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Witness: 'Design' Replaced 'Creation'
AP - Science ^ | 2005-10-05 | MARTHA RAFFAELE

Posted on 10/06/2005 6:13:37 AM PDT by Junior

HARRISBURG, Pa. - References to creationism in drafts of a student biology book were replaced with the term "intelligent design" by the time it was published, a witness testified Wednesday in a landmark trial over a school board's decision to include the concept in its curriculum.

Drafts of the textbook, "Of Pandas and People," written in 1987 were revised after the Supreme Court ruled in June of that year that states could not require schools to balance evolution with creationism in the classroom, said Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Forrest reviewed drafts of the textbook as a witness for eight families who are trying to have the intelligent design concept removed from the Dover Area School District's biology curriculum.

The families contend that teaching intelligent design effectively promotes the Bible's view of creation, violating the separation of church and state.

Intelligent design holds that life on Earth is so complex that it must have been the product of some higher force. Opponents of the concept say intelligent design is simply creationism stripped of overt religious references.

Forrest outlined a chart of how many times the term "creation" was mentioned in the early drafts versus how many times the term "design" was mentioned in the published edition.

"They are virtually synonymous," she said.

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. The statement says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps."

Forrest also said that intelligent-design proponents have freely acknowledged that their cause is a religious one. She cited a document from the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that represents intelligent-design scholars, that says one of its goals is "to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."

Under cross-examination by school board lawyer Richard Thompson, Forrest acknowledged that she had no evidence that board members who voted for the curriculum change had either seen or heard of the Discovery Institute document.

The trial began Sept. 26 and is expected to last as long as five weeks.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: atheism; crevolist; lawsuit; pandasandpeople; religion; religiousintolerance; science; scienceeducation; textbooks
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To: RunningWolf
" I am not a creationist (whatever that is) and I don't deride science."

Riiiiight.

I said don't ping me until you provide physical evidence of the Resurrection. Why is that so difficult for you?
341 posted on 10/10/2005 11:19:52 AM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: BMCDA
This is obviously not the case with an unspecified agent who supposedly did X with unknown methods and for inscrutable purposes. Such a designer is compatible with just about any observation because you don't have a 'bounded' model of the designer as is the case with human designers for instance.

The problem with this statement is that you're a priori assuming that we could understand neither the methods nor the motives of the "unspecified agent." As a result, you reach the untenable conclusion that it is impossible to bound our observations of the putative agent's handiwork.

In reality it is not "obvious" at all. The physical nature of the systems in question tends to bound the solution space to a large extent. Further, human experience with those systems provides a means of understanding the limits of the solution space, as well as a ready-made set of techniques that can potentially be tested for.

No, the reason why we exclude ID if nothing is known about the supposed designer is the fact that it is not falsifiable.

And thus neither is its alternative.

342 posted on 10/10/2005 11:21:45 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
I have repeatedly asked for ANY physical evidence that the Resurrection happened, and I am still waiting.

What kind of physical evidence would you accept of a past event?

Cordially,

343 posted on 10/10/2005 11:26:59 AM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: r9etb
The question in that case would be: could one think of a test to determine whether the results of the cystic fibrosis gene therapy came as a result of random mutation?

Check this out.

344 posted on 10/10/2005 11:28:00 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: js1138

Sorry, the full article requires a subscription, but you can read it at a newsstand. The point is that genes and alleles are being tracked through generations in great detail. The anomalies that would indicate intervention have not been found, but not for lack of looking.


345 posted on 10/10/2005 11:31:59 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
I said don't ping me until you provide physical evidence of the Resurrection. Why is that so difficult for you?

You say many things, most of them about as absurd as this declaration from you.

I said am not a creationist and I don't deride science. But if you are repesenting scientists in the case for evolution, you are making a very poor showing for them.

