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Professor, teachers to testify in intelligent-design trial [Dover, PA, 05 Oct]
Times Leader ^ | 05 October 2005 | MARTHA RAFFAELE

Posted on 10/05/2005 3:53:39 AM PDT by PatrickHenry

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A philosophy professor and two science teachers were expected to testify Wednesday in a landmark trial over a school board's decision to include a reference to "intelligent design" in its biology curriculum.

Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, is being called as an expert witness on behalf of eight families who are trying to have intelligent design removed from the Dover Area School District's biology curriculum. The families contend that it effectively promotes the Bible's view of creation, violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

Forrest's testimony was expected to address what opponents allege is the religious nature of intelligent design, as well as the history and development of the concept, according to court papers filed by the plaintiffs before the trial.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III was also expected to hear testimony from Bertha Spahr, chairman of Dover High School's science department, and biology teacher Jennifer Miller.

Under the policy approved by Dover's school board in October 2004, students must hear a brief statement about intelligent design before classes on evolution. It says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact," has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.

Intelligent-design supporters 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.

The plaintiffs are represented by a team put together by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The school district is being defended by the Thomas More Law Center, a public-interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that says its mission is to defend the religious freedom of Christians.

The trial began Sept. 26 and is expected to last as long as five weeks.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: cnim; crevolist; dover; evolution
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To: connectthedots
Logic is a very strong point with me.

Not that I've noticed. You've committed a number of fallacies on this thread already.

321 posted on 10/05/2005 2:43:21 PM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: MHalblaub; connectthedots
Please, can you prove your statement. The declaration "It have never been discovered" fails. Not because of some fossils. Just because "never" implies also the future. So you have to give us an argument that shows that there will never be the possibility that variation leads to different species.

I am looking forward to this. It will be an opportunity for CtD to display his much-vaunted logic skills, and his new-found knowledge of biology.

322 posted on 10/05/2005 2:44:12 PM PDT by Thatcherite (More abrasive than SeaLion or ModernMan)
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Comment #323 Removed by Moderator

To: newsgatherer

"No, not so I say, so says the Wrord of God, the Holy Bible."

So YOU say. :)


324 posted on 10/05/2005 2:49:50 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: connectthedots
The Ichmeister already mentioned asian Greenish Warblers.

There is also the herring gull, and the Ensatina salamander, both of which show speciation in action with all the intermediate steps still around.
325 posted on 10/05/2005 2:50:59 PM PDT by b_sharp (Free Modernman and SeaLion from purgatory)
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Comment #326 Removed by Moderator

To: newsgatherer
"Ah, but, where di the things come from to subject to ?

Slithy toves.

327 posted on 10/05/2005 2:52:26 PM PDT by b_sharp (Free Modernman and SeaLion from purgatory)
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To: b_sharp
Slithy toves.

I thought it was the borogroves.

328 posted on 10/05/2005 2:53:31 PM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: newsgatherer; All
[Addressed to newsgatherer:] Have you ever posted to FreeRepublic under the now-banned screen name of "Phaedrus"?

<crickets chirping>

You are making several of the same idiosyncratic arguments that Phaedrus liked to make, in some of the same typographic styles, before he/she/it was banned, not long before the sign-up date of "newsgatherer". Would you care to clarify this matter?

329 posted on 10/05/2005 2:54:45 PM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: newsgatherer
"No, not so I say, so says the Wrord of God, the Holy Bible.

A collection of stories with no evidence of veracity. How can this be taken as absolute ... anything?

330 posted on 10/05/2005 2:57:16 PM PDT by b_sharp (Free Modernman and SeaLion from purgatory)
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To: bobbdobbs
"When she was 17 or 18 she got banned for also being pro-legalization of drugs."

