Posted on 01/03/2006 12:12:37 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Also today, Dover's board might revoke the controversial intelligent design decision.
Now that the issue of teaching "intelligent design" in Dover schools appears to be played out, the doings of the Dover Area School Board might hold little interest for the rest of the world.
But the people who happen to live in that district find them to be of great consequence. Or so board member James Cashman is finding in his final days of campaigning before Tuesday's special election, during which he will try to retain his seat on the board.
Even though the issue that put the Dover Area School District in the international spotlight is off the table, Cashman found that most of the people who are eligible to vote in the election still intend to vote. And it pleases him to see that they're interested enough in their community to do so, he said.
"People want some finality to this," Cashman said.
Cashman will be running against challenger Bryan Rehm, who originally appeared to have won on Nov. 8. But a judge subsequently ruled that a malfunctioning election machine in one location obliges the school district to do the election over in that particular voting precinct.
Only people who voted at the Friendship Community Church in Dover Township in November are eligible to vote there today.
Rehm didn't return phone calls for comment.
But Bernadette Reinking, the new school board president, said she did some campaigning with Rehm recently. The people who voted originally told her that they intend to do so again, she said. And they don't seem to be interested in talking about issues, she said. Reinking said it's because they already voted once, already know where the candidates stand and already have their minds made up.
Like Cashman, she said she was pleased to see how serious they are about civic participation.
Another event significant to the district is likely to take place today, Reinking said. Although she hadn't yet seen a copy of the school board meeting's agenda, she said that she and her fellow members might officially vote to remove the mention of intelligent design from the school district's science curriculum.
Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex for random evolution and must have a creator. Supporters of the idea, such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, insist that it's a legitimate scientific theory.
Opponents argue that it's a pseudo-science designed solely to get around a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that biblical creationism can't be taught in public schools.
In October 2004, the Dover Area School District became the first in the country to include intelligent design in science class. Board members voted to require ninth-grade biology students to hear a four-paragraph statement about intelligent design.
That decision led 11 district parents to file a lawsuit trying to get the mention of intelligent design removed from the science classroom. U.S. Middle District Court Judge John E. Jones III issued a ruling earlier this month siding with the plaintiffs. [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al..]
While the district was awaiting Jones' decision, the school board election took place at the beginning of November, pitting eight incumbents against a group of eight candidates opposed to the mention of intelligent design in science class.
At first, every challenger appeared to have won. But Cashman filed a complaint about a voting machine that tallied between 96 to 121 votes for all of the other candidates but registered only one vote for him.
If he does end up winning, Cashman said, he's looking forward to doing what he had in mind when he originally ran for school board - looking out for students. And though they might be of no interest to news consumers in other states and countries, Cashman said, the district has plenty of other issues to face besides intelligent design. Among them are scholastic scores and improving the curriculum for younger grades.
And though he would share the duties with former opponents, he said, he is certain they would be able to work together.
"I believe deep down inside, we all have the interest and goal to benefit the kids," he said.
Regardless of the turnout of today's election, Reinking said, new board members have their work cut out for them. It's unusual for a board to have so many new members starting at the same time, she said.
"We can get to all those things that school boards usually do," she said.
If you poke an IDer enough, eventually they will (probably 99+%) say God is the designer. The aliens or space hippies are a red herring. Somewhere less than 15 billion years ago life arose somewhere, and probably many millions of somewheres. At each of those origin events there is only one question: Did that life arise by natural chemical mechanisms (i.e. Abiogenesis), or was it zapped into its designed existence by a god? These are the only two choices as I see it. The designer of ID is a god, or there is no God involved in the origin of life, and subsequently evolution.
If there are other possibilities, I'd like to hear them.
I actually like bones. I did a lot of years in grad school working with all manner of human and fossil bones; with several classes in evolution, human races, osteology, primates, advanced osteology, anatomy, even animal bones.
I prefer them to be clean and dry, however. Two or three thousand years is just about right.