Wolf
346 posted on 10/10/2005 11:46:02 AM PDT by RunningWolf (tag line limbo)
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To: r9etb
No, the reason why we exclude ID if nothing is known about the supposed designer is the fact that it is not falsifiable.

And thus neither is its alternative.

If by this you mean the TOE is not falsifiable, you are quite simply wrong. The TOE is readily falsifiable. However, no evidence has ever been presented to falsify its tenets in any major way.

It is falsifiable because it makes predictions both negative and positive. It makes predictions about what you cannot find if the TOE is accurate, and it makes predictions about what you should find if it is. So far, nothing has been found that clearly shouldn't be there, and everything that has been found has accorded pretty well with the positive predictions it does make (I'm not even going to bother regurgitating viral insertion studies and fossil strata predictions -- that's been done ad nauseum on other threads and is readily accessible).

347 posted on 10/10/2005 11:49:33 AM PDT by RogueIsland
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To: RogueIsland

r9etb seems to have no clue as to what has been done or what is being done in molecular biology. Every time a gene is studied in detail it yields a pattern of inheritance that fits what would be expected from other lines of evidence and reasoning.

When do we get to zoom in on the designer's serial number, as in Blade Runner?


348 posted on 10/10/2005 11:54:18 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: RunningWolf
Still no positive, physical evidence of the Resurrection.
I'm waiting.

" I said am not a creationist and I don't deride science. "

Not a creationist? Right, we believe that(note I never said YEC). You can't stand science, yet you know nothing about how works. You demand absolute proof from evolutionists but you get insulted when someone asks for just one bit of physical evidence to back up your claims. The height of arrogant hypocrisy.

Still no positive, physical evidence of the Resurrection.
I'm waiting. Don't tell me there is none?
349 posted on 10/10/2005 12:04:44 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Diamond
"What kind of physical evidence would you accept of a past event?"

Depends on the event. I have received no reply at all to my request for physical evidence of the Resurrection though, so it's a moot point.

This isn't, btw, an attack on Christianity but on the arrogance of certain creationists who insist on absolute proof for evolution yet bristle at any request for evidence to support their claims.
350 posted on 10/10/2005 12:04:54 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: BMCDA
No, the reason why we exclude ID if nothing is known about the supposed designer is the fact that it is not falsifiable.

I would say that falsifiablity in the sense of positive verification by direct observation cannot be had in any historical inquiry. Requiring that the postulated entities necessary to origins theories have to be directly observable if they are to be considered testable and falsifiable and therefore scientific would rule out out common descent as well as ID. There are myriad Darwinian hypothetical postulations of past, unobserved and unobservable 'events' that purport to account for present biological facts and data that cannot be directly tested either.

Cordially,

351 posted on 10/10/2005 12:39:45 PM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: r9etb
The problem with this statement is that you're a priori assuming that we could understand neither the methods nor the motives of the "unspecified agent."

Well, that automatically follows from the unspecified nature of the alleged designer. As soon as we have the designer, I don't deny that we can learn about his methods and motivations and make inferences on what we should resp. shouldn't observe.
However, as long as this designer remains unidentified we can't make any meaningful inferences.
And to be honest, I haven't seen that any IDer has in any way identified this alleged designer or ascribed any concrete properties to him.

352 posted on 10/10/2005 1:40:14 PM PDT by BMCDA (Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. -- L. Wittgenstein)
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To: Diamond
But we can directly observe the nested hierarchy which is supported by several independent lines of evidence (cf. Ichneumon's posts).
If evolution were false this pattern shouldn't be there but both scenarios are compatible with some unspecified designer.
353 posted on 10/10/2005 1:42:40 PM PDT by BMCDA (Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. -- L. Wittgenstein)
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To: js1138
Sorry, the full article requires a subscription, but you can read it at a newsstand.

Forget the newsstand -- it's snowing and blowing like a mother here today -- I'm just worried about getting home. LOL!

354 posted on 10/10/2005 1:51:02 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: js1138
r9etb seems to have no clue as to what has been done or what is being done in molecular biology.