Did she want to drink a beer?
331 posted on 10/05/2005 2:58:17 PM PDT by MHalblaub (Tell me in four more years (No, I did not vote for Kerry))
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To: Ichneumon; b_sharp
T'was brillig; I know that much.
332 posted on 10/05/2005 2:58:17 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: newsgatherer
Evolution is a religion (paraphrased)

[ Is this comment supposed to bring ID up to the level of evolution? Or bring evolution down to the level of your religion?]

Ah but first answer me and then I will answer you. Are you still beating your wife?

I asked the first question.

I must confess I'm lost as to your original meaning. I suppose I'll just have to guess the answer.

333 posted on 10/05/2005 2:58:56 PM PDT by narby
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Comment #334 Removed by Moderator

To: VadeRetro; Ichneumon; b_sharp

and there was some ominous whuffling in the tulgy wood


335 posted on 10/05/2005 3:10:18 PM PDT by King Prout (19sep05 - I want at least 2 Saiga-12 shotguns. If you have leads, let me know)
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To: shuckmaster
Noah's oak is still sitting on the side of mount arafat ...

Are you series? That hugh!!!

336 posted on 10/05/2005 3:16:24 PM PDT by WildHorseCrash
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To: Ichneumon
Ichneumon,

I like reading all the research materials you bring here, even if I don't agree with the conclusions and greater answers your side draws from them.

But what does all of the rest of this fluff have to do with anything? Trying to get him tossed out of your court?

Well, guess most everyone is guilty of it, fluff that is. Some of them even dress it up as evolution ha ha.

Wolf
337 posted on 10/05/2005 3:25:35 PM PDT by RunningWolf (tag line limbo)
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To: Thatcherite
Do tell, I am all agog to know what you, someone who patently knows almost nothing about biology, can bring to our attention that nullifies the work of the hundreds of thousands of biologists over the last 150 years who have found ToE logically and evidentially persuasive.

Just a statement about consensus science (and by the way I doubt very many of these biologists dealt with the issues of the deep past such as macroevolution or large scale changes)

"So what exactly is the scientific method? Although scientists certainly do something in their field of work, there really is no such thing as the scientific method.[74] This is true for a number of reasons. First, the majority opinion in the scientific community is often wrong.[75] Someone not going along with what the majority does can produce something scientifically useful, and this has been done many times. Second, science has many specialized fields, and scientists in those fields require certain craft skills unique in that field to conduct experiments.[76] Such experiments do not involve precise rules that give detailed instructions on what to do at each step.[77] What may appear to be misconduct to an outsider may actually be quite valid scientific practice in that field.[78] Furthermore, rapid progress in science will be more likely if scientists do not follow a single standardized method. [79] Individual scientists have numerous ways of making theories and evaluating them, which explains why there can be disagreements among scientists. The different shaping principles that interact with data can produce different results with each scientific worker, including on how scientists should approach things. Sometimes these disconformities help to produce useful scientific revolutions. At times revolutions in science happen in large part because these kinds of shaping principles that are accepted by the majority change over time. Great changes in shaping principles create another reason why there has never been a single scientific method used by all scientists.[80] Although there are some general objectives to achieve in science (e. g. finding scientific theories that are rationally supported), there are a number of ways to go about this, and not every scientist shares the same method."

From The Nature and Philosophy of Science by Percy Williams Bridgman

The Nature and Philosophy of Science

Emphasis added by me.
338 posted on 10/05/2005 3:34:05 PM PDT by microgood
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To: Ichneumon

Caution. Troll alert.


339 posted on 10/05/2005 3:38:24 PM PDT by narby
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To: connectthedots; Ichneumon; b_sharp; Thatcherite
Before I call this merely speculation, can you offer up a real life example of this phenomena? Certainly after all this time, there would still be some real examples of this.

Apparently you didn't pay attention but he did. Here is a website with additional information on ring species, especially on the already mentioned greenish warbler and the ensatina salamander.

340 posted on 10/05/2005 3:43:37 PM PDT by BMCDA (Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. -- L. Wittgenstein)
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