Posted on 09/22/2005 6:53:07 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based nonprofit that describes itself as a "nonpartisan policy and research organization," recently issued a policy position against Dover in its upcoming court case.
John West, associate director of Discovery's Center for Science & Culture, calls the Dover policy "misguided" and "likely to be politically divisive and hinder a fair and open discussion of the merits of intelligent design."
Eleven parents filed a federal suit last December, about two months after the school board voted to include a statement about intelligent design in its ninth-grade biology classes.
Intelligent design says living things are so complicated they had to have been created by a higher being, that life is too complex to have developed through evolution as described by biologist Charles Darwin.
The parents, along with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union, said the board had religious motives for putting the policy in place.
The non-jury trial is expected to start in Harrisburg Sept. 26.
No surprise: The school board's attorney, Richard Thompson, said he isn't surprised the Discovery Institute has distanced itself from the school board's stance.
"I think it's a tactical decision they make on their own," said Thompson, top attorney with Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, a law firm that specializes in cases related to the religious freedom of Christians.
Though the Discovery Institute promotes the teaching of intelligent design, it has been critical of school boards that have implemented intelligent design policies, Thompson said.
Discovery Institute's Web site offers school board members a link to a video titled "How to Teach the Controversy Legally," referring to the organization's opinion that there is a controversy over the validity of the theory of evolution.
The video doesn't specifically mention teaching intelligent design.
But Discovery Institute is the leading organization touting intelligent design research and supporting the scientists and scholars who want to investigate it.
Dover is the only school district that Discovery has publicly spoken out against. West said that's because they mandated the policy. Discovery Institute supports teaching intelligent design, but not requiring it through a school board policy.
He said there are few proponents of intelligent design who support the stand Dover's board has taken because the district has required the reading of a statement that mentions intelligent design and directs students to an intelligent design textbook.
"They really did it on their own and that's unfortunate," West said.
The "bad policy" has given the ACLU a reason to try to "put a gag order" on intelligent design in its entirety, he said.
Discovery also spoke out against Pennsylvania legislators who wanted to give school boards the option of mandating the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution.
Avoiding politics: Teaching intelligent design is not unconstitutional, but the institute doesn't support the Dover school board's stand because it doesn't want intelligent design to become a political issue, said Casey Luskin, program officer in the Public Policy and Legal Affairs department at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.
He said the Discovery Institute is "not trying to hinder their case in court," but the organization wants intelligent design to be debated by the scientific community, not school boards.
Lawyer: Won't hinder case: Thompson said the Discovery Institute's noninvolvement in the trial won't hinder Dover's case because "the judge is going to look at the policy ... not who is in favor of it on the outside."
But the institute has been a hindrance to the school district's attempts to find "scientific" witnesses to testify about intelligent design, Thompson said.
Though Discovery representatives said they have never been in support of Dover's policy, Thompson said the organization's unwillingness to get involved in the trial became evident after it insisted that some of its fellows -- who were lined up to testify -- have their own legal representation, instead of the Thomas More Center, which bills itself as "The Sword and Shield for People of Faith."
Some of the Discovery Institute's intelligent design supporters backed out of testifying, even after Thompson told them they could have their own legal representation if they wanted, Thompson said.
"It was very disappointing" that the institute would prevent its members from testifying, Thompson said.
But he still found some willing Discovery fellows to testify that intelligent design is not a religious movement: Michael Behe from Lehigh University and Scott Minnich from the University of Idaho.
West said Discovery fellow Charles Thaxton is also slated to testify.
Try something like Hooters, but with Fox News instead of football games on the TV. Provide all seats with earphones for listening to Rush. And Internet access, so we can freep all the time.
Interesting thought, though I can't quite see the appeal for my female followers (which I'm sure there are many!). Perhaps a room in the back with male strippers, or something. Should I route the internet access to that back room too? Freeping and strippers! Come to my house of worship!
They will be the Hooters girls -- or acolytes of the goddess. Their reward, in addition to serving you, will be to serve drinks to your male followers. And other things ...
Materialist Evolutionist-a non-teleological position that affirms that only apparent, not real design, exists in the abiotic and biotic realms. Causes for the creation and subsequent development of these realms are attributed only to natural processes."Weak" Deistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms recognition, but not empirical detectability of real design in the abiotic realm by a transcendent, Deistic Being who has causally acted only during its initial formation. Natural processes are the only factors that have brought about and shaped biological complexity during the past 4.5 billion years.
"Weak" Theistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms the recognition, but not empirical detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed biological complexity via universal common ancestry during the past 4.5 billion years.
Corporeal Design-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the biotic realm by a being(s) with physical bodies, having designed biological complexity at some point during the past 4.5 billion years, with or without using universal common ancestry (e.g., panspermia and Raelianism, respectively).
Intrinsic Design-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and/or biotic realm by a Being who is wedded to/one with the universe, and who has causally acted since its initial formation, having designed biological complexity via universal common ancestry during the past 4.5 billion years.
"Strong" Deistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic realm by a transcendent, Deistic Being who has causally acted only during its initial formation. Natural processes are the only factors that have brought about and shaped biological complexity during the past 4.5 billion years.
"Strong" Theistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed biological complexity via universal common ancestry during the past 4.5 billion years.
Old-Earth Creationism-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed discontinuous biological complexity during the past 4.5 billion years.
