Posted on 01/19/2005 8:52:24 AM PST by FeeinTennessee
Pa. Students Learn 'Intelligent Design' By MARTHA RAFFAELE The Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. - High school students heard about "intelligent design" for the first time Tuesday in a school district that attracted national attention by requiring students to be made aware of it as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
Administrators in the Dover Area School District read a statement to three biology classes Tuesday and were expected to read it to other classes on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which was speaking on the district's behalf.
The district is believed to be the only one in the nation to require students to hear about intelligent design - a concept that holds that the universe is so complex, it had to be created by an unspecified guiding force.
"The revolution in evolution has begun," said Richard Thompson, the law center's president and chief counsel. "This is the first step in which students will be given an honest scientific evaluation of the theory of evolution and its problems."
The case represents the newest chapter in a history of evolution lawsuits dating back to the Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee nearly 80 years ago. In Georgia, a suburban Atlanta school district plans to challenge a federal judge's order to remove stickers in science textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact."
The law center is defending the Dover district against a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of eight families by two civil-liberties groups that alleged intelligent design is merely a secular variation of creationism, the biblical-based view that regards God as the creator of life. They maintain that the Dover district's curriculum mandate may violate the constitutional separation of church and state.
"Students who sat in the classroom were taught material which is religious in content, not scientific, and I think it's unfortunate that has occurred," said Eric Rothschild, a Philadelphia attorney representing the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit.
Biology teacher Jennifer Miller said although she was able to make a smooth transition to her evolution lesson after the statement was read, some students were upset that administrators would not entertain any questions about intelligent design.
"They were told that if you have any questions, to take it home," Miller said.
The district allowed students whose parents objected to the policy to be excused from hearing the statement at the beginning of class and science teachers who opposed the requirement to be exempted from reading the statement. About 15 of 170 ninth-graders asked to be excused from class, Thompson said.
A federal judge has scheduled a trial in the lawsuit for Sept. 26.
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Dover Area School District: http://www.dover.k12.pa.us
Thomas More Law Center: http://www.thomasmore.org
January 18, 2005 6:44 PM
It's easy to tell the creationists. They are the first over the edge.
"Do people like yourself ever consider that your dating techniques might not be sound."
No. But if they aren't, religious people can't then use them to validate religious artifacts (Shroud of Turin or that phony 'James - brother of Jesus' box found last year).
" Meaning that rates of change might have been different back then from now? "
So 6 days may have actually been 4.5 billion years? Yeah - I can believe that.
Over the edge what are you talking about. I'm just dealing with you Eminem like mannerisms, that's all.
Maybe 1% don't support evolution. Curiously the ones that object to evolution rarely seem to publish anything in scientific journals, can't point to any recent achievements.....
"Do people like yourself ever consider that the Bible is written by man and pieces were put in and removed at the hand of man and that the original manuscripts are not available and that you rely on mere mortals to tell you of God?"
Personally, this is exactly why I don't give the Bible much credence on such matters. To assume that an imperfect human beings (something both science and religion agree upon is our inherent imperfection) could translate the message of a perfect Deity without fault is foolish.
False witness seems to be no problem for you.
Are you a Christian or other person of faith?
I wonder, also, how their book and DVD sales are.
What kind of wussy kids would ask to be excused?
(When will WILDTURKEY Retract and Apologize?)
1. Exactly what is the Intelligent Designer? ("Who",IMO, denotes a person)
2. What else is the Intelligent Designer directing besides evolution?
3. Does the Intelligent Designer hold the Human Species at a different level than other Species?
4. If the answer to 3 is yes, then at what time in Earth's History did the Intelligent Designer "design/create" the Human Species?
5. What was the precursor for the Human Species? (Another species or not?)
Thank You for your answers, and again I ask for no flames of either side
LOL. He won't, don't wait. He is no different than Eminem.
Throne is too formal - just call it a Golden Toilet.
"How come a biologist can take a culture of normal bacteria and in a few generations have a new strain of bacteria that can digest materials that are toxic to every other living thing on the planet?"
Not to mention the staph bacteria that have built up immunity to previously-working anti-biotics, or having to get flu shots yearly for the new strains of influenza that have evolved on some chicken's ass in Hong Kong. These have all happened in our lifetimes, not millions of years. Yet, zero acknowledgement of this by the Creationists. Why are they so fearful of observable fact?
Didn't he come back to life again? And again?
This isn't an accurate statement. There aren't any "big holes" in evolutionary theory. Like any scientific theory, the theory will be modified as more evidence comes in or discarded if evidence comes in to falsify it.
When scientists disagree with other scientists about evolution, they are proposing that evolutionary theory is invalid - they are delving into the details.
By the standard you are employing, volcanology has "huge holes" because scientists don't know all of the answers right now. Like I pointed out before, scientists can't explain why the Yellowstone super volcano that erupts every 600,000 years is 40,000 overdue for an eruption. That doesn't mean that volcanology has "huge holes".
I don't mean this in a offensive or rude way, but it concerns me that a PhD in psychobiology would be ignorant of the scientific method. Again, by your understanding of the scientific method, no field of scientific study could ever be taught and your scientific degree would be worthless.
Also, there are no "alternative theories" to evolution that meet the scientific standard for a "theory". ID is not a scientific theory because there is no way to falsify it - whatever evidence that comes in could just be explained away by "that's just the way the designer did it".
Science only deals with the natural, not the supernatural. Science must always pursue a naturalistic path because supernatural is out of its scope.
Why would ID have anything to do with Christianity?
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