Posted on 11/01/2005 8:17:35 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
HARRISBURG — After Alan Bonsell finished his testimony Monday, in which he accused two local newspaper reporters of making up the information that drove the Dover Area School District into a First Amendment lawsuit, Judge John E. Jones III demanded to see a copy of Bonsell's previous sworn statements.
Steve Harvey, the plaintiffs' attorney who had cross-examined the Dover Area school board member, offered to provide a clean copy later in chambers.
"I want it now if you have it," the federal judge said. At the end of the first day of the sixth week of Dover's court battle over intelligent design in U.S. Middle District Court, Jones had some questions.
Bonsell sat quietly on the stand chewing gum and swiveling in his chair as Jones reviewed the man's Jan. 3 deposition in which he denied knowing anyone, besides his father, who had been involved in donating copies of the textbook "Of Pandas and People" to the Dover school district.
After he finished reading, Jones asked Bonsell when he became aware that his father, Donald, was in possession of an $850 check used to purchase copies of the pro-intelligent design textbook.
Bonsell said he had given the check to his father.
Last week, former board member Bill Buckingham testified he handed the check, dated Oct. 4, 2004, to Alan Bonsell and asked him to forward it to Donald Bonsell. Written in the check's memo line were the words: "for Pandas and People books."
"You tell me why you didn't say Mr. Buckingham was involved," a visibly angry Jones said, staring at Bonsell as he read from his deposition.
Bonsell said he misspoke. And then, "That's my fault, your honor."
Bonsell said he didn't think it mattered because Buckingham had not actually donated any of his money. Rather, the money had been collected from members of his church.
But Jones pointed out that Bonsell had said he had never spoken to anybody else about the donations.
The judge also wanted to know why the money needed to be forwarded to his father, why Buckingham couldn't have purchased the books himself.
Bonsell stammered.
"I still haven't heard an answer from you," Jones said.
"He said he'd take it off the table," Bonsell said.
"You knew you were under oath?" Jones asked at one point.
Later, outside the courthouse, plaintiffs' attorneys had no comment on Jones' questioning, and Dover's attorney Patrick Gillen had little to say.
"I won't speculate" about the judge's actions, Gillen said. "I'm confident that he's seeking the truth in these proceedings."
Jones' exchange with Bonsell was the second time the judge has intervened in testimony and questioned school board members on his own. On Friday, Jones asked Heather Geesey about her newly acquired recollection that board members at June 2004 meetings were publicly discussing intelligent design, rather than creationism as reported in the media.
In her deposition, Geesey had been unable to recall details about board discussions during the meetings.
Much of Bonsell's testimony echoed Buckingham's from last week.
Buckingham testified about donations from his church. But like Bonsell, Buckingham said initially, in his first deposition on Jan. 3, that he didn't know from where the 60 donated copies came.
Before Bonsell was forced to defend his past recollections, he spent much of his time on the stand accusing the local press, in particular two reporters — Heidi Bernhard-Bubb, a freelance writer with The York Dispatch, and Joe Maldonado, a freelance writer with the York Daily Record/Sunday News — of incorrectly reporting that board members had said "creationism" at the June 2004 board meetings rather than "intelligent design."
Bonsell said the media continues to misrepresent the case and the concept of intelligent design — the idea that life's complexity demands a designer.
Harvey wanted to know why he keeps talking to reporters, since he doesn't feel they are correctly reporting the facts.
Bonsell said because he hoped "some of the truth would get out."
Before Bonsell's testimony Monday, former board member Jane Cleaver had also testified that board members had been talking about intelligent design at the June 2004 board meetings, but the local newspapers reported they were saying creationism.
However, under cross-examination, she said she was unsure if intelligent design had been brought up at meetings in June or later at the July board meeting.
Whether board members were talking about creationism then is important to Dover's First Amendment battle. Attorneys for the 11 parents suing the district over the mention of intelligent design in biology class say board members were motivated by religious beliefs, one of the prongs used by the courts to determine whether an action violates the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state.
