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.
Be careful! You might be moved down in the janitorial pool to 'brown ops."
But, then you might be privy to great secrets and deep learning.
I have never tried to hide the fact that I am a Christian, as you know. On the other hand, my faith is not 'blind'. God gave me a mind, and a very sharp on at that, to use. I use mine, and my faith does not require that I simply say, 'God did it'. There is a great deal of evidence concerning the existence of the God of the Bible.
This alone is hardly a defense for evolution, and my arguments against evolution have not been based on religion. Certainly, my arguments against evolution and for ID are not incompatible with my faith, but they are not the basis of my arguments.
On the other hand, many evolutionists fight so strongly for their position because the only alternative, unless you know of another alternative, is that there is some intelligent force/being/power behind the formation of life as we know it. Some people are simply unwilling to accept that possibility.
I takes quite a bit of faith to believe in evolution. The evolutionist believes, in faith, that there are explanations for the gaps in the ToE, even though there is no evidence of anything that can fill those gaps.
That's not a religious type faith?
You should contact the author of Talk.Origins' Ape-or-Human page about this. Apparently he's still maintaining that page; I'm sure he'd be interested in adding Davis & Kenyon to the list of creationists who can't make up their minds about just what kind of missing link H. erectus isn't.One of the more interesting differences concerned _H. erectus_. The first edition strongly (though not unequivocally) favored the view that _H. erectus_ was human. It suggests that:
"Perhaps _Homo erectus_ and _Homo sapiens_ are really a single species, and, like Neanderthal man, _Homo erectus_ should be reclassified under _Homo sapiens. It is never wise to be dogmatic about our interpretations; it is especially so here, since the data allow so many interpretations." (p. 112)"_H. erectus_ and _H. sapiens_ are so similar that it is possible to consider them as one human species as shown." (p. 113)
The second edition, however, claims, in direct contradiction to the first, that "[_H. erectus_] had significant anatomical differences from modern man that have prevented its classification as _H. sapiens_." (p. 110)
The real clincher, however, comes in the conclusion... In this case it is baldly stated, without considering the possibility of alternative "design proponent" interpretations (apparently ignoring both the conclusions of the first edition as well as its caution about "dogmatic ... interpretations"), that:
"Design adherents, however, regard _H. erectus_, as well as the other hominids discussed in this section, as little more than apes, and point instead to the abrupt appearance of the culture and patterns of behavior which distinguish man from the apes." (pp. 112-113)
comparing parallel constructs is useful.
"Gaps in fossil record of transitionals" ==> "NO EVIDENCE OF TRANSITION"
and
"Gaps in my teeth" ==> "NO TEETH"
are parallel constructs, demonstrating the same logical fallacy.
You claim to be especially favored in logic, so you SHOULD know this, and even SHOULD know the name of this logical fallacy.
It is "non-sequitur"
comparing the broad gaps in the fossil record with the small gaps in the ToE is utterly moronic.
try again.
pretending to be logical and reasonable while complaining about the inevitable broad gaps in the fossil record is an extremely dishonest pose.
You are arguing from a location at or near the very extreme of your school of thought. That extreme can only be satisfied by the following:
1. that every single organism which ever lived was fossilized in a state of perfect preservation
2. that we humans unearth and catalogue every such fossil
3. that we humans KNOW that we have unearthed and catalogued the remains of every single organism which has ever lived.
ONLY these conditions would preclude the existence of gaps in the fossil record and provide a complete record of transitional speciation.
ALL of these conditions are impossible, and you bloody well know it.
What remains within the realm of the real-world is to gain as complete a set of data points as possible and extrapolate between these points.
Just like every other branch of science.
You could recognise this, but no - you are too thrilled with playing games of quote-mining, mischaracterization, non-sequitur, and the outright lie.
hey, peanut-gallery: Step up or step off.
Reasoned and sound arguments.
You didn't provide any yourself, son, so I wasn't going waste my time doing anything more than just highlighting how often you were spewing nonsense.
I've obviously read more Gould and Dawkins than you.
You obviously haven't a clue.
You need a refresher course it seems.
Not at all. You need an education.
[There is no "disagreement". "PE" is just "gradualism" running at varying rates depending upon conditions. But it's all "gradual" from the perspective of a human lifetime.]
Than why did he rail against Gould about it.
For reasons that are beyond you, obviously. But if you think that he said anything that contradicts the points I've made, you're sadly mistaken. Nor, I note, did you even bother to try to demonstrate that he had. All you have is your dishonest implications and empty bluster.
Can someone find me anyone on the creationist/ID side who is actually a worthy debate partner? Please?
I mean, how about someone who doesn't stick his foot in his mouth by claiming that *I* haven't read enough Gould & Dawkins, when if *he* had actually done so, he'd know that Dawins "railed against" Gould primarily over a misunderstanding, and not over a real difference in conclusions?
You need to shake those cobwebs out of your brain and try to keep up.
Yeah. Sure. I guess that's why I keep posting valid arguments and evidence, and you keep just bluffing.
Thank you, sincerely, for showing just how empty the creationist/ID "argument" is, by way of example.
So I've noticed. I'll be sure to ask my questions of more thoughtful participants next time.
sorry, Magister - I think those beasties were either mythical or are extinct.
Yes I did. Are you going anywhere with this, or are you just bluffing like the other guys?
