Buckingham seesaws on the stand [Dover trial 10/28/05]

York (PA) Daily Record ^ | 10/28/05 | MIKE ARGENTO

[Right Wing Professor]

HARRISBURG — It was surely one of the most anticipated moments in the history of federal jurisprudence, the appearance, finally, of former Dover Area School Board member Bill Buckingham at the Dover Panda Trial. And it did not disappoint. It was, in the truest sense of the word, unbelievable.

Really.

Unbelievable.

At the onset of his stay on the witness stand, Buckingham raised his right hand and swore, or affirmed, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Then, for the record, he stated his name.

"William Buckingham."

By the time he left the stand, six hours later, I almost expected the judge to ask him for a photo ID to make sure he was indeed William Buckingham.

A telling moment came when he was asked about how the Dover Area High School had acquired 60 copies of the book "Of Pandas and People," a brilliantly dumb book that promotes the idea of intelligent design.

In a deposition given in January, he said he didn't know how the district got the books. He said he didn't know who donated the books. He said he didn't ask because he didn't want to know. He said he didn't know who donated the money to buy the books.

So, during his testimony Thursday, Steve Harvey, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, asked Buckingham about the books and how the money was raised to buy them. He specifically asked Buckingham whether he raised the money at his church.

He said he hadn't.

Then, he said he had.

Then, he said he hadn't.

He said he stood before the congregation one Sunday morning and said "there was a need" for money to buy "Of Pandas and People" and if anyone wanted to give, they could.

"But I didn't ask anyone for money," he said.

Harvey asked him whether he took up a collection at his church, Harmony Grove Community Church.

"Not as such," Buckingham said.

So the lawyer asked him whether he got in front of the congregation and asked for donations.

"I didn't," Buckingham said.

He paused.

"I'm sorry, I did say that, but there was more to it," he said.

Anyway, he collected the money — wherever it came from — and then he wrote a check for $850 to Donald Bonsell, father of then-school board President Alan Bonsell.

But previously, when asked by the lawyer about who donated the books, he said he didn't know.

"Mr. Buckingham, you lied to me at your deposition ... isn't that true?" Harvey asked.

"How so?" Buckingham responded.

It went on for a while before Judge John E. Jones III told Harvey to move on.

"You made your point very effectively," the judge said.

Earlier, Harvey had made an even more effective point.

Buckingham said he never read about his adventures on the school board in the newspapers and never talked to anyone about them. He also said he never mentioned creationism at school board meetings or in the press or anywhere, for that matter.

So at the time the board was talking about creationism, Buckingham granted an interview to a Fox 43 news reporter. I guess he forgot about that new-fangled invention, videotape.

On the tape, which you can see at http://www.ydr.com/mmedia/multi/528, Buckingham, wearing the same lapel pin he wore in court Thursday, said he wanted to balance evolution in the classroom with something else, "such as creationism."

Oops.

He said that the reporter "ambushed" him and that he was "like a deer in the headlights of a car" and that the newspapers were all reporting that he and the board were talking about creationism and that he thought to himself, "Don't say creationism."

Double oops.

It was like he had a Homer Simpson moment. He was thinking "Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism." And then he opens his yap and says "creationism."

D'oh!

And to compound the prevarication, he said he was thinking about something the newspapers reported — something he didn't read or talk to anybody about.

It went on like that all day. He'd say he voted for buying a new biology book. Then, he said he voted against it. He said he thought intelligent design was a scientific theory. But he said he didn't know what intelligent design was. He said he wasn't the force behind the board adopting intelligent design and then, confronted with what he said, under oath, previously, he'd say maybe he was.

He said a lot of things, and then he'd say a lot of things that weren't exactly what he had said to begin with.

And then, he attributed his spotty, selective and just plain weird memory to his OxyContin addiction.

Unbelievable.

[VadeRetro]

That doesn't mean he was wrong. It just means he offended a shrill group.

[Coyoteman]

But those on the other side probably think he did well...

[Right Wing Professor]

But those on the other side probably think he did well...

