Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
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.
ID-on-trial placemarker.
Someone already tried that, in 1968. Evolution won.
You dont know yet you make that claim.
???
Don't forget the Quakers, Shakers, and Amish. Fundies of those flavors aren't generally coercive.
As an example, did you hear about the recent crime spree in Amish country?
..... this past year there was a three-fold increase in drive-by shunnings!
Oh, and here's another semi-related question I have....on the crevo threads, I've seen a couple of the ID/creationist advocates throw out the "81% of Americans self-identify as Christian" statistic, as if it supports their argument that religious concepts should be taught in schools.
My question is, if that statistic is true, and I'm not saying that it isn't, shouldn't their beef be with the churches who are obviously not doing the job? I mean, if 81% of Americans are Christian, or believe in God, then I don't see how schools are the problem. Clearly, the problem is the quality of religious instruction coming from actual religious people and institutions.
Yes, that's exactly what they expect. And it's a real possibility. Read the dissent in this opinion (it's all dissent, because the court didn't take the case, so the opinion here is a dissent from that decision):
Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education v. Freiler. US Sup Ct denied certiorari, Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas dissenting.
There's a better chance of tossing out the Lemon test than reversing Roe v. Wade. So this litigation in Dover won't be a slam dunk.
There's a better chance of tossing out the Lemon test than reversing Roe v. Wade.
Agreed, if only because a few nerdy scientists, libertarians and separation-of-church-and-state types are likely to make a lot less noise than a million screaming hysterical feminists.
Witness: intelligent design has identified God as designer
York Daily Record ^ | 9/28/05Posted on 09/28/2005 10:56:34 AM CDT by Crackingham
Supporters of intelligent design argue the concept is not religious because the designer is never identified. But this morning, in the third day of testimony in a federal court case challenging the Dover school district’s inclusion of intelligent design in biology class, an expert for the plaintiffs pointed to examples where its supporters have identified the designer, and the designer is God.
Robert Pennock, a Michigan State University professor of the philosophy of science, pointed to a reproduction shown in court of writing by Phillip Johnson, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley and author of books including “Darwin on Trial” and “Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds.”
Johnson, known as the father of the intelligent design movement, wrote of “theistic realism.”
“This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator, and that this reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology,” the writing stated.
Pennock was being questioned by plaintiffs’ attorneys. He will be cross-examined after a morning break.
Do you (or anyone else) have any background info on the judge who is overseeing this trial? It makes a big difference, and I have not been able to find much info on this.
I agree the outcome of this trial is uncertain. Given how slick some of the ID proponents are, I'm not confident that events will turn out in favor of evolutionary science. (Maybe I'm just pessimistic when comes to our judicial system...)
Do you (or anyone else) have any background info on the judge who is overseeing this trial? It makes a big difference, and I have not been able to find much info on this.
I agree the outcome of this trial is uncertain. Given how slick some of the ID proponents are, I'm not confident that events will turn out in favor of evolutionary science. (Maybe I'm just pessimistic when comes to our judicial system...)
(Sorry about the echo, everyone - I'm using a new OS and it's behaving in ways I'm not accustomed to yet)
This is posted at the court's website: BIOGRAPHY OF JUDGE JOHN E. JONES III.
Appointed by Bush in 2002. Not much of a record that I can find.
What's really funny to me is that the very same creationists who throw out the "81% of all Americans identify themselves as Christians" line will in the same breath, tell me that I am not a REAL Christian because I believe that evolution is the best scientific explanation for biodiversity. How many of these 81% who self-identify as Christians are also evolutionists? There must be some, because I have seen polls that indicate that the number of people in the US who accept that evolution is the best explanation for biodiversity is somewhere in the mid 40's, and not 19% as those who seem to think that Christians cannot be evolutionists would imply.
Discussing Dover's past
Witnesses testified that board members had a history of talking about creationism.