You clearly do not understand (and I am not sure you want to)
Aw, c'mon C-man. If you were offered the opportunity to go and dig in the hot spot of Africa, I think I'd hear your bags packing from the hundreds of miles that separate us.
I have read that she was a small primate with rickets/arthritis, or something in that vein and that she was not peer-reviewed until several years after her discovery.
You know...Bones of Contention.
I think I understand much better than you'd be willing to admit.
Why are you afraid to admit the designer is God?
Africa? Hot spot? Snakes? You must be joking.
I have figured out a way to do archaeology on the California coast; winter lasts about a week, in a bad year. No packed bags here, sorry!
I think you may think you know more than you do - I am not afraid to admit anything. ID could expose a designer or it could expose intelligence in the form of seeding from another planet. I call them like I see them and in this context - hopefully - dogma-free (be it the dogma of religion or the dogma of materialism)
I've poked a number of these guys. They are so afraid to admit that God is the designer. But it's a good bet that that is exactly what they think. Why? The only answer I can see is political. To admit that God is the designer makes ID a religious concept and that means that it can't gain traction in public schools. But everyone can see the emperor has no clothes on. It's really kind of sad.
Why not punt and come back with something that makes more sense and is not so blantantly obvious?
"ID could expose a designer or it could expose intelligence in the form of seeding from another planet."
Can't you see this answers nothing. It just removes the question from Earth to another planet. No matter how many seedings you try, sooner or later, you get back to the original beginning.
Then what are your choices?
And it just shifts the question from here to there.
Does God have a spacecraft?
"And it just shifts the question from here to there."
And Crick was quick to point this out. He always said conditions may have been better elsewhere.
"Does God have a spacecraft?"
Would he need one? If so I guess he could zap one into existence or get one of his space alien minions to do it for him.
I have read that she was a small primate with rickets/arthritis, or something in that vein and that she was not peer-reviewed until several years after her discovery.
You know...Bones of Contention.
Lucy seems to be a pretty good find. Certainly a very small primate, but she looks to have been bipedal. Somewhere on the direct line or very close. There is a lot of good data there (about 40% complete) and there have now been some 30+ years to digest and evaluate the discovery.
The rickets/arthritis idea does not seem credible. That's the same explanation initially given for the first Neanderthal (from the Neander Valley in Germany, something like 1856). The disease theory was based largely on the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the bones, and was discarded almost immediately. I have never seen anything on Lucy that suggest any such.
And let me assure you, the fossil casts of Lucy have been examined by just about every good paleontologist in the world, along with many folks in related sciences (I examined many of the older fossil man casts in school, but not Lucy). Any of these folks would love to make a name for themselves by finding something the discoverers missed and publishing it--a true "gocha" moment.
I think you can take the recent published literature pretty much at face value. That is not to say there is no contention over nomenclature or exact placement in the family tree, or that new finds may not shed more light on the exact placement of Lucy, but the differences are being worked out with a lot of study and discussion. That's the nature of science.
....you'll probably mistake her for a broomstick, with measurements like that. ;)
"The humeral fragment from Kanopoi, with a date of about 4.4 million years, could not be distinguished by Patterson and myself in 1967 (or by much more searching and analysis by others since then). We suggest that it might represent Australpithecus because at that time allocation Homo seemed proposterous, although it would be the correct one without the time element".(Bones of Contention, Lubenow, Dec. 1992, pp. 56-57)
Here's the key phrase you should really be bolding:
to protect a religious view from what the Board considers to be a threatThe "remind schoolchildren" part isn't a problem, and the judge (and Constitution)) wouldn't have any problem with it if that had been all the "disclaimer" was. However, what you're "forgetting" is the rest of the testimony and decision, which overwhelmingly demonstrates that the clear intent and result of the "disclaimer" and "ID textbook" was, and I quote, "to protect a religious view from what the Board considers to be a threat". *That* is the part you should boldface when you quote that passage, because it's the key phrase, the one that makes the "disclaimer" unconstitutional. Read the whole decision (instead of the creationist websites and their spin) if you're still unclear.
Noah's Space Ark
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.