Probably correct. Nevertheless, that does not seem relevant to the topic question: can science get the right answer when we know that the answer is ID? The logical consequences of an answer either way are pretty significant to the topic at hand.

Every time a gene is studied in detail it yields a pattern of inheritance that fits what would be expected from other lines of evidence and reasoning.

And thus the usefulness of the example I've been using. What sort of conclusion would a scientist draw from a bacterial genome that included a gene for the production of human insulin?

355 posted on 10/10/2005 2:06:42 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: CarolinaGuitarman; RunningWolf
Not a creationist? Right, we believe that(note I never said YEC). You can't stand science, yet you know nothing about how works. You demand absolute proof from evolutionists but you get insulted when someone asks for just one bit of physical evidence to back up your claims. The height of arrogant hypocrisy.

Looking back on the thread, it seems that you're calling Running Wolf a liar and hypocrite, apparently for no reason other than because he committed the heinous crime of questioning your statements. Perhaps you should hold off on your accusations of "arrogant hypocrisy," Mr. Pot.

356 posted on 10/10/2005 2:11:08 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: wyattearp

sorry, I have been gone all weekend and hadn't checked posts.... you missed my point. Freedom "from" religion and "of" religion are not the same thing. Freedom "from" religion is simply that I may be offended (great liberal word)that my money says "in God we trust" on it... or the words "one nation, under God" is in my pledge of allegiance, and I shall interpret this to mean that I should be free from this religious mandate...hence the secular myth of seperation of church and state. The key to understanding the 1st Amendment is that the founding fathers believed in God as a superior being, in whatever form that that belief may be founded..Catholic, Protestant, Islam, Buddah, Allah... rather than no God, and hence the state "shall establish no religion nor prevent the free exercise thereof"... Not like the Church of England that would burn someone at the stake if they weren't living strictly morally in the eyes of the church, and might possibly later see the errors in their ways...(Joan of Arc...Saint Joan)


357 posted on 10/10/2005 2:32:12 PM PDT by CIDKauf (No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.)
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To: js1138
When do we get to zoom in on the designer's serial number, as in Blade Runner?

Well, we know for sure that the eye is intelligently designed. We have evidence on film that the designer is a little Asian guy who "just does eyes".

358 posted on 10/10/2005 2:36:18 PM PDT by RogueIsland
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To: r9etb; RunningWolf

"Perhaps you should hold off on your accusations of "arrogant hypocrisy,..."

Not if it's true I won't, Mr. Kettle.

"Looking back on the thread, it seems that you're calling Running Wolf a liar and hypocrite, apparently for no reason other than because he committed the heinous crime of questioning your statements."

Maybe it's because he IS an arrogant hypocrite? :)
He IS a creationist, whether it be YEC or OEC or ID; it's all variations on the same theme.


I am still waiting for positive physical evidence of the Resurrection. Why is that so hard to give? Isn't it already proved? Why do YOUR beliefs get a pass and science has to provide absolute proof? Why can't you just say that the Resurrection is based on Faith? I'll accept that, and I'll respect the honesty.


359 posted on 10/10/2005 2:43:22 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: BMCDA
If evolution were false this pattern shouldn't be there but both scenarios are compatible with some unspecified designer.

True, but that also requires you to assume that either a) the unspecified designer deliberately designed everything to look exactly as if it were the product of evolutionary development or b) this designer, in the face of astronomical odds, quite accidentally designed everything so that it looks exactly as if it were the product of evolutionary development.

Neither of those scenarios is unequivocally impossible, but neither has much going for it a a scientific theory. I mean, it's entirely possible we're all living in The Matrix too, and everything we are observing is computer-generated sensory input, but absence any sort of evidence to that effect, it's pretty much a scientific nonsatarter.

360 posted on 10/10/2005 2:45:37 PM PDT by RogueIsland
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