By LAURI LEBO
Daily Record/Sunday News
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
HARRISBURG — The Dover Area School Board first discussed creationism publicly in June 2004. But board members had raised the issue privately long before, according to testimony in Harrisburg federal court Tuesday in the battle over intelligent design. And while Bill Buckingham might have been the board member best known for his public remarks on evolution, behind the scenes, the chief architect of the biology curriculum revision appears to have been Alan Bonsell.
At a school board retreat in March 2003, Bonsell told fellow board members that he thought if evolution was taught in science class, it should be balanced "fifty-fifty" with creationism, one former board member testified.
Barrie Callahan, a board member at the time, told the court she was at the retreat, and Bonsell's remarks spurred her to go to the high school principal.
"I was expressing my amazement that someone would want creationism in a science curriculum," she said.
Callahan recently found her notes from the meeting in a pile of old school board documents in her home. She left the school board in November 2003. Callahan also found in the stack of material a report from an earlier retreat in January 2002. Prepared by Supt. Richard Nilsen, the report, which was shown to the court, listed board members' primary issues.
Next to Bonsell's name was the word "creationism," followed by "prayer."
Dover attorney Patrick Gillen, during cross-examination, asked Callahan if the retreat's purpose was to vote on or deliberate district policy. Callahan said it was not.
Callahan is one of 11 parents suing the district over the board's decision to include intelligent design — the idea that life is too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have been created by an intelligent designer — in its ninth-grade biology class.
'Concern with monkeys to man'
One of the lawsuit's other plaintiffs, Bryan Rehm, also testified Tuesday in U.S. Middle District Court that he had heard Bonsell talk about creationism before June 2004.
A former physics teacher at Dover high school, Rehm often ate lunch with other teachers in the classroom of Bertha Spahr, head of Dover's science department. At times, Asst. Supt. Michael Baksa would join them to discuss concerns Bonsell had with the biology curriculum. Rehm also testified Bonsell wanted to see discussions of evolution balanced "fifty-fifty" with creationism.
In a meeting with the teachers, Bonsell, then-chairman of the board's curriculum committee, told the teachers he didn't believe in evolution — the cornerstone of modern biology. Rather, Rehm said, Bonsell expressed belief in fundamentals of young-earth creationism, such as the idea that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old.
"He expressed concern with monkeys to man," Rehm said.
Rehm said teachers tried to educate Bonsell on evolution. Bonsell responded by asking them to watch "Icons of Evolution," a video by the Seattle-based pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute that is critical of evolutionary theory.
Rehm, who worked as a science teacher in the district for two years, said he left the district amid pressure to teach what he viewed as religion.
Creationism as balance?
Both Callahan and Rehm said they attended school board meetings in June 2004 and remember board members talking about searching for a biology textbook that balances evolution with "creationism."
At one meeting, Buckingham said, "Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?"
Rehm, looking at a newspaper article in which the statement was recounted to jog his memory, said he remembered Buckingham making the remark.
Board members, in January court depositions, have denied making such remarks or said they don't remember making them.
Spahr, reached Tuesday night, would not comment on Rehm's testimony. But in a deposition this spring, she said that, when she requested a new biology textbook, she was told a board member wanted half the evolution unit devoted to "creationism."
Bonsell said Tuesday there is no link between remarks he made previously about creationism and the mention of intelligent design that the board ultimately approved, a fact, he said, that will become apparent once Dover's lawyers begin to make their case.
Board President Sheila Harkins also disagreed with the parents' testimony. "A lot of that did not happen," she said. "I'm not saying they lied. Their perception is different."
As for discussions of creationism at retreats, Harkins said, "It didn't happen in a school board meeting. I'm not saying it didn't happen outside."
Between June 2004 and the Oct. 18 meeting in which board members voted 6-3 to change the biology curriculum, Rehm and Callahan said, discussions of creationism evolved into talk of intelligent design.
"But it still had the lingering echoes of creationism from June," Rehm said.
Interesting link. At least we agree that this case won't be a slam dunk. Would not be surprised if this case goes to the USSC.
HARRISBURG -- Bryan Rehm's family used to be able to count on friendly exchanges in restaurants or other public places around Dover. But on the witness stand yesterday, he told the court how different the Dover area community became once it was divided by the battle over intelligent design.
