Intelligent Design case decided - Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board loses [Fox News Alert]

Fox News | 12/20/05

[snarks_when_bored]

Fox News alert a few minutes ago says the Dover School Board lost their bid to have Intelligent Design introduced into high school biology classes. The federal judge ruled that their case was based on the premise that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was incompatible with religion, and that this premise is false.

[furball4paws]

"Yup. Consider the slime mold, one of my favorite lifeforms on this planet. Sometimes it's nothing but single cells. Sometimes it aggregates and crawls across the ground like a slug. "

That would be the cellular kind like Dictyostelium, but I like the plamodial ones much better like Physarum.

[snarks_when_bored]

Thanks...I didn't bother to check the authenticity of the note, making the (obviously naïve) assumption that a FReeper wouldn't attempt to hoax fellow FReepers.

[antiRepublicrat]

It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

I'm waiting for perjury charges.

[bobdsmith]

Your agreement is meaningless, since evolution does not require any such thing. Single-celled species outnumber all other species on this planet, yet they have evolved for lo! these billions of years.

Evolution still has to explain an increase in complexity. I think we can all agree that vertebrates are more complex than a single celled organism. Okay evolution does not require complexity to increase, but it has so it better well explain it!

[MineralMan]

"I thought Math proved the existence of infinity?"

You did? Math deals with the concept of infinity, but does not prove the existence of infinity. You see, infinity + 1 is larger than infinity.

Math generally speaks of "approaching infinity". Infinity is a concept, not an actual number.

[eleni121]

Darwin never read any Marx...what a hoot! Darwin if nothing else was an avid reader and was well aware of marx and anything that smacked of anti Christian beliefs. He may not have read Kapital but he was familiar with it and his note to marx exhibits empathy and support no matter the "florid" style.

But more on the self centered misanthrope bozo Darwin and his anti Christian beliefs. In another letter to Edward Aveling - and you know who that jerk is--- he goes on

Dear Sir:
I am much obliged for your kind letter & the Enclosure.— The publication in any form of your remarks on my writing really requires no consent on my part, & it would be ridiculous in me to give consent to what requires none. I shd prefer the Part or Volume not to be dedicated to me (though I thank you for the intended honour) as this implies to a certain extent my approval of the general publication, about which I know nothing.— Moreover though I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follow from the advance of science. It has, therefore, always been my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biased by the pain which it would give some members of my family , if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion.— I am sorry to refuse you any request, but I am old & have very little strength, and looking over proof-sheets (as I know by present experience) fatigues me much.
I remain Dear Sir,
Yours faithfully,
Ch. Darwin

[narby]

The Dover school board did not violate the constitution.

Strictly speaking, I think you're right. The Supreme Court has distorted the First Amendment regarding religion for 60 years now.

It's just too bad that the Dover School board attacked science, instead of the overreaching court rulings of the last 60 years. They wasted their time attacking a valid scientific theory (and valid *fact* as well, since evolution does in fact occur). Religion has *always* loses when it goes up against science. Always has, always will, all subjects.

As far as how this court ruled, the judge had no choice, because of the precedents in play. The Supreme Court must address those.

[highball]

The federal court has no business usurping the authority of the local school board in order to require the teaching of one theory over another.

If that's your complaint, would you care to specifically illustrate the ways in which ID qualifies as a scientific theory?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Can there be Intelligent design without a divine being to design it?

Michael Behe is a leading proponent of ID and he says the Designer is God.

You'll find that you're going to have a hard time pinning down exactly what ID is.

Most folks who are anti-evo don't really share many opinions other than they are anti-evo. Many won't admit what they really believe.

[highball]

Darwin never read any Marx...what a hoot!

Will you admit that you were wrong in your earlier post?

Or is this tirade just to distract us from your previous (not to mention erroneous) assertion?

[Oztrich Boy]

People of that time were, Darwin wrote, "ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us."

A conclusion later proved incorrect by the discovery of American Creationists.

[eleni121]

You can wait until hell freezes over and then some - the truth is what it is about the bozo misanthrope darwin. He was an anti Christian and believed that only science - Dr frankenstein redux- could find the answers to man's questions...elitist that he was.

[benjibrowder]

Radiometric dating????

Radiometric dating

By measuring the amount of radiocative decay of a radioactive isotope with a known half-life, geologists can establish the absolute age of the parent material. A number of radioactive isotopes are used for this purpose, and depending on the rate of decay, are used for dating different geological periods.

* Radiocarbon dating. This technique measures the decay of Carbon-14 in organic material (e.g. plant macrofossils), and can be applied to samples younger than about 50,000 years.
* Uranium-lead dating. This technique measures the ratio of two lead isotopes (Pb-206 and Pb-207) to the amount of uranium in a mineral or rock. Often applied to the trace mineral zircon in igneous rocks, this method is one of the two most commonly used (along with argon-argon dating) for geologic dating. Uranium-lead dating is applied to samples older than about 1 million years.
* Uranium-thorium dating. This technique is used to date speleothems, corals, carbonates, and fossil bones. Its range is from a few years to about 700,000 years.
* Potassium-argon dating and argon-argon dating. These techniques are used to date igneous and volcanic rocks. They are also used to date volcanic ash layers within or overlying paleoanthropologic sites. The younger limit of the argon-argon method is a few thousand years.

Other radiogenic dating techniques include:

* Fission track dating
* Cosmogenic isotope dating
* Rubidium-Strontium dating
* Thorium-lead dating
* Neodymium-samarium dating
* Rhenium-osmium dating
* Lutetium-hafnium dating
* Paleomagnetic dating

If you are going to mention dating, please pick from the following.

[staytrue]

the question becomes how did the original matter come into existence?

the question becomes how did the original Creator come into existence?

Both questions have difficult answers.

[saganite]

OK, so you've eliminated the Big Bang theory and Evolution from the science class. Maybe you could just keep going til all that was left is the bible?

[Fester Chugabrew]

ID has no record of carrying out scientific experiments or suggesting experiments or providing descriptive classifications or understandings.

There is no scientific experiment that can be carried out, suggested, or provided, without employing intelligent design.

[Dimensio]

Darwin if nothing else was an avid reader and was well aware of marx and anything that smacked of anti Christian beliefs. He may not have read Kapital but he was familiar with it and his note to marx

Darwin never sent any note to Marx. This just another lie.

But more on the self centered misanthrope bozo Darwin and his anti Christian beliefs. In another letter to Edward Aveling - and you know who that jerk is--- he goes on

The letter was "anti-Christian"? Darwin was declining the dedication of a writing because of his belief that science should mingle in religion. It would help if you didn't support your claims by lying.

Then again, you've still refused to provide a reference to even one of the alleged "500 theses" on Piltdown Man that you claimed exist. Not surprising, since you were lying then also.

[furball4paws]

Hi Fester, whichever one you are. I said "fitness". The rest of your comments are meaningless, therefore :-)

[jennyp]

The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision
- Judge Jones, the Kitzmiller decision

Priceless!