Posted on 11/22/2005 12:44:07 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.
In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.
The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.
For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."
University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."
This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.
The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.
The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."
Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.
One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."
And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.
How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.
Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.
Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.
Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.
Sir, I am beyond joking with you. I am in an interracial marriage, and I am also part Jewish. I take Sam Francis racist and anti-semitic crap seriously. Either you come clean, or I will consider you no better than David Duke.
You can start by doing a search on this thread for "Ichneumon", and stop on any post that is more than one screenful (and contains stuff that doesn't look very familiar to you). Click on the links. That should keep you busy for a while. If not, check Patrick Henry's List-o-links (there is a post linking that somewhere in here). Once you get through with that, try www.talkorigins.org. That one ought to keep you busy for about six months.
How's that? (If you need actual hyperlinks, I can do that, but I'm not very good at it and it takes a while).
I believe that the word that you are looking for is "fertilized". :-)
Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
Of or relating to a deity.
Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous.
Of or relating to the miraculous.
That's a dictionary definition, and it does not say a thing about "outside of our ability to observe, test, and replicate." It may imply as much, but scince science is "agnostic," it cannot be ruled out. Maybe we can't observe it now. That doesn't mean we never can or will.
Intelligent design is not by definition "supernatural." Intelligent design is well within the grasp of science and in fact exemplifies what science is about. The first hypothesis could not be made without intelligent design. It is not unreasonable or unscientific to attribute predictable processes to the result of intelligent design.
You'll have the strain the meaning of science beyond usefulness or reject large portions of evolutionist thinking if you honestly think intelligent design is unworthy of scientific merit and subject to pure speculation about the "supernatural."
The evidence for intelligent design is largely, if not completely, circumstantial, inferential evidence. That does not make it "unscientific."
Given your level of English usage, you perhaps still do not understand the original point.
I will try to spell it out. The comparison to horse feces was that it was better than ID. The idea wasn't that horse feces was a particularly good study in science. Indeed, it was chosen for precisely the opposite effect. Only that the most silly and ridiculous items, horse feces, diaper rash, and Voodoo, still are better than ID.
If you want real science, then go back to the original thread, here,, and read the citations: natural selection” about 14,000 references, “Mutation” gets 40,000. “Speciation” gets 5,000. “Human origins” gets 22,000.
At least try to read something!!!!!
Probably because it's in his nature not to his advantage.
Staying on topic means "getting defensive." That's why an old objectionable quote from your home page means more, and is more demonstrative of the point at hand, than a cogent argument as to why evolutionism is the only point of view worthy of consideration by "true science."
People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon.... This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth. -- Martin Luther
Then you're being foolish. You see quotes from Sam Francis posted at sites like Stormfront. We don't need that kind of crap around here.
I don't recall you ever posting it on the threads either. However, when this whole thing started, I clicked on your screen name and saw it in your profile page. That was a while ago, and I honestly don't know why it is such a big deal now. I also do not know why you are denying it was on your profile page, when so many have seen it. Have you been taking lessons from the creationist witnesses in the Dover case?
Ha. We can always define the supernatural down, can't we? Why, "supernatural" is everything we can't explain by natural causes. Well, science is always defining the supernatural. Once its defined by science, it's "natural." The term is more arbitrary than the word "species."
Please give a citatoin for this.
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