Young-Earth Creationism-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed discontinuous biological complexity approximately 6,000 years ago. As mentioned above, ID is not included among the teleological positions in Table 1 or Figure 2. Its definition is given here, followed by a rationale for its location on the Nested Hierarchy of Design
Intelligent Design-a teleological position that affirms recognition and empirical detectability of real design in the abiotic and/or biotic realms.
Who Believes What? Clearing up Confusion over Intelligent Design and Young-Earth Creationism
Philosophically speaking, a telic assumption is made a priori by almost all with only one exception – i.e. materialism…
Noodles from Outer Space
TOKYO-September 22, 2005 - A Japanese instant noodle maker will be shooting a far-out commercial.
The TV spot for Cup Noodle instant ramen will be filmed on the International Space Station station next month.
A hungry Russian cosmonaut will be making the sales pitch. A high-definition camera is to be sent to the space station in a couple of weeks.
The filming will be directed from Russia's Mission Control Center outside Moscow.
The Japanese space agency says the camera will be left aboard the space station in hopes it will be used for future commercials.
The Cup Noodle ad is set to air in November in Japan.
Does God type messages to you that show up on your computer monitor?
Nah. Just a tactical retreat. They realize overt teaching of "intelligent design" isn't going to get past the courts. So they're now pushing for "criticisms of evolution" in the hope that for that time being it will pass constitutional muster.
Then, they hope, if there's a change on SCOTUS, they'll try to push through full-blown ID.
Well, we have an interesting allegoric creation story from science that states a Blind Watchmaker accidentally created a universe that contains a Blind Gameskeeper (who likes to be called ‘natural selection’ ) and killed accidentally so that we may live ; )
Watch out because the Blind Gameskeeper can kill you with his ‘noodly appendage’ if you don’t believe this story… I’m just kidding, he is actually; blind, deaf, and very stupid… but hey, that’s science.
The time has come to take seriously the fact that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day. In particular, we must recognize our biological past in trying to understand our interactions with others. We must think again especially about our so-called “ethical principles.” The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no [ethical] justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will.... In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place.
Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, ed. J. E. Hutchingson (Orlando, Fl.: Harcourt and Brace, 1991).
It has been said that Natural Selection “… is empirically, that is, scientifically, meaningless, but it makes a pretty metaphor. It originated in a categorical error parading as an analogy. For the past 150 years, it has deluded unthinking simpletons into mistaking it for a real phenomenon, when it is nothing but a collective anthropomorphization of non-specified natural causes of mortality presented as a mystical, animist 'presence' possessing the intelligence and powers of discrimination necessary to make actual choices, i.e., 'selections'. As such it may be accurately summed up as a childish religious mystique, that is, as a superstition for the godless.” If the universe and humans are the happenstance result of a Blindwatchmaker, than “Natural Selection is the Blind Gameskeeper (he works on the Estate of the Blind Watchmaker), and he kills everything he catches. Natural Selection is a synonym for bad luck, misfortune, and getting the pointy end of the stick.”
But… But… This also could be due to the ‘noodly string theory’ and all the appendages (or universes) which formed due to the ‘noodly string theory’ ; )
There's the whole god/goddess distinction thing. At least, I hope there is! ;o)
I think you mean the "Chamber of Contemplation." (Gotta strike the right note.)
Well, when you're the one true divine being, you don't fault people for getting your gender wrong. Or maybe you do. I'm not sure yet.
Be carefull. When they are hustling for tips they can bump your hand and cause a double post.
Be carefull. When they are hustling for tips they can bump your hand and cause a double post.
I have always subscribed to the idea that if there were no God, we would have to invent Him.
I don't know why but when I use that phrase, I always start thinking about the South Pacific Islander Cargo Cult Religions that sprang up during WWII. What amazing readjustments they must have had to undergo in their belief systems.
DAWKINS: (snip)"…But yet we have this gathering together of genes into individual organisms. And that reminds me of the illusion of one mind, when actually there are lots of little mindlets in there, and the illusion of the soul of the white ant in the termite mound, where you have lots of little entities all pulling together to create an illusion of one. Am I right to think that the feeling that I have that I'm a single entity, who makes decisions, and loves and hates and has political views and things, that this is a kind of illusion that has come about because Darwinian selection found it expedient to create that illusion of unitariness rather than let us be a kind of society of mind?"PINKER: "It's a very interesting question. Yes, there is a sense in which the whole brain has interests in common in the way that say a whole body composed of genes with their own selfish motives has a single agenda. In the case of the genes the fact that their fates all depend on the survival of the body forces them to cooperate. In the case of the different parts of the brain, the fact that the brain ultimately controls a body that has to be in one place at one time may impose the need for some kind of circuit, presumably in the frontal lobes, that coordinates the different agendas of the different parts of the brain to ensure that the whole body goes in one direction. In How the Mind Works I alluded to a scene in the comedy movie All of Me in which Lily Tomlin's soul inhabits the left half of Steve Martin's body and he takes a few steps in one direction under his own control and then lurches in another direction with his pinkie extended while under the control of Lily Tomlin's spirit. That is what would happen if you had nothing but completely autonomous modules of the brain, each with its own goal. Since the body has to be in one place at one time, there might be a circuit that suppresses the conflicting motives…"(end snip)
worshipful placemarker
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.