Scripture does it recommend stoning for doubt?
Concerning the other rather harsh mandated penalties, why do you think they are bad?
I don't think natural selection is random, either. Natural selection has never been proven lead to the appearance of a new species. Natural selection occurs WITHIN species. It does not lead to new species.
Perhaps we should step back and define who we're talking about when we say 'founders'. I'd started off considering the actual men who participated in developing the Constitution, but adapted to a wider meaning when you included the local people who were designing and running townships. Since we were broadening that definition anyway, I went ahead and included anyone who had a hand in the firming up of the fledgling governmental system to one of reasonable stability, at least within the scope of the educational system.
Otherwise, you are making the case that if those few men that created the Constitution wanted secular schooling they would have personally crusaded for it. Considering the limitations of travel and communication at the time, the lack of an already established national education infrastructure with which to efficiently propagate policy, the fact that local groups were at least able to provide interim albeit inconsistent systems, and that there were a few other really really important issues that kinda took priority for the group of men that found themselves driving a brand new country, I think that isn't quite a compelling argument that they actively advocated religious public schooling.
Assuming that questioning the Word of God (the Bible) might be considered blasphemy, Leviticus 24:16. You might argue that it isn't, but if whatever group in power doesn't like you for some reason then you could have a problem.
Concerning the other rather harsh mandated penalties, why do you think they are bad?
Because I personally don't think death is appropriate in those cases. Not only are they mainly what I would consider moral and not legal issues, but they also force a larger surrender of personal rights in favor of government rights concerning ones own life than I am willing to give up.
I'm by no means a libertarian, but I believe laws, and the established punishments for breaking them, should be devised using a more logical reasoning system. One more in keeping with the magnitude of how a given criminal act damages others. Some might warrant a restriction of privileges, others might be a matter for civil restitution. And while I can envision some crimes, such as murder, as being so grievous as to warrant the surrender of life, nothing on that list meets this definition to me.
Not to mention that the more casually death is applied, the easier it is for someone with an ulterior motive to conceivably twist common actions to construe that someone committed a crime worthy of death. I joked about it previously, but look to the more fundamental Islamic governments for some excellent examples of this.
Well, at least I pronounce it correctly out loud. (Quite often, in fact.)
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