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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: Right Wing Professor; gobucks
I find a snide implication my opponent is homosexual always strengthens my argument.

Oh, and don't forget to imply that your opponent has "daddy" issues if she's a woman. Slip this one in even if you've never met the opponent or actually read any of her writing.

41 posted on 10/05/2005 7:41:44 AM PDT by Chiapet (Cthulhu for President: Why vote for a lesser evil?)
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To: newsgatherer
Maybe I jsut don't udnerstand evolution

Maybe?

42 posted on 10/05/2005 8:01:15 AM PDT by RightWingNilla
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To: CarolinaGuitarman; connectthedots
CTD has been on this forum forever and is the poster boy for the stereotypical "transitional fossils" dialogue.

  1. Tap-Dancing Science-Denier declares that the fossil record lacks instances of things changing in an orderly series from some Thing A to Thing Z. As this kind of evidence is to be expected, the lack of it must weigh against evolution having happened. By the very statement of this objection we are invited to believe the Tap-Dancing Science-Denier would accept such evidence IF ONLY IT EXISTED but the thing is it doesn't exist.
  2. Someone who disagrees demonstrates many instances well known in the literature of fossil series intermediate in form and time between some Thing A and some Thing Z.
  3. The Tap-Dancer then declares fossil series evidence to be irrelevant. How do we know ... various things? The dates of the fossils? Whether fossil A lies exactly on the ancestral line of fossil B?
But wasn't the evidence valid when it was supposedly missing?
You are wasting your time, big time.
43 posted on 10/05/2005 8:05:33 AM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: PatrickHenry

Thanks for the ping!


44 posted on 10/05/2005 8:07:50 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: connectthedots
Where is the fossil record to support the speculation about the existence of 'transitional forms'? The belief in 'transitional forms' is not science; it's nothing more than speculation.

Actually it's called an observation.

45 posted on 10/05/2005 8:09:21 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: gobucks
So, when an apologist for Darwinism is an overt leftist, as ALL of them I have encountered so far seem to be, I figure, hey, such folks just LOVE to be famous.

While I'd prefer evo to Darwinist, since this is the 21st century and Darwin's been dead for nearly 150 years, I don't believe that your brand of Chritianity is superior to mine.

And since I've bumped into you before, I don't care for your characterization of me as a leftist. Just because you'd prefer to live in a cave and spend your limited time in this life hunting for food, doesn't mean the rest of us should have to.

In fact I don't see your comments as originating in Christianity at all. Are you one of these guys selling books and pamphlets to the scientifically illiterate?

46 posted on 10/05/2005 8:15:28 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: connectthedots
Miller admitted that evolution is not a fact.

So what? Neither is gravity. (It's a "fact" that object X is observed to accelerate at delta V in circumstances such and so, but "gravity" is a generalization.)

"Facts" in science are well confirmed and generally accepted observations. They don't have any significance, in and of themselves, except in their relation to some generalization about them (such as a "theory" or a "law"). Even geocentricism is not a "fact" strictly speaking, but "only" a theory. IOW we observe the facts regarding the polar coordinates of the planets, and how those change over time, and these facts are explained by theories about the physical structure of the solar system and laws governing it's behavior.

47 posted on 10/05/2005 8:16:55 AM PDT by Stultis
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To: PatrickHenry
the religious nature of intelligent design

After they answer that one, they will tackle the more difficult question of how the Boston Botox could allow 5 homeruns in one game.

48 posted on 10/05/2005 8:19:09 AM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the law of the excluded middle)
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To: RightWhale
After they answer that one, they will tackle the more difficult question of how the Boston Botox could allow 5 homeruns in one game.

Matt Clement...the guy is soft.

49 posted on 10/05/2005 8:32:27 AM PDT by RightWingNilla
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To: RightWhale

I got my husband tix to yesterday's game for his birthday. You've never seen a happier White Sox fan :)


50 posted on 10/05/2005 8:35:08 AM PDT by Chiapet (Cthulhu for President: Why vote for a lesser evil?)
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To: RightWhale
After they answer that one, they will tackle the more difficult question of how the Boston Botox could allow 5 homeruns in one game.

It's the Fall, which brought Sin and the New York Yankees into the world.

51 posted on 10/05/2005 8:38:52 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: gobucks
She's a priestess wannbe in High Leftist Circles.

There's certainly plenty of indication in her article titles and the venues in which they were published that she's propabably a secularist, but I honestly don't see where you make the jump to "leftist". Maybe she is or isn't, I just honestly don't see any political indications. (Excepting possibly the several articles relating to Sidney Hook who was indeed a "leftist," if also a strong anti-communist and widely respected by many classical liberals. However none of these articles seem to relate to Hook's political views.)

52 posted on 10/05/2005 8:43:51 AM PDT by Stultis
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To: gobucks
So, when an apologist for Darwinism is an overt leftist, as ALL of them I have encountered so far seem to be

What can you possibly hope to accomplish here, on a conservative forum, with such an overt and obvious lie?

53 posted on 10/05/2005 8:51:44 AM PDT by Stultis
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To: Wormwood
I thought ID wasn't about religion.

Why not, evolution is a religion.

54 posted on 10/05/2005 9:01:30 AM PDT by newsgatherer
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To: connectthedots
Your info at your link is laced through and through with the words 'probably' and 'possible; so much so that it amounts to a tremendous amount of speculation. Speculation can hardly be called factual.

Piling up facts is not science--science is facts-and-theories. Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning: a valid theory organizes them into far greater usefulness.

A powerful theory not only embraces old facts and new but also discloses unsuspected facts [Heinlein 1980:480-481].

This is the way science works. Do you have a problem with the method or is it just the results you disagree with?
55 posted on 10/05/2005 9:05:23 AM PDT by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
Me; " Maybe I just don't udnerstand evolution..." Yur answer to me: Yes.

Than be kind enough to explain it to me.

But, since I am so unlearned, please be so kind as to start with a definition of evolution if you can.

56 posted on 10/05/2005 9:05:42 AM PDT by newsgatherer
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To: VadeRetro; connectthedots

" You are wasting your time, big time."

I know, I've seen his posts before. Just typing for the lurkers. :)


57 posted on 10/05/2005 9:06:41 AM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: lentulusgracchus
I won't play games with you. It's called self-respect.

No, I don't buy that bull for a minute, you won't because you can't! Your answer has nothing to do with self respect, self respect would be answering the question.

58 posted on 10/05/2005 9:08:27 AM PDT by newsgatherer
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To: CarolinaGuitarman

....and speaking of posts you've probably seen before, feel free to respond to Newsgatherer. I'm sure we could all use a laugh at his "six definitions of evolution" that he plagiarized from a Jack Chick tract.


59 posted on 10/05/2005 9:09:17 AM PDT by Chiapet (Cthulhu for President: Why vote for a lesser evil?)
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To: newsgatherer

" Than be kind enough to explain it to me."

I'm not a masochist, learn it for yourself. It's been explained to you countless times here, with the links for you to read.

"But, since I am so unlearned, please be so kind as to start with a definition of evolution if you can."

See the above. Stop wasting our time.


60 posted on 10/05/2005 9:10:06 AM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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