Posted on 10/07/2005 7:23:15 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
To keep this all in one daily thread, here are links to two articles in the York Daily Record (with excerpts from each), which has been doing a great job of reporting on the trial:
Forrest cross-examination a rambling wonder.
About the time that Richard Thompson, head law guy at the Thomas More center and chief defender of the Dover Area School Board, started his third year of cross-examination of philosopher Barbara Forrest, it was easy to imagine that at that moment, everyone in the courtroom, including Forrest, who doesn’t believe in God, was violating the separation of church and court by appealing to God for it to please, Lord, just stop.It wouldn’t have been so bad if there was a point to the ceaseless stream of questions from Thompson designed to elicit Lord knows what. He’d ask her the same question 18 different times, expecting, I guess, a different answer at some point. And he never got it.
Thompson, who said he’s a former prosecutor, should have known better. Forrest, a professor at Southeastern Louisiana University and expert on the history of the intelligent design creationist movement, was a lot smarter than, say, some poor, dumb criminal defendant.
Here is a summation of Forrest’s testimony: She examined the history of the intelligent design movement and concluded that it’s simply another name for creationism. And what led her to that conclusion? The movement leader’s own words. They started out with a religious proposition and sought to clothe it in science. The result was similar to putting a suit on your dog.
[anip]
Thompson was in the midst of asking Forrest whether she had heard a bunch of things that some people had said to indicate, well, to indicate whether she’d heard a bunch of things that some people had said, I guess, when the topic came up.
Thompson asked whether she had ever heard a statement by some guy — frankly, this one caught me off-guard and I didn’t catch the guy’s name — who said that belief in evolution can be used to justify “cross-species sex.”
This came on the same day that Thompson grilled Forrest about her opposition to the so-called Santorum amendment to the No Child Left Behind Act that seemed to encourage, sort of, the teaching of intelligent design. Our U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is a friend of the intelligent design people.
He also has a strange obsession with bestiality, commenting that court decisions that uphold the right to privacy would lead to — naturally, and you know you were thinking it — man-on-dog sex.
Dover science teachers testified that they fought references to intelligent design.
Defense attorney Richard Thompson [he represents the school board] said differing opinions on whether teachers and administration worked in cooperation to create the Dover Area School District’s statement on intelligent design comes down to perspective.
"The TOE fails to address what is acceptable or what is unacceptable behavior at the human stage."
Neither does the Germ Theory or Relativistic Mechanics; your point? :)
The TOE fails to address what is acceptable or what is unacceptable behavior at the human stage.
"Neither does the Germ Theory or Relativistic Mechanics; your point? :)"
Evolutionists have a rebellion on their hands, so are you advocating "germ warfare" as acceptable behavior to protect your theory???
Good day. Here's an article from Discovery.org that might clear things up:
The Scientific Controversy Over Whether Microevolution Can Account For Macroevolution
Intelligent Design: The creationism that dares not speak its name, and even the people who speak for it don't speak for it.
Do you other guys believe this? If so, I've got a few questions to ask.
Are you claiming to be hearing this for the first time ever in your [3 words deleted] life?
You sure sound sure of yourself and your position; I'll give you that.
What do you think of Ms. Leakey's comments below? Seems to me, Evolution's "from ape-to-man" story is still being written, and is not as rock-solid as you think.
Anthropologist Louise Leakey Carries "Family Banner"
What is the specific focus of your work on the Turkana Basin Research Initiative?
There are several research questions that we really want to approach. One of them is relating to the sudden emergence of Homo erectus, or our genus Homo, around about two million years ago. Where does it suddenly appear from? Does that tie into Homo habilis? Then the other question is,"What is Homo habilis?" because there's still a lot of disagreement or controversy surrounding Homo habilis."
Another article of interest:
Early humans dressed for dinner
Our early ancestors glammed-up for a get-together. Humans worldwide began wearing jewelery at the same time as groups started meeting up, say US researchers. The finding counters the idea that ’modern’ behaviour swept the globe when modern humans migrated out of Africa.