Well, we've seen denial taken to an extreme by the IDers recently, but even they can't possibly believe that admitting you perjured yourself, and blaming it on drugs, looks good.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Quite so. Sometimes the unvarnished truth is best kept to oneself, though, or saved for appropriate circumstances. I once told a supervisor of mine precisely what I thought of him and his managerial/professional abilities. I did this on the way out the door, needless to say ;)

[VadeRetro]

I did this on the way out the door, needless to say ;)

Some people are beyond help and some situations are beyond rescue. There comes a time to stop taking the money for supposedly doing what you know can't be done.

[Junior]

The CrevoSci Archive Just one of the many services of Darwin Central "The Conspiracy that Cares"

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CrevoSci threads for the past week:

1. 2005-10-28 Buckingham seesaws on the stand [Dover trial 10/28/05]
2. 2005-10-27 Former school board member `misspoke' in advocating creationism
3. 2005-10-26 Discovery Institute and Thomas More Law Center Squabble in AEI Forum
4. 2005-10-25 Witness: intelligent design needs boost [affirmative action for creationism]
5. 2005-10-25 On Human Diversity: Why has the genetics community discarded so many phenotypes?
6. 2005-10-25 Plants redesigned to live in outer space
7. 2005-10-25 Y Chromosomes Reveal Founding Father (Giocangga)
8. 2005-10-24 The Spectre of Difference
9. 2005-10-24 "'Intelligent design' supporters gather (700 Scientists agree ID is ""step beyond Darwin"")"
10. 2005-10-24 How Tunas and Lamnid Sharks Swim: An Evolutionary Convergence
11. 2005-10-24 The Science Community's Myopia over Intelligent Design
12. 2005-10-24 Poll: Majority Reject Evolution
13. 2005-10-24 When a worldview competes with religion (Darwinsim is a 'secular religion')
14. 2005-10-24 Yawning
15. 2005-10-23 Efficient Human to Human Transmission Via H5N1 / H9N2 Recombination
16. 2005-10-23 Majority of Americans Reject Secular Evolution (Gallup Poll, Sep. 2005)
17. 2005-10-23 Media stand on sidelines behind cloak of fairness-Far right politicians give Christians a bad name
18. 2005-10-23 Happy 6009th Birthday, All of Creation
19. 2005-10-23 The Greatest Beer Commercial Ever (HUMOR FOR THE CREVOS!)
20. 2005-10-23 Americans Review Evolution, Creationism
21. 2005-10-22 Evolution Shmevolution
22. 2005-10-22 "Intelligent design debate: confusion vs. suppression -""scholars"" worry ID creates U.S. science gap"
23. 2005-10-22 Nonprofit group criticizes proposed Kansas science standards [that attack evolution]

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CrevoSci Warrior Freepdays for the month of October:
 

2005-10-12 Alice au Wonderland 2003-10-09 antiRepublicrat 2004-10-10 Antonello 1998-10-18 AZLiberty 1999-10-14 blam 2000-10-19 cogitator 2001-10-21 Coyoteman 2004-10-26 curiosity 1998-10-29 Dataman 2000-10-29 dila813 2005-10-07 Dinobot 2004-10-13 DoctorRansom 2001-10-14 dread78645

2000-10-13 drlevy88 2005-10-14 EasyBOven 1998-10-03 Elsie 1998-10-17 f.Christian 2002-10-08 FairOpinion 2001-10-26 Genesis defender 2000-10-09 Gil4 2000-10-08 guitarist 2005-10-01 holeinchilada 2004-10-10 joeclarke 1998-10-03 js1138 2001-10-24 k2blader

2001-10-22 kanawa 2000-10-08 LibWhacker 2002-10-25 m1-lightning 2001-10-10 Michael_Michaelangelo 2001-10-09 Mother Abigail 2004-10-25 MRMEAN 2004-10-03 Nicholas Conradin 1999-10-28 PatrickHenry 1998-10-01 Physicist 2003-10-19 Pipeline 1998-10-25 plain talk 1998-10-12 Restorer

2005-10-04 ret_medic 2001-10-23 RightWingNilla 2005-10-08 SmoothTalker 2004-10-09 snarks_when_bored 1998-10-04 Southack 2004-10-16 StoneGiant 2002-10-22 sumocide 2004-10-05 Termite_Commander 2004-10-21 WildHorseCrash 2001-10-23 yankeedame 2002-10-20 Z in Oregon 1998-10-29 zebra 2

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In Memoriam
Fallen CrevoSci Warriors:

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ALS Area Freeper Aric2000 Askel5 biblewonk bluepistolero churchillbuff ConservababeJen DittoJed2 dob Ed Current

f.Christian followerofchrist general_re goodseedhomeschool gopwinsin04 gore3000 Jedigirl JesseShurun Kevin Curry kharaku

Le-Roy Marathon medved metacognative Modernman NoKinToMonkeys Ogmios peg the prophet Phaedrus Phoroneus

pickemuphere ret_medic RickyJ SeaLion Selkie Shubi Tomax tpaine WaveThatFlag xm177e2

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Bring back Modernman and SeaLion!

