...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.
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.
You know, given your enormous difficulties with basic reading comprehension, you have an incredibly inapt screen name...
No, "the arguments of evolution" are not "all hearsay" -- if you can actually believe that after the vast amounts of evidence which have been cited here, then you're a perfect example of the saying, "there are none so blind as he who will not see".
Furthermore, your (mis)understanding of the court exchange you quoted reveals a gross inability to grasp the material. It also reveals your complete willingness to be a shill for viciously dishonest ID-bloggers, since you are just emptily parroting their misguided attack on Forrest using that very same passage. Every try to think for yourself?
Here, learn what you utterly failed to understand on your own: The DI's Dishonest Attacks on Barbara Forrest.
I am becoming more and more utterly disgusted with the dishonest, very unChristian behavior of the creationists/IDers. The lies, unjustifiable personal attacks, and misrepresentations of facts reveal far more about you folks than you'll ever realize.