Posted on 10/27/2005 1:41:22 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A former school board member who denied advocating that creationism be taught alongside evolution in high-school biology classes changed his story Thursday after lawyers in a federal courtroom played a TV news clip that recorded him making such a comment.
William Buckingham explained the discrepancy by saying that he "misspoke."
Buckingham's testimony came in the fifth week of testimony in a lawsuit filed by eight families who are challenging the Dover Area School District's policy that students hear a statement about intelligent design in biology classes. Critics say intelligent design is a repackaging of the biblical view of creation and thus violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
Buckingham, who led the board's curriculum committee when it approved the policy a year ago, confirmed Thursday that he said during a June 2004 board meeting that the biology textbook is "laced with Darwinism." The clip that was shown later in the day came from an interview that he gave to a news crew from WPMT-TV in York later in the month.
"It's OK to teach Darwin," he said in the interview, "but you have to balance it with something else, such as creationism."
Asked to explain by a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Buckingham said he felt "ambushed" by the camera crew as he walked across a parking lot to his car and that he had been consciously trying to avoid mentioning creationism.
"I had it in my mind to make sure not to talk about creationism. I had it on my mind. I was like a deer in the headlights. I misspoke," he told U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who is presiding over the non-jury trial.
Earlier in Thursday's court session, Buckingham claimed that he had been misquoted in stories from two newspapers that reported his advocating the teaching of creationism to counterbalance the material on evolution.
"It's just another instance when we would say intelligent design and they would print creationism," he said.
When Stephen Harvey, the plaintiffs' lawyer, noted the similarity of the newspaper reports to what he told the TV crew, Buckingham replied, "That doesn't mean it's accurate."
Buckingham moved to North Carolina in July and resigned from the board, citing health problems.
The statement that the Dover teachers are required to read before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution says Darwin's theory is not a fact and has inexplicable gaps. It refers students to a textbook, "Of Pandas and People," for more information.
Intelligent design supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
The trial began Sept. 26 and could last through early November.
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 represented 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.
We may be a little deviant in our whoo-hooing here in Nebraska. We're just a wild bunch generally.
Same as 'newsgatherer'
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re-placemarker
I'll see your placemarker and raise you my placemarker.
hah!
I think you're bluffing.
I'll see your placemarker and call.
You want the full monte or just the python part?
Even though this defendant would likely prefer to include creation in the biology class, the fact remains that the policy and statement of the school board makes absolutely no mention of it.
LOL! The policy of the school board doesn't have to explicitly state anything about creation for them to run afoul of the law - the issue here is that they instituted ID as a stealthly way to illegally inject creationism into the curriculum.
If we needed crooks to admit their crimes in writing, we would have empty jails. Of course they didn't actually say it was about creationism. They couldn't admit what they were doing, because to admit it would be admitting their guilt.
As a practical matter, this witness is not a very important one to either side.
You may wish that were so, but you're dead wrong. This witness has just made the plaintiffs' case - that the school board members, including this witness, intended to bring creationism into the science classes. He's been caught in a series of lies, trying to cover up his admission that he did just that.
Hey, if this bozo was a witness for my side, I'd try to pretend that he wasn't an important one, too. That's all you can do after your side's been caught in an outright lie - try to diminish the relative importance of the "mis-speaker."
I think the statement was changed over the summer to remove any mention of the pandas book. Maybe you need to keep up on the story.
You seem to have a scoop. If a Panda-less revised statement came out over the summer, it was too late and has been utterly ignored. I went Googling for it and couldn't find it. The only one I can find anyone discussing is what you would call the original.
So now you're admitting that the school board members keep changing their story?
I think it was in June of this year. i think it is also part of the court record.
Dover Area School District officials changed a statement read in January and June to ninth-grade biology students, but the revision was not approved by the school board.There could be two reasons this move hasn't changed the debate. One, the school board hasn't approved it. Two, it changes "Pandas and People" to "other resources." The "other resources" are no doubt still the 60 copies of "Pandas and People." Big whoop.A phrase was added to reflect what officials say were books critical of intelligent design that were donated to the library.
The paragraph that was changed read: "Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves."
Dover attorneys said the revised paragraph now says that "other resources" are also available in the library.
OK, the "other resources" are advertised to include stuff critical of ID. I should absorb my own pasted material better.
Dots seems to know more about some of the board members than they know about themselves. They seem to be copying their testimony from the campaign speeches of Admiral Stockdale: "Who am I? why am I here?"
I am seeing this "balkanization" firsthand in my own neighborhood. I live in the neighborhodd where I teach so I get it from mulitple perspectives. I have seen people change and not for the better. I have to wonder why people with 30 foot motorhomes, 4000 square foot houses, 3 or 4 nice cars, big yards, good kids, nice jobs, and who can afford to go on vacations to a lot of places (and often too) I'll never be able to go to, can still find so much to complain about like a few of the people who live around here. It has to be THEIR way or the highway. I get my way probably less than 1% of the time. I prefer to work with people, not against them.
I wish everything didn't have to be so political nowadays. I'm just lucky that I have parents of my students who give me a little leeway and then I do the same. They are patient with my mistakes as I am with them. I try to solve most problems in five minutes or less like my little first graders do.
The schools are the heart and soul of the community where I grew up and pretty much are THE town where my mother and father grew up, providing about the only stable employment in the area.
I am keeping my comments brief here because I usually go on and on about something like this. But my fight is not in other areas, it's in my own area and where I'll be more vocal.
I get sad when I see the teaching profession being lessened through multiple avenues--1 being teachers who do the profession disservice through various ways, 2 being those who encourage and create a climate of disrespect towards it, and 3 being the overpoliticization from all sides on certain things. Yes, there's more, but that's all I will say.
I love teaching and feel fortunate that at least I get to see the positives among a society that emphasizes the negative. I get to give and hear compliments from wonderful parents too. When you see that excitement from learning something new or the enthusiasm generated when one of my students reaches a second grade level, it makes it all worth it. I have seen literal miracles in my own classroom that defy explanation (more of the "proof" of God to me).
I have learned a GREAT deal from some of the great people on FR. I have changed my approach on some things. I learn a lot even from those who disagree with me. Sometimes I have even developed a respect for some of them.
Back to the subject a little bit. I still and always will be a strict creationist, BUT I have never had any problem with evolution and do think that some of it has merit, being man's way of understanding God's processes (as much of science is). I do believe that God does inspire some to discover new things. Besides, I'm more concerned with where I'm going than where I've been.
I appreciate your posts Ichneumon and I learn from you at times even when I don't agree with you. You give food for thought.
And yes, I was really being "brief.":) I can write for much longer than this. I had many more points to make, but won't.
My wife wants to see the full monte, I'll stay out of it.
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