Posted on 09/29/2005 3:36:00 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- The concept of "intelligent design" is a form of creationism and is not based on scientific method, a professor testified Wednesday in a trial over whether the idea should be taught in public schools.
Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State University, testified on behalf of families who sued the Dover Area School District. He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea.
"As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."
Pennock said intelligent design does not belong in a science class, but added that it could possibly be addressed in other types of courses.
In October 2004, the Dover school board voted 6-3 to require teachers to read a brief statement about intelligent design to students before classes on evolution. The statement says Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.
Proponents of intelligent design argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
Eight families are trying to have intelligent design removed from the curriculum, arguing that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. They say it promotes the Bible's view of creation.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for two newspaper reporters said Wednesday the presiding judge has agreed to limit questioning of the reporters, averting a legal showdown over having them testify in the case.
Both reporters wrote stories that said board members mentioned creationism as they discussed the intelligent design issue. Board members have denied that.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III agreed that the reporters would only have to verify the content of their stories -- and not answer questions about unpublished material, possible bias or the use of any confidential sources.
"They're testifying only as to what they wrote," said Niles Benn, attorney for The York Dispatch and the York Daily Record/Sunday News, the papers that employed the two freelancers.
The reporters were subpoenaed but declined to give depositions Tuesday, citing their First Amendment rights. A lawyer for the school board had said he planned to seek contempt citations against the two.
The judge's order clears the way for the reporters to provide depositions and testify Oct. 6.
Because 1) I have answered you twice now, and 2) 999 creationists out of 1000 can't state the theory of evolution. Since you wish to be considered one of the ever so rare exceptions, please distinguish yourself by so demonstrating.
Here's a little test on mathematical notation.
2 /= 0.
How many times have I answered you?
"THE ID position?"
The correct stance on issues like an ancient Earth, the common ancestry of organisms, and natural selection can be worked out later, after we've convinced the public that they should be rejecting at least one of these. [4]"The Quixotic Message", or "No Free Hunch"
Well, it's particularly easy to correct for The Flood. An affine transformation yields the most reliable results:
T_correct = A * T_measured + B
where A=1 and B=0 as determined by examining antediluvian pine cones.
Now he's spent EIGHT TIMES as long ignoring it as you did composing it. Aren't you ashamed?
You're rambling a bit, and that makes it hard to follow what you have written.
The teaching of science has nothing to do with religion, and vice versa. If you want to argue that it is important to give children a good grounding in moral religious beliefs, then, fine, I have no quarrel with that. We need a moral framework in order to have a decent society.
The problem is, you're trying to mix religion and science. I specifically chose the example of mad cow disease concerns being irrelevant to the logging industry, because both mad cow disease and logging (forest management) are important issues, and people feel strongly about both of them, but they have nothing to do with each other. Just like science and religion have nothing to do with each other, yet they are both important.
I do feel sorry for you. If you feel that the only way your faith is valid is by "proving" that scientific theory is false, then you have weak faith. That also means that YOU believe that if the world was not created literally according to Genesis, then there is no God, no Jesus, no salvation. It is your weak faith that makes you upset with scientists pursuing science. Scientists do not believe as you do. The faith of religious scientists is not challenged by any scientific data they collect; their faith is strong.
No matter what you keep telling yourself, scientists are not out to disprove the existence of God. We can't do that. We're out to learn as much about the world and universe as we can.
For lawn sprinkler systems, black=hot, white=ground=common; usually.
Notice: I'll be ignoring everything for the rest of the night.
"because both mad cow disease and logging (forest management) are important issues, and people feel strongly about both of them, but they have nothing to do with each other"
Actually they do - I give you the USDA.
You have this backward in that ID posits that that irreducibly complex organisms cannot be the product of gradual development over a long period of time. All of the parts must be present from the beginning, not that it will stop working if parts are taken away. It is the origin of the parts and the controlling instructions that are in question.
Mutations over a long period of time would not account for all of the elements of the biochemical processes for blood clotting, for instance. If it takes 11 chemical reactions, in sequence, to produce blood clotting, what would account for the first chemical reaction?
And what would that process do while waiting for the second reaction?
What would the organism do while it was waiting for the reaction that would trigger the process?
More importantly, what would it do while it is waiting for the chemical reaction to turn off the process?
Where would the instructions for controlling this process reside?
ID is not about change, it is about origin.
ID is not just about the origin of the structure, it is also about the origin of the process control, as well.
Evolution says that all of that came about over a long period of time, by random chance, unguided and without purpose. It would also lead us to believe that somehow all of this randomness can account for a highly sophisticated, complex system coming into existence - natural selection assessing each mutation, keeping "useful" changes, rejecting each "un-useful" change. And yet, how does a random chance process define "useful" and "un-useful"? How does the organism "know" what is "useful" and what is not? It doesn't even "know" what the end product/process is going to be...how can it assess usefulness?
This all begs for some kind of controlling intelligence.
well, vr, he's got you. crawl under a rock and croak. :)
Phooey. You ignore almost everything almost all the time.
Just remember that if you get it wrong, it'll kill you and your entire family. Cheers!
To disarm the bomb, if made in the US, cut the red, white, and blue wires in that order, but first, disengage the tingler circuit.
Hmm - anyone seen VR?
Look, my identity is not wrapped up in whether I can disprove your belief that life came from non-life then after a period of a gazillion years we are now having an intelligent(?) exchange of ideas via the internet.
Nonetheless, I am interested in reading about the abiogenesis stuff you refer to - so I hope to look at the links of the two distinguished posters you mention.
Until I do however - Is your position, then, that "science" has a handle on the origin of life?
Some of us have lives outside this forum.
Me too.
(Or 401 if PH is still around.)
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