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.
Total non sequitur. We make computers that are vastly smarter than we are, by most measures. But why not? We make cranes that are stronger than we are, cars that are faster than we are, robots that are far more robust than we are. One can easily be smarter than the thing or person under whose control one is. The above logic would argue that Mussolini for 20 years was the smartest man in Italy,
If you're going to spam the thread, could you at least choose something less moronic?
Total non sequitur. We make computers that are vastly smarter than we are, by most measures. But why not? We make cranes that are stronger than we are, cars that are faster than we are, robots that are far more robust than we are. One can easily be smarter than the thing or person under whose control one is. The above logic would argue that Mussolini for 20 years was the smartest man in Italy,
If you're going to spam the thread, could you at least choose something less moronic?
I forgot to ping you two.
So… what is the problem… The way ‘he’ ‘describes NS - or the way Dawkins describes NS?
There are statements so badly formed that they are not even wrong. If you are going to parody something you need to understand it.
Natural Selection is a synonym for bad luck, misfortune, and getting the pointy end of the stick.
What is your alternative view?
What? The humor leaves if someone parodies materialism? Specifically, what is wrong? ; )
Natural Selection is a synonym for bad luck, misfortune, and getting the pointy end of the stick.”
So it's not my fault? Where's my money?
OK, who is "It"?
It originated in a categorical error parading as an analogy.
Evolution states many things that require evidence. The evidence for common descent has convinced Behe, Dembski and Denton, so it is not just a delusion of the anti-God crowd.
For the past 150 years, it has deluded unthinking simpletons into mistaking it for a real phenomenon, when it is nothing but a collective anthropomorphizing 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'.
Do you deny that selection occurs? Do you deny that some individuals leave more offspring than others? Do you deny that there is a correlation between genotype and number of offspring?
As such it may be accurately summed up as a childish religious mystique,
Is the word religion an insult? Are you asserting that a religious idea is automatically false?
that is, as a superstition for the godless.”
Interesting concept here. On one hand science is godless materialism; on the other it is pushing the supernatural. Doublethink maybe?
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.”
The Designer, on the other hand, only kills bad people, like the children and fetuses who didn't happen to be related to Noah.
Hey, but don’t blame ‘yourself’ : )
No. Check out the Gnostic gospels
Incidentally, here's Gregory of Nazianzus's (329-389) mention of the NT canon of his day (ca. 380):
By this time all the heterodox material had been suppressed. The Gospel of Thomas predates most of the NT. It's not the authenticity that was problematic; it was the political line it took.
The problem is that it's too long, and it started so badly I'm not willing to waste my time on the last 9/10. Perhaps you could could give us the main points?
Do the sentences you quoted deny this? What is your point?
Is the word religion an insult? Are you asserting that a religious idea is automatically false?
Who is saying that? Heck, even the Supreme Court has said a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, the court described "secular humanism" as a religion.
Interesting concept here. On one hand science is godless materialism; on the other it is pushing the supernatural. Doublethink maybe?
Errr… What?
The Designer, on the other hand, only kills bad people, like the children and fetuses who didn't happen to be related to Noah.
Ah yes, invoke scripture in the name of science! Thank you Mr. Dawkins… I’ll let your last statement stand for what it is…
If they have any meaning at all they do. But perhaps they are just pointless invective. You decide: does natural selection occor or not?
Ah yes, invoke scripture in the name of science! Thank you Mr. Dawkins… I’ll let your last statement stand for what it is…
I don't invoke scripture in the name of anything other than what it claims to be and what you claim it is. I don't believe the story of Noah is historical, and I find it morally repugnant.
XenuWroteIt Placemark
Uh ... look, we'll call you if we're interested, okay?
I agree--and that's really only an issue for people who insist on such matters being 'historical.'
It is a pity that Thomas Paine, without whom I sometimes doubt there would even be a US today, is not better known. In the present climate (set by a small band of religious fundamentalists), some of Paine's writings are probably too inflammatory to quote. But I'll risk one of his milder pronouncements, all the same:
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel." Thomas Paine
Please--before anyone is offended by the above--bear in mind that Paine was NOT attacking God, or Christianity nor religious belief -- but Biblican literalism, which he found untenable
Thomas Paine was required reading in my high school.
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