Ha! I knew he had to be there at Darwin Central somewhere!
Posted on 11/08/2005 4:17:17 AM PST by PatrickHenry
For the past six weeks, the debate over evolution and intelligent design has played out in a Pennsylvania courtroom.
Today, Kansas gets the national spotlight back — and with it, the possibility of a federal lawsuit here.
“What’s going on in Kansas,” said Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biologist, “is much more radical and much more dangerous to science education” than the contested decision in Dover, Pa., to mandate the teaching of “intelligent design” in public school science classes.
Intelligent design speculates that the world is too complex to have evolved without the help of an unknown designer — an alien, perhaps, or God. Such teachings in public schools, the ACLU says, violate constitutional restrictions on the separation of church and state.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” said T. Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, when asked if the new science standards Kansas is expected to adopt today could be vulnerable to litigation.
An official with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which helped defend the Dover school board, said Kansas should be able to avoid legal scrutiny. Casey Luskin said the standards here critique evolution, but they don’t promote intelligent design.
“It’s definitely a different issue in Kansas” than in Pennsylvania, Luskin said.
‘More radical’
It’s a different battle, perhaps, but definitely the same war. Many of the participants in the Pennsylvania trial are veterans of the Kansas evolution debates, and are keeping a close eye on today’s meeting of the Kansas Board of Education.
Miller, for example, testified in the Pennsylvania trial against intelligent design. He came to Kansas in 2000 to campaign against conservative school board members the last time the evolution debate flared up here.
The new Kansas standards literally change the definition of science, he said, so that natural explanations aren’t necessary to explain natural phenomena. That opens the door, he said, for astrology to be taught in public school classrooms.
“Is this what proponents on the Kansas Board of Education have in mind?” Miller asked.
Michael Behe, a Lehigh University scientist, wrote “Darwin’s Black Box” — a touchstone text of the intelligent design movement. He testified in Pennsylvania, and before the Kansas Board of Education when it held hearings on the science standards.
“I think having students hear criticisms of any theory is a great idea,” Behe said. “I think in one respect, it’ll mean it’s permissible to question evolution. For odd historical reasons, questioning evolution has been put off-limits. If Kansas can do it, it can be done elsewhere.”
More evolution?
Luskin agreed.
“In contrast to what everybody has said, Kansas students will hear more about evolution and not less about evolution,” he said. “This is a victory for people who want students to learn critical thinking skills in science.”
But Gunn noted that the vast majority of scientists believed in evolution as a proven explanation for the origins of life. The “handful” who don’t, he said, have resorted to making their case through politics instead of through traditional scientific methods.
“Do we teach both sides of the controversy on astrology in science class? Do we teach both sides of phrenology?” Gunn said. “This is not a scientific controversy, it’s a political controversy.”
Testimony in the Pennsylvania trial wrapped up on Friday. A ruling in that case is expected in January.
they also rewrite the definition of science, holding that it no longer is limited to searching for natural explanations for natural phenomena.
I can't wait for the trial. The cross will make Dover look sensible.
Monday.
...they also rewrite the definition of science, holding that it no longer is limited to searching for natural explanations for natural phenomena.
Scientific criticisms? Like:
ID is the result of embracing all the evidence, including the statistical probability evidence. Creationism has never denied a single shred of evidence, and no evidence ever found has in any way undermined special creation. The genitic code is a guiding plan to specifically prevent evolution, and it works really well [post #194, this thread].I can hardly wait.
"The Biblical Astronomer was originally founded in 1971 as the Tychonian Society, on the premise that the only absolutely trustworthy information about the origin and purpose of all that exists and happens is given by God, our Creator and Redeemer, in his infallible, preserved word, the Holy Bible. All scientific endeavor which does not accept this revelation from on high without any reservations, literary, philosophical or whatever, we reject as already condemned in its unfounded first assumptions. "
Evidence for alternate universes.
Might take longer. The right group of parents has to be selected as plaintiffs, and the right lawyers need to come forward. (I hope it's not the ACLU this time.) It may have already been in the works, anticipating the vote, and if so the suit may come as soon as tomorrow. Or it could take a month or more.
Also, there may need to be some formality before the school board's action is final. The suit can't get filed before then. Patience, grasshopper. We will most definitely have a good supply of threads in which to play.
Entropy and the New World Order
This paper shows that a humanistic government violates the second law of thermodynamics and must collapse on itself with the most likely scenario that 39% of the world's resources and population will be destroyed each time it is attemped.
Ha! I knew he had to be there at Darwin Central somewhere!
" In the Copernican and Darwinian Revolutions lie hidden far more consequences than those hinted at above. For example, the “Green Revolution,” an attempt to alleviate hunger by hybridizing high-yield crops has fallen flat on its evolutionary face because none of the hybrids can survive for more than a handful of generations"
Seems as if TimeCube may have a competitor.
Specific, quantitative predictions! Must be science.
No, it's either tomorrow (if the Board's vote is final today), or it will be the day after the vote is final (whenever that is). If it doesn't happen the day after finality, that means it wasn't all ready to go, and in that case it will take at least a week or two to get things lined up.
Our last assumption is that if God made the constellations for the gospel reason, then a figure should reflect what its name suggests. Indeed, textbooks on the constellations flatly state that the signs do not reflect what their names signify. The main reason why such a statement can pass as fact today is because of the widespread belief in the myth of evolution.
If I read this right, they're saying the astrological names of the constellations are biblically correct and that it's all because of evolution that we think that they are just mythological names. Priceless.
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It's comedy gold. I haven't laughed as much since the last time I visited Engrish.com.
Teach the controversy!
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