Posted on 11/03/2005 11:39:36 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Not long into his cross-examination Wednesday, Dover schools Asst. Supt. Michael Baksa talked about a seminar he had attended about creationism in public schools.
The typically calm and confident administrator started his testimony with shaky hands and a weak voice as he explained to plaintiffs’ attorney Eric Rothschild that Supt. Richard Nilsen sent him to the Messiah College seminar on March 26, 2003.
Baksa had returned to the stand in a federal civil suit over Dover Area School District’s decision to include a mention of intelligent design in ninth-grade biology class. It was Baksa’s third appearance on the stand after being bumped by out-of-town witnesses for the defense.
Knowledge of the seminar wasn’t new. But the plaintiffs’ attorneys used it and other testimony from Baksa and school board President Sheila Harkins, who also testified Wednesday, to try to tie together events leading up to the science curriculum change and show that religion played a role in the board’s decision.
A policy that had a religious purpose would violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
Baksa testified that hours after attending the conference, he went to a Dover board retreat. According to previous testimony, board member Alan Bonsell said at the retreat that creationism should balance the teaching of evolution. Earlier in the trial, board members, former board members and Nilsen testified about notes made during board retreats in 2002 and 2003 at which Bonsell mentioned creationism and prayer in school.
After the retreat, Baksa said, he told Bertha Spahr, head of the science department, that Bonsell wanted to give another theory equal time to evolution in science class.
Baksa received a memo dated April 1, 2003, from then-Principal Trudy Peterman that said a board member wanted to give creationism equal time with evolution.
“My first reaction is, ‘She got it wrong,’” Baksa said, referring to Peterman’s use of the term creationism. But he didn’t approach either Spahr or Peterman to correct the information, he said.
A little more than a year after Peterman’s memo, controversy erupted during June 2004 board meetings when board members, and one board member’s wife, made religious comments while talking about buying new biology books.
During Wednesday’s questioning, Baksa corroborated some news coverage by saying he heard former board member Bill Buckingham talk about creationism, saying that “liberals in black robes” were taking away Christians’ rights and that the ninth-grade biology book was “laced with Darwinism.”
Baksa said Buckingham said something about a man dying on the cross 2,000 years ago but didn’t remember if the comment was made in 2003 during talks about “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance or in 2004 during discussion on the curriculum change.
He also said Buckingham made a comment about the country not being founded on Muslim beliefs but said he didn’t know when that was said.
Earlier Wednesday, Harkins testified she didn’t remember Bonsell talking about creationism or prayer during retreats. She said she heard Buckingham mention liberal judges but didn’t know whether his mention of a man dying 2,000 years ago on the cross came at a 2004 board meeting or in earlier discussions about the pledge.
She also said people in the audience were talking about creationism at the June meetings, while then-board member Jeff Brown talked about intelligent design.
“My recollection is it seems to me I was thinking Jeff was the first one to bring up mentioning intelligent design in the conversation,” she said. “I was thinking Alan, Noel (Wenrich) and Bill got in on the conversation.”
Baksa and Harkins both testified that, at those June meetings, they didn’t know what intelligent design meant.
In August 2004, before the October vote on the intelligent design statement, Baksa and others received e-mail from Stock and Leader lawyer Steve Russell. The district had asked him for advice about the pro-intelligent design textbook “Of Pandas and People.”
“Today I talked to Richard Thompson. . . . they refer to the creationism issue as ‘intelligent design,’” Russell wrote, referring to Dover’s lawyer from the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan.
After court, Thompson maintained that creationism and intelligent design were separate.
Russell’s concern, according to the e-mail, was about various talk for putting religion back into the schools.
Baksa said in court Wednesday that he considered Russell’s words as advising caution in using “Pandas.”
In the summer of 2004, the board decided not to spend taxpayer money on “Pandas” as a companion text. Baksa testified that Nilsen asked him to research how much 50 copies of “Pandas” would cost so the board could then give the information to donors.
Later that year, Alan Bonsell’s father, Donald, and members of former board member Buckingham’s church anonymously gave 60 copies of the book to the district.
Outside court, Thompson said the events simply coincided.
“I don’t think they’re connected,” he said. “I think it’s just happenstance. At that point, I don’t think they were connected. The only reason that’s brought up is because of the case that exists today.”
The plaintiffs’ attorneys declined to comment Wednesday.
Spot on.
I'd think they were a parody if they weren't straight from Chick's pen. Most of the anti-evo posters on FR have about the same intellectual horsepower and knowledge as little Susie; IOW, they think, act, and behave like ten year olds.
Any barbarian can walk into a lab and defecate on the floor. Yes, it momentarily changes the subject. But there's nothing to debate. Just step around the mess. The cleaning crew will deal with it later on, and in the meanwhile we'll just get on with our work.
Oh, a man in a skirt - must be San Francisco.
Well put.
Where else would the creatians get their research from ?
Certainly not from the Discovery Institute ...
"Just step around the mess. The cleaning crew will deal with it"
Nice to be needed isn't it?
And thus Trudy Peterman, in the greatest April Fools' Day prank in human history, set in motion the ID controversy.
;) Is that like enlisting the ACLU to silence dissent?
Is that like Darrow asking for creation and evolution both to be taught?
Is that anything like using tax money to spread the darwinist gospel?
Tax money is being spent on education and evolution is the consensus of biology. It's even the accepted position of Behe and Denton, the iconic ID supporters.
Har! Not on THESE threads! One dolt last night was mouth-foaming about "people who worship random selection."
I suppose you reject Christianity, yet could not accurately describe it in a paragraph.
The very first error almost every creationist makes is in believing that the TOE has anything whatever to do with the origins of the universe or the origins of the first lifeform on this planet. I've seen few who know that the TOE does not address either.
That's a popular way of avoiding the extremely difficult and embarrassing task of having to explain the origin of matter or life. However, the non-existence of God requires a non-theistic explanation of the origin of matter and the origin of life. Or do you want to give God a foot in the door? Your buddies say you can't.
Based on that, I cannot see why anyone should pay any attention to creationism in the first place, since it is not arguing against anything real.
But Mineral, you just disqualified yourself from criticizing creationism because you have demonstrated that you don't understand it. You said:
If those arguing the issue do not understand the theory in the first place, then whatever their argument is has no relevance.
Have you not just discarded your own credibility?
Yes it is. I keep Darwin Central running.
Randomly selected?
Why do Chick's "bad guys" appear Semitic?
Many of those Democrats became Republicans due to Nixon's "Southern Stragegy."
Oh yes, you are smarter than all the creationists, which is your best argument for evolution to date. Some of you have become bitter over the years and have lost everything in your repertoire except the ad hominem attack. Therefore I must ask you to refrain from addressing me unless you are able to maintain control over your emotions and conduct yourself in a civil manner.
In any case, what you "believe" and I "believe" and what Joe Average "believes" is irrelevant to science. What you "understand" has much more relevance - try to understand the science behind evolution is before you try to argue against it. There is a lot of science supporting it; I'm more and more amazed by it the more I learn about it. And shy away from creationist websites if you want any accurate info - make sure what you're reading is backed by peer-reviewed literature.
I'm just stating objective facts. You do not know and do not understand the science you oppose. I really don't care about sparing your feelings.
No, he's saying you really DON'T know the theory of evolution. He's not providing a mechanism. The mechanism could be a certain unsuspected class of brain tumor. It could be psychological consequence of religious horror. It could be titanic stupidity.
Of course, it does look funny you don't seem to get ANYTHING right.
I forgot to mention simple dishonesty.
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