Posted on 10/12/2005 10:50:53 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
When Bertha Spahr opened the box containing Dover Area High School’s donated copies of “Of Pandas and People” last year, she also found inside a catalogue from the publishing company listing the pro-intelligent design textbook under the heading of creation science.
Under cross examination this morning in Harrisburg in the First Amendment trial against Dover Area School District, the head of the district’s science department testified she filed the catalogue away with other similar textbook materials.
Dover’s attorney, Patrick Gillen, objected to the catalogue being admitted into evidence, arguing that Spahr had not turned it over to administrators. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III overruled the objection.
Spahr also testified that after the school board voted to include intelligent design in its biology curriculum in October 2004, some members of the community thought that the teachers supported the board’s decision. But the teachers did not, Spahr said.
Other people thought that if the teachers didn’t support the board’s decision, it was because they were atheists, Spahr said. This was particularly upsetting to the teachers, Spahr said, “because two of the teachers are the son and daughter of ministers.”
The trial continues this afternoon with testimony from science education expert Brian Alters, a professor from McGill University in Montreal.
A school district's policy to read a statement about "intelligent design" to high school science students creates misconceptions about evolution, a university education professor testified Wednesday in federal court."I can't think of anything worse for science education than to engender needless misconceptions," said Brian Alters, an associate education professor at McGill University in Montreal.
[snip]
Alters, the professor, called intelligent design a form of creationism because it involves "breaking one of the ground rules of science" - the scientific method - and said that reading a statement about it amounted to teaching.
It is absurd to bring up the topic and not respond to questions from students, he said."It's something that shuts down any form of critical discussion. It's not science, anyway," Alters testified.
And we all know what those questions would be, don't we?
Earlier Wednesday, the school's science department chairwoman, Bertha Spahr, was cross-examined on her prior testimony that the school's science teachers objected to the curriculum change the board approved in October 2004.
She said teachers agreed with the school board's idea that there are unanswered questions about the theory of evolution, but were opposed to mentioning intelligent design in class.
Next question should have been, "Why?"
This cross examination did not help the plaintiff's case since it tends to validate the statement of the school board.
Not saying the defense is going to win, even if I think they have a good case. Can never rely on a judge to actually apply the facts to the law.
"You are an atheist? How horrible. How many dogs and cats have you tortured? I bet you get drunk every night and have wild org!3$ and such. "
Jeeez, why are you still here?
"She said teachers agreed with the school board's idea that there are unanswered questions about the theory of evolution, but were opposed to mentioning intelligent design in class."
Uh, duh! Of course there are unanswered questions about the Theory of Evolution. There are unanswered questions in all the sciences. That's what science does: it looks for the answers to those questions. An unanswered question does not mean the theory is incorrect. It just means that there's more fun work out there finding the answer to the question. More digging of fossils and such.
Intelligent design has nothing whatever to do with science. It's just another name for some supernatural entity waving its hands and causing everything to POOF! into existence. You can't test it. You can't see it. There's no evidence for it. It's simply not science. That's why scientists oppose its use in science classes, where science is discussed. Science studies nature as it is found. It can't study supernatural entities that can POOF! things into existence. That's religion, and they call those entities deities. There are thousands of deities believed in by various religions. Not a single one can be seen, studied, or tested.
I hope my answer has helped you understand that sentence from the post.
Of course. I had to give up those days when my wife caught me. Now I just pound creationists. Oh how the mightily debauched have fallen.
But how about prions?
Prions are infectious agents composed exclusively of a single sialoglycoprotein called PrP 27-30. They contain no nucleic acid. PrP 27-30 has a mass of 27,000 - 30,000 daltons and is composed of 145 amino acids with glycosylation at or near amino acids 181 and 197. The carboxy terminus contains a phosphatidylinositol glycolipid whose components are ethanolamine, phosphate, myo-inositol and stearic acid. This protein polymerizes into rods possessing the ultrastructural and histochemical characteristics of amyloid.
He/she blinded me with science. Good job! Prions are wierd dealies for sure. Scary, too.
Coming to theaters soon:.....
"The Troll of the Living Dead!"
"It seems that evolutionists have accepted the notion that life, even in its simplest forms, cannot be created from non-life because even a single cell organism is tremendously complex"
Well, not really. They don't attempt to explain the original genesis of life, because that's not the purview of the Theory of Evolution.
Other folks are trying to figure that one out. It's a different thing. Evolution scientists are leaving the question open because it has nothing to do with their theory.
Biogenesis is a field of its own. You can look it up on the web and educate yourself. It's quite fascinating. Expect some pretty amazing discoveries in the next decade or so. They'll shock your beliefs.
The creationists are doing their best to increase this number.
Yeah, well...they'll lose that battle. The research is ongoing, fascinating, and, I believe, fairly close to some interesting things.
Time will tell. I just hope I live long enough to see it.
And tiny.
Plus they replicate without DNA or RNA.
"Plus they replicate without DNA or RNA.
"
Yup. And you can't kill them, hardly. Kinda like alien lifeforms, huh?
Mad cow disease lurking everywhere. Who knows? Maybe human aging itself is prion-based. We're just beginning to learn about prions, really. Lots to learn, it seems.
But, what the heck. We'll just teach the kids that Goddidit and that they don't need to learn this false science stuff. After all, the end times are coming anyhow, so what's the point? </TIC>
"Plus they replicate without DNA or RNA.
"
Yup. And you can't kill them, hardly. Kinda like alien lifeforms, huh?
Mad cow disease lurking everywhere. Who knows? Maybe human aging itself is prion-based. We're just beginning to learn about prions, really. Lots to learn, it seems.
But, what the heck. We'll just teach the kids that Goddidit and that they don't need to learn this false science stuff. After all, the end times are coming anyhow, so what's the point? </TIC>
Sorry. Spastic double-click.
Are you saying that it was never part of the ToE or closely associated with the ToE, or that it currently is not?
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