At the Jan. 3 depositions, board members Bonsell, Buckingham, Harkins and Supt. Nilsen all said they did not remember other board members talking about creationism at the June 2004 meetings.
Cleaver, like Bonsell, blamed the reporters, particularly Maldonado, for making up their stories.
"Joe doesn't know how to tell the truth," Cleaver said. "Joe only knows how tell a lie."
Last week, both Maldonado and Bernhard-Bubb testified to the accuracy of their articles. They said no board members ever requested a correction from articles about the meetings.
The legal world adapts itself to the needs of the population all the time, frequently bypassing reality completely. Placing your faith in legal definitions instead of the definitions that actually apply is very 'Johnsonian' of you.
I am not to blame for how the SC has ruled. Funny choice of words - "placing your faith in". LOL
Claiming that few atheists here are worthy of respect is not the same as saying you do not respect many atheists here. I hope you realize this.
I don't realize it.
In case you haven't noticed, ID accepts evolution as a fact.
"Many of my children's teachers discussed their faith in class."
Why on earth would they do that? How is their faith relevant to the subjects taught in the classroom?
I accept evolution as in adaptation. Most people do.
Evolution is a fact and the Theory of Evolution is a theory. This is how they are taught (here at least). The problem is that many creationists do not differentiate between how the theory is represented and how the observations the theory is attempting to explain is represented.
ID, as presented by DI, is not testable yet, so is not a theory but a hypothesis, hardly something that warrants mention in a science class.
Because of lot of students need prayer I suppose.
But it is often mentioned in science class already, at least it was with my kids. Not a big deal really. Evolution should be able to stand on its own.
Purposeful choice of words.
And a very good choice. We all have faith in something.
If you are going to support ID, you should at least know what it teaches. Adaptation, a 4.5 billion year old earth, and common descent. If you support ID, this is what you get.
Michael Denton, author of "Evolution, a Theory in Crisis, has written a new book, "Nature's Destiny," on intelligent Design. In it he says this:
"it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science - that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes.This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school". According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving the suspension of natural law.
Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies."
Behe, the chief defence witness at Dover, has this to say about evolution:
I didn't intend to "dismiss" the fossil record--how could I "dismiss" it? In fact I mention it mostly to say that it can't tell us whether or not biochemical systems evolved by a Darwinian mechanism. My book concentrates entirely on Darwin's mechanism, and simply takes for granted common descent.
So is the Dover school board. And that's why the Discovery Institute cooked up the Wedge Strategy -- not because they believe in ID, but because they thought it would get creationism into science classrooms.
The problem is, there are a few people actually promoting ID as a serious idea, and they know they cannot deny established facts of science, even if they wish to speculate about first causes.
The first statement explicitly says you feel most atheists here are below your respect.
The second statement implies that atheists are equal to you but you haven't been convinced to give them respect.
Which one you choose says a lot about you.
I am really not all that important that you should worry about what I think. Everyone has opinions about people. I just never have found any reason to respect atheists. But it's not like I lay awake at night thinking about them. I just don't see that have much to offer the world. Maybe you could enlighten me.
Am I the only one left arguing this now? And always with the same people. Maybe we have too much time on our hands.
If people can view the evidence and the theory dispassionately it does stand on its own. However, in the case of Dover and other US schools, emotion is being used, quite effectively I must say, to overcome rational discourse. Emotion, however lacking in logic and rationality, will always beat reality in an argument (at least in the eyes of the emotional). This is why the creationists are looking so bad in the court case.
This is also why Phillip Johnson's books are packed full of appeals to emotion and completely bereft of any backing evidence. Even if you have no idea who Johnson is, the arguments you and many other creationists here spout are directly from his book of plays. Johnson is the granddaddy of the DI movement and a contributer to the resurrection of the creation science movement. Since his stroke, he has gone back to his creationist roots. Science is not his strong point, in his books facts are irrelevant and evidence is something to minimize. This perverse legacy is being passed on to creationists of every sect, including you.
The choice was applied to you. I'm a skeptic.
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