Witness: 'Intelligent Design' doesn't qualify as science [Day 4 of trial in Dover, PA]

Sioux City Journal ^ | 29 September 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- The concept of "intelligent design" is a form of creationism and is not based on scientific method, a professor testified Wednesday in a trial over whether the idea should be taught in public schools.

Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State University, testified on behalf of families who sued the Dover Area School District. He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea.

"As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."

Pennock said intelligent design does not belong in a science class, but added that it could possibly be addressed in other types of courses.

In October 2004, the Dover school board voted 6-3 to require teachers to read a brief statement about intelligent design to students before classes on evolution. The statement says Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.

Proponents of intelligent design argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.

Eight families are trying to have intelligent design removed from the curriculum, arguing that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. They say it promotes the Bible's view of creation.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for two newspaper reporters said Wednesday the presiding judge has agreed to limit questioning of the reporters, averting a legal showdown over having them testify in the case.

Both reporters wrote stories that said board members mentioned creationism as they discussed the intelligent design issue. Board members have denied that.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III agreed that the reporters would only have to verify the content of their stories -- and not answer questions about unpublished material, possible bias or the use of any confidential sources.

"They're testifying only as to what they wrote," said Niles Benn, attorney for The York Dispatch and the York Daily Record/Sunday News, the papers that employed the two freelancers.

The reporters were subpoenaed but declined to give depositions Tuesday, citing their First Amendment rights. A lawyer for the school board had said he planned to seek contempt citations against the two.

The judge's order clears the way for the reporters to provide depositions and testify Oct. 6.

[FostersExport]

But as I say it’s not unfounded. The vast majority of ID’rs who are actually _pushing_ to get ID into science class are actually Genesis-style creationists (care to disagree?). If so, it’s no surprise that people are wary of their agenda.

[Dimensio]

Many evo's on these threads say that ToE is inadequate or unable to address the issue of "origins" - and yet, there certainly has to be an "origin(s)".

The ToE addresses what happens after "origins". That's not an inadequacy of the theory, that's just part of the definition of its scope, in much the same way as gravitational theory doesn't define where matter (which is required for gravity to exist) ultimately originated.

Why should there not be some mention of this limitation of science to understand the natural world?

Because that's a misrepresentation. Evolution does not address the ultimate origin of life. Evolution is not all of science, and it is not true that no science at all attempts to address the origin of life.

[Dimensio]

Why should there not be some mention of this limitation of evolutionary science to understand the natural world?

This is an even sillier objection. Should we also mention that the theory of evolution doesn't adequately explain planetary orbits?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

"As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."

This is the best 2-sentence description of ID that I've seen so far.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"That the pre Darwin believed in creation shouldn't surprise you, and to ASSUME that they would have changed their minds had they heard of Darwin is wrong headed."

And also would not be what I said. I said using them as scientists who support creationism is like using Newton as a scientist who was against General Relativity. It's meaningless. And stupid at best, dishonest at worse. The Steve's in my list all are alive.

"Math isn't science, and half are kooks who haven't a doctorate. which is required on my list."

That's a lie. Most have doctorates. You list is chock full of psychologists and people who lived hundreds of years ago.

[Doctor Stochastic]

A link to Roger Wien's paper on radiometric dating.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The reporters were subpoenaed but declined to give depositions Tuesday, citing their First Amendment rights.

I see the author of the article went to public school.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Perhaps he bought a watch from a street vendor and is using the brand name.

[doc30]

Scientists are highly qualified in their areas of study. outside those areas, a scientists knowledge drops significantly. It all depends on their level of interest and participation in areas outside their realm. Even where I work, different scientists have different ideas about each other's specialties and are not necessarily aware of what thoseother areas entail.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Bode's Law didn't hold up even with the support of the asteroids.

[Doctor Stochastic]

FR does have a rudimentary "spell check" too. (It even adds HTML tags.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Not only are creationists attacking science, they're even going after English.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

NZ: The Hobbit bones is in reference to what was an alleged new species of human which evolutionists named Homo floresiensis which turned out to be the remains of an ordinary sickly kid, a modern human who had a brain-shrinking disorder called microcephaly.

D: Got a reference for this?

Here's the reference (from a previous post of mine):

Hobbits

[MineralMan]

"Not only are creationists attacking science, they're even going after English."

Hey. If Aramaic and Hebrew was good enough for Jesus, then English doesn't matter. Right?

[highball]

"...we have scientists constantly saying that evolution is not a theory but a proven fact."

Evolution is both a theory and a fact. It happens in nature, it is observable, it is testible and predictions can be made based on it. That's a fact. Organisms evolve It's also the theory that describes the fact as it appears in nature.

You weren't trying to pass on the tired creationist lie that "theory" means "guess," were you?

[narby]

Spelling has nothing to do with people taking you seriously

I see that you not only don't understand science, you also don't understand people.

[Antonello]

Perhaps someone should spend more time looking at the quotes from many of teh best scientists in the world - including Albert:

Yay! Einstein quotes! My turn!

Thus I came...to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true....Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience...an attitude which has never left me.
~Albert Einstein

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
~Albert Einstein, March 24, 1954

During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes... In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vase power in the hands of priests.
~Albert Einstein, reported in Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium

[Oztrich Boy]

Math isn't science, and half are kooks who haven't a doctorate. which is required on my list.

Well some of those on your list are medical doctors, who are really Bachelors of Medicine, basically technicians, not scientists

And even some of the "real doctors" are also jokes

[Thatcherite]

Do you know the meaning of the word "plagiarism"? To pass of the verbatim arguments of others as if they were your own work is deceitful. Fortunately your incomprehension of the issues was abundantly clear from your earlier posts, so it was easy to see that you just presented a cut-and-paste (from a particularly inane and stupid website source) as your own thoughts.

[Thatcherite]

OK, do that, find this fossel record for me. There is NO fossel record which proves evolution. Not one. Nothing. No hobbit bones, Nothing.

OK, I've spotted that you are a Loki troll now going for the comedy vote. Pretending to be ignorant for laughs.