The kids at school tell his daughter she "came from monkeys," he said.
They ask her why her parents are helping to sue their school district.
Rehm, who said he and his wife are active in their church and vacation Bible school, said people call him an atheist.
And they have said worse things than that, but Rehm said he wouldn't repeat them in court.
After a day of scientific testimony Monday, Rehm and fellow parents and plaintiffs Tammy Kitzmiller and Barrie Callahan took to the witness stand yesterday.
Rehm, a physics and science teacher at the high school in the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 school years and father of four Dover Area students, said he left the district after the school board started trying to promote intelligent design among its science teachers.
Says teachers felt pressured: Rehm, who now works in another area high school, testified that board member Alan Bonsell told him and other science teachers he wanted to balance creationism and evolution in science classes.
Science teachers, feeling pressured, "repeatedly explained to him, 'We're not going to do this (teach creationism and evolution),'" Rehm said.
He said he attended meetings last year and heard former board member William Buckingham, who was then chairman of the board's curriculum committee, say the high school's biology book was "laced with Darwinism" and the board should take a stand for "somebody" who died on a cross 2,000 years ago.
He said he "couldn't believe" board members were talking in such religious terms at a public meeting.
Rehm is running for a seat on the school board. Even if he is elected, his ninth-grade daughter's biology class will begin to study evolution in January, and she might have to decide whether she wants to sit through a statement telling students that intelligent design is an alternative "theory" to evolution.
School board retreat: Callahan, a former board member who lost a 2003 bid for re-election, testified yesterday that during a board retreat in March 2003, Bonsell said creationism should be taught "50-50" with evolution.
Steve Harvey, one of the parents' attorneys from Pepper Hamilton LLC, pointed to handwritten notes Callahan took during the retreat.
Beside Bonsell's name, Callahan noted Bonsell's "50-50" proposal and noted that Bonsell said he "does not believe in evolution."
Attorney Patrick Gillen from the school board's defenders, the Thomas More Law Center, pointed out during cross examination that there were no votes taken during the retreat and it was not "an official" board meeting.
But Callahan also testified she heard board members making religious comments and promoting creationism at public meetings.
Tammy Kitzmiller, who has two teenage daughters at the high school, said she hadn't attended many meetings, but learned about the talk of creationism from reading newspapers.
At the mention of several stories published in The York Dispatch and York Daily Record, Gillen reminded Judge John E. Jones III that his clients have a standing objection to testimony related to the "hearsay" contained in the newspaper stories.
Newspapers appealing: The two York newspapers are appealing Jones' order for Heidi Bernhard-Bubb, a freelance writer for The York Dispatch, and Joseph Maldonado, a freelance writer for the York Daily Record, to testify about what they saw and heard while covering Dover's school board meetings.
In reporting discussions about intelligent design, they quoted board members making religious statements that the board members now deny making.
The ACLU, representing the parents, wanted the reporters to testify that their stories were accurate, but The Thomas More Center subpoenaed the reporters in an attempt to ask them about details that were not published in the newspapers. Gillen has called the newspaper reports "fabricated."
The newspapers argue many other residents heard the board members make the comments, and reporters, under the First Amendent, should be the last resort for testimony.
The newspapers' managements have said they don't want to be involved in the news -- they want to report it.
The newspapers' attorney, Niles Benn, has said that both Bernhard-Bubb and Maldonado stand by the accuracy of their articles and have decided that, if necessary, they will be held in contempt of court for refusing to testify.
Yesterday, the two reporters appeared for depositions in Harrisburg but did not provide them. Both invoked reporter's privilege, which says reporters have the right not to be bound to testify or disclose sources and information in court.They are both scheduled to testify today.
ACLU attorney Witold Walczak and The Thomas More Center's chief counsel, Richard Thompson, said yesterday they would decide how to proceed with the reporters after they appear in court this afternoon.
The reporters could be fined or imprisoned if Jones finds them in contempt of court.
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.