Answering unfriendly questions is often more revealing than handling softball questions.
Uh huh. Did you have an actual point to make? Do you even know how?
"and, Your Honor, that's when I shot him."
are we there yet?
...if... we're going to have Ms. Forrest take the stand, or Professor Forrest, I should say, I guess, take the stand and if she is going to rely on hearsay, extracted hearsay statements from articles or narratives, I think we have a problem.
That's not to say that she can't testify as to -- if, in fact, we get to this point and if I find it relevant, and that's another issue altogether, and I don't think we have to address it here -- that's not to say that she couldn't testify if it's otherwise relevant to what the scope of the report appears to be, which is a -- sort of panoply of what intelligent design has been over the course that she's looked at it or the course that she examined it. But these extracted statements by individuals I think are problematic. Tell me why they're not if you view it otherwise.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I do, Your Honor. First of all, what she is basically doing is a history of a --and I say this reluctantly -- an intellectual movement.
THE COURT: Well, and it read like a magazine article to me. I might find it interesting and others might find it even entertaining, but for the purpose of an expert report, I'll bet she hasn't probably testified many times, if at all, as an expert witness.
And the fact it has these quotes, that it is rife with these quotes, which not only present hearsay issues but also could be taken out of context and could otherwise be objectionable, I'm simply putting you on notice that either you've got to contour the report to -- contour her testimony, not the report, to address that, or I think you're going to get repeated objections.
And I think, unless you come up with something that is pretty remarkable, those objections could be sustained to the extent, again, not as to the general scope of her report, but as to these extracted quotes by individuals from unverified sources.
They're not from treatises. A lot of them were taken out of news articles, it appears to me, magazines, other things. Why isn't that hearsay?
I think Ms. Forrest is not going to have a pleasant experience on the witness stand. Her testimony and the arguments of evolution have something in common; it's all hearsay.
Oh okay Mr. Vorpal
class Jabberwock feedJabberwock()
void feedJabberwock() ;)
Wolf
Not so much. Your support for Big Government giving you what you want drives away genuine conservatives. Your support of communitarianism drives away libertarians.
yanno... arguing with Creationists and IDiots is simply insane.
Here's an analogy.
Me: I built this here bamboo bow, finished it last week.
ID: You did not build that bow.
Me: Sure I did.
ID: Oh? Prove it.
Me: Prove it? Ok, well, there's this long history of internet messages on the topic starting long before construction and running through the process of construction...
ID: One, you cannot prove you made those posts, and Two, those posts don't prove you built THIS bow.
Me: O-o-o-o-o-kayyyyy... Well, I have all of this remaining bamboo, all cut from the same stalk...
ID: Since bamboo reproduces by budding, you have no way of proving the bamboo in the bow comes from the same stalk as the extra bamboo you claim you have - all you can say is that the bow's bamboo grew from the same plant. Moreover, you cannot prove you didn't get the bamboo from the same source that you got the finished bow.
Me: DAMMIT. OK, look... see these tiny tool-marks left over from the sanding process - they are relic evidence left by MY orbital sander
ID: No, those marks are indistinguishable from those left by any example of the same make and model of sander, which are very common. The guy who really made that bow evidently has the same kind of sander you own. You still can't prove you made that bow.
Me: Look, you... I still have leftover Poplar from the same plank I made the nocks and the riser cookie out of...
ID: Hah! Poplar has a very fine and nearly invariant grain, which is why any bowyer would use it in those applications. Moreover, you bought that plank at your local hardware store. They bought it in a lot from the mill. There are lots of planks from the same section of tree in any given lot. The odds are that there are lots of people in your area who own Poplar planks which cannot be ruled out as sources for the material in the nocks and cookie in that bow. And look, add the total length of the cookie and nocks to the length of what you claim is the source plank: they don't add up to the known length of this kind of plank as sold in hardware stores. You are obviously lying.
Me: the lengths don't add up because I had to SHAPE THEM you [expletive]!
ID: well, then, if it's so simple: PROVE it.
Me: I can't - I swept up and discarded the tailings
ID: Yeah, right, more hear-say and speculation. You didn't make that bow.
Me: Ok, sonny jim, look - see this polyurethane varnish surface? see this nearly-full container of polyurethane? wanna bet they match up perfectly on trace element analysis???
ID: Again, you bought that at your local hardware store. Again, lots and batches. That proves nothing. You didn't make that bow.
Me: Ok, one final thing - I'm a fairly hirsuite guy. In common with such, I shed. It is very likely that some of my hair fell into the glue as I was laminating this bow. That hair is in there, and if it has a root-bulb it can be tested, and is definitely mine alone.
ID: Proves nothing - you might have been present as the bow was made... you might have shed a hair in the environment in which the bow was made... you might have shed a hair somewhere else and, as the bowmaker obviously lives near you (he used the same local hardware store as you more than once, as we have already established) he was contaminated by it and the hair fell off of him onto the bow as he was making it. And your reliance on terms like "very likely" etc. is so wishy-washy...
*BLAM!*
*BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!*
Me: and, Your Honor, that's when I shot him.
I don't see where taking you at your word comes into it, in general or from #488 specifically, but do at least TRY to quote accurately and in-context if you do.
I'm tired of biff-baffing the motards. y'all can scuffle over the imminent Prime - I'm going to bed.
What's not to like?
Wolf
No it isn't.
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