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.
Really? I can quote; Dawkins, Pinker, and many others if you like… BTW, you state ID is incompatible with scripture and is anti-God as an authority on both (I see ID as neutral on both subjects)… Please tell us ‘your’ religion so we can know how you have acquired this knowledge.
My vorpal Lee-Enfield is always ready to go "rick-rack-rick-rock-BLAM!"
you have vorpal range, I have vorpal close-quarters utility ;)
Should we throw our arms up in the air and say, “Nature did it” and ignore the projected paths we see governed by laws and conditions that we observe? Are you using some kind of hurricane in the junk yard analogy and applying it to evolution?
"It is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science - that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school". According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies."
Specificity is totally in the eye of the beholder. If the result looks interesting or ironic to someone, then the pattern is specified by definition. If "it looks like Greek to me", then it's merely complex but not specified. And nobody cares about the designer if there was one.
Ç éäéïìïñößá åßíáé óõíïëéêÜ óôï ìÜôé ôïõ èåáôÞ. ÅÜí ôï áðïôÝëåóìá öáßíåôáé åíäéáöÝñïí Þ åéñùíéêü óå êÜðïéï, êáôüðéí ôï ó÷Ýäéï äéåõêñéíßæåôáé åî ïñéóìïý. ÅÜí "ìïéÜæåé ìå ôá åëëçíéêÜ óå ìå", êáôüðéí åßíáé ìüíï óýíèåôï áëëÜ ìçí äéåõêñéíéóìÝíï. Êáé êáíÝíáò äåí öñïíôßæåé ãéá ôï ó÷åäéáóôÞ åÜí õðÞñîå Ýíáò.
"I am Spartacus."
I'm not Spartacus, but he was like a Fadduh to me.
Tony
Nein; ICH bin Spartacus!
What question does this quote answer?
The "refutation" would just be another book to sell. You could have two best sellers saying opposite things.
Yeah, so? The difference is that in science, dishonesty is not acceptable and can destroy your career, and any findings based on dishonesty are immediately thrown out, whereas in creationism, it's a way of life, and creationists not only fail to root out such lies, they cheerfully repeat them decade after decade, and make excuses for each other's lies.
There is increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," says researcher John Ioannidis
Ioannidis is, I regret to inform you, an idiot. He bases his "study" on the fact that many studies are not, BY THEMSELVES IN ISOLATION, sufficient sample sizes to provide 100% reliability in their conclusions. This reveals his gross ignorance about how scientific results are arrived at. No one study is ever the "last word" on anything. NOR DOES ANYONE CLAIM IT IS, as Ioannidis goofily presumes. Instead, each study is a piece of the total picture, and confidence in the validity of results rises as early tentative conclusions are repeatedly reconfirmed by additional studies, both of the same kind as the first, and by cross-confirming alternative examinations of the same issues.
I'm sorry that you're completely uneducated in how science actually works, and thus you repeatedly fall for these types of knee-slappers.
Those wacky scientists: they can get away with almost anything nowadays.
Please stop lying, you're not very good at it.
These sort of things don't effect the ToE, though.
If you think you can identify an *actual* flaw in evolutionary biology, go right ahead and present it, but these sorts of slimy implications only make you sound look dishonest. Stop arguing like a liberal.
It's constantly evolving...
Yes, but not in the way that creationists think it is, and not in a bad way.
problem is that stuff is already well known...
inversions, duplications, insertions, deletions, point mutations, etc.
do you really think scientists havent already worked on this?
No. Is there some sort of point to this idiotic question?
Are you using some kind of hurricane in the junk yard analogy and applying it to evolution?
No. Is there some sort of point to this idiotic question?
I notice you did not respond to the correction..the warblers do not interbreed. They have become two different species.
If I noticed your lack of response, so have others.
It appears some think an idiotic echo box is the answer.
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