Glossary of Terms

Crevo:  Creation vs. evolution
CrevoSci:  Creation vs. evolution/Science
CrevoSci Warriors:  Those who take part on CrevoSci threads
Freepday:  The day a Freeper joined Free Republic

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[anguish]

Darn it - you almost owe me a new keyboard for that. Reading the article I had to choose whether to choke and die on the coke I was drinking, or spit it out on the keyboard to free the airways for laughter. Mike Argento is just hilarious :)

[VadeRetro]

Maybe that's why DI pulled out. Could it be even they were appalled?

The "clean hands," this-is-not-about-religion ID people are facing a dilemma. (Never mind the evidence of all their own past statements potentially puts them in Buckingham's shoes.) The people they're firing up are the same people who thirty years ago were buying The Genesis Flood. It's the YEC crowd.

And all the "scientific" IDers can do is fire them up, get them charging into the guns, pull out, and watch them lose.

[Physicist]

I would think that anyone who lies intentionally about these issues cannot possibly really believe in Christianity.

The battle is not between science and Christianity. The battle is between science and Bible-idolatry.

[MineralMan]

"The battle is not between science and Christianity. "

You're right, of course. It's just that some of the YEC folks seem to think that their beliefs are the only true beliefs. Odd, that.

[RightWingNilla]

And then, he attributed his spotty, selective and just plain weird memory to his OxyContin addiction.

To paraphrase the 12 yr old AOLer...OMG! WTF? LOL!!

[furball4paws]

Why odd? Otherwise there'd be no denominations, just atheists and theists. Would that be an improvement?

[doc30]

The battle is not between science and Christianity. The battle is between science and Bible-idolatry.

Good observation! These people have gone from worshipping God to worshipping the Bible! That kind of worship is something even the Bible warns against. They are worshipping the book, not what's in it and it shows by their actions.

[Physicist]

This is getting incredibly entertaining, but it's almost going too far. This attempt to inject religious instruction into a public school was so brazen and inept that it may not serve as a general precedent against the teaching of intelligent design.

The court will decide for the plaintiffs, not because of intelligent design per se, but because of the revival tents and venomous snakes that came along with it.

[Right Wing Professor]

This is getting incredibly entertaining, but it's almost going too far. This attempt to inject religious instruction into a public school was so brazen and inept that it may not serve as a general precedent against the teaching of intelligent design.

Yes, good point, unfortunately. That would mean we'd have to fight the battle again, possibly where the other side is better prepared.

On the other hand, the MSM will surely represent it as a defeat for intelligent design, and that may dissuade other districts from trying it.

[b_sharp]

OK. Larry has been presented. When do we get to see Moe and Curly Joe?

This sounds like a set up by DI to make sure ID doesn't get taught in school until they can 'refine' their program.

Sorry, actually it sounds like a set up by the keystone cops.

Sorry again. The DI is run by keystone cops.

[doc30]

With most of the Dover threads, there's lots of input by Creationist/IDers. Where are they today? Or is Friday their new Sabbath day?

[b_sharp]

"But I might have to change my mind."

Why, is there something wrong with the old one?

It's fun to quote mine

[js1138]

I think our celebration is premature. Based on this testimony, and other testimony to come, the judge can issue a very narrow ruling that the Dover school board intended to promote creationism. He does not have to mention ID in his ruling at all. I'm betting on this.

[js1138]

Maybe that's why DI pulled out. Could it be even they were appalled?

DI has some lawyers who are not brain dead and don't want to be associated with a train wreck.

The other thread documenting their internal squabble indicates they are close to self destruction.

Time for the snake to shed the ID skin and move on to Intelligent Evolution.