That's not even much of a quote salad--just the bluff toward one. The "meat" of the article is just that, three quote-mines. This creationist source is using the exact same three, in the same order, with almost the same caveat. With both articles undated, it's hard to say who is stealing from whom. Neither would I rush to say that Probe ministries is stealing from DI, given Johnson and Well's history of cribbing from Duane Gish.
There is no such controversy in science. No one is saying that an actual other mechanism exists or needs to be posited. I think the last person to propose anything other than "microevolution" to account for "macroevolution" was Goldschmidt of the "hopeful monsters" and, no, that's not what punctuated equilibrium is about. IOW, nobody in the last 60-70 years has taken up the other side to make a debate.
Here is the actual full text of the Andrew Simons 2002 paper. It clearly describes "the controversy" as between different models of how lengthening the time scale affects selection pressures, not whether variation and selection are operating at all. I assume the other two quotes are equally "good."
Anthropologist Louise Leakey Carries "Family Banner"
What is the specific focus of your work on the Turkana Basin Research Initiative?
There are several research questions that we really want to approach. One of them is relating to the sudden emergence of Homo erectus, or our genus Homo, around about two million years ago. Where does it suddenly appear from? Does that tie into Homo habilis? Then the other question is,"What is Homo habilis?" because there's still a lot of disagreement or controversy surrounding Homo habilis.
Thanks for the reply.
There are still a lot of details to work out. That's what keeps paleontologists and archaeologists interested and working!
I think the point I was making--that there are a lot of transitional fossils, rather than none as others have claimed--is accurate. We may not know every detail about every part of the tree and about every specimen, but it does look like Homo habilis qualifies as a transitional fossil. And there are many others.
Note also the Leakey's scientific approach: "There are several research questions that we really want to approach." Science does not claim to know all the answers, and sometimes doesn't even know the question to ask. As a result, theories can be modified or even discarded as new data arise. That's just the way science works.
Right now the ape (or rather the 6 million year old common ancestor)-to-man theory looks best. There is a lot of evidence supporting it and none contradicting it.
Hey you are the one who likened "Germ Theory" to the TOE not me. Had to be a reason for the likeness, considering who the evolutionists see as the fittest.
The "Hobbit" was thought to be a new species based upon the way it "looked." Turns out, it was a vertically-challenged dude with a brain impedement.
The Grand Master runs a non-sectarian operation. FSM devotees are tolerated. However, the GM insists that they must wash their hands before entering his presence. Tomato sauce stains are hard to get out.
I haven't researched this one, but isn't there some problem with the study of the "Hobbit" material? I seem to remember various people arguing over who could study it or something, but initially only person really had access. I seem to recall that the bones have not been widely studied or described in a journal or something. As such, you have a few opinions on what it is, but the profession has not yet had a good chance to really test it. Give folks a few years and they probably will have a good idea what the "Hobbit" really is. If it's a "a vertically-challenged dude with a brain impedement" that will be confirmed pretty quickly (and it may already have been confirmed for all I know).
But Homo habilis has been around a couple of decades so it is a bit more familiar to most researchers, and there are a number of different specimens. Folks may not know its exact position in the scheme of things, but I bet they are pretty close.
"Hey you are the one who likened "Germ Theory" to the TOE not me. Had to be a reason for the likeness, considering who the evolutionists see as the fittest."
You were the one who didn't know what the Germ Theory (it doesn't need scare quotes) is. You were the one who doesn't seem to know what any scientific theory is.
But you do make us laugh. :)
That's because, like Darwinists, they are atheist perverts. It's all about religion-bashing so you can have unrestrained sex.
</internet idiot mode>
All of that and much, much more.
DarwinCentral -- not only the Conspiracy that Cares, but a Force of Nature ......
Theories have no beginning nor end just extinction, am pleased to make you laugh.
"Theories have no beginning nor end just extinction, am pleased to make you laugh."
If they have no end... then how do they go extinct? This has to be one of the loonier statements you have made, and that says a lot. Do you even try?
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