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.
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.
Maybe?
You are wasting your time, big time.But wasn't the evidence valid when it was supposedly missing?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
Thanks for the ping!
Actually it's called an observation.
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?
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.
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.
I got my husband tix to yesterday's game for his birthday. You've never seen a happier White Sox fan :)
It's the Fall, which brought Sin and the New York Yankees into the world.
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.)
What can you possibly hope to accomplish here, on a conservative forum, with such an overt and obvious lie?
Why not, evolution is a religion.
This is the way science works. Do you have a problem with the method or is it just the results you disagree with?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].
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.
" You are wasting your time, big time."
I know, I've seen his posts before. Just typing for the lurkers. :)
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.
....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.
" 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.
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