Posted on 01/03/2006 12:12:37 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Also today, Dover's board might revoke the controversial intelligent design decision.
Now that the issue of teaching "intelligent design" in Dover schools appears to be played out, the doings of the Dover Area School Board might hold little interest for the rest of the world.
But the people who happen to live in that district find them to be of great consequence. Or so board member James Cashman is finding in his final days of campaigning before Tuesday's special election, during which he will try to retain his seat on the board.
Even though the issue that put the Dover Area School District in the international spotlight is off the table, Cashman found that most of the people who are eligible to vote in the election still intend to vote. And it pleases him to see that they're interested enough in their community to do so, he said.
"People want some finality to this," Cashman said.
Cashman will be running against challenger Bryan Rehm, who originally appeared to have won on Nov. 8. But a judge subsequently ruled that a malfunctioning election machine in one location obliges the school district to do the election over in that particular voting precinct.
Only people who voted at the Friendship Community Church in Dover Township in November are eligible to vote there today.
Rehm didn't return phone calls for comment.
But Bernadette Reinking, the new school board president, said she did some campaigning with Rehm recently. The people who voted originally told her that they intend to do so again, she said. And they don't seem to be interested in talking about issues, she said. Reinking said it's because they already voted once, already know where the candidates stand and already have their minds made up.
Like Cashman, she said she was pleased to see how serious they are about civic participation.
Another event significant to the district is likely to take place today, Reinking said. Although she hadn't yet seen a copy of the school board meeting's agenda, she said that she and her fellow members might officially vote to remove the mention of intelligent design from the school district's science curriculum.
Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex for random evolution and must have a creator. Supporters of the idea, such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, insist that it's a legitimate scientific theory.
Opponents argue that it's a pseudo-science designed solely to get around a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that biblical creationism can't be taught in public schools.
In October 2004, the Dover Area School District became the first in the country to include intelligent design in science class. Board members voted to require ninth-grade biology students to hear a four-paragraph statement about intelligent design.
That decision led 11 district parents to file a lawsuit trying to get the mention of intelligent design removed from the science classroom. U.S. Middle District Court Judge John E. Jones III issued a ruling earlier this month siding with the plaintiffs. [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al..]
While the district was awaiting Jones' decision, the school board election took place at the beginning of November, pitting eight incumbents against a group of eight candidates opposed to the mention of intelligent design in science class.
At first, every challenger appeared to have won. But Cashman filed a complaint about a voting machine that tallied between 96 to 121 votes for all of the other candidates but registered only one vote for him.
If he does end up winning, Cashman said, he's looking forward to doing what he had in mind when he originally ran for school board - looking out for students. And though they might be of no interest to news consumers in other states and countries, Cashman said, the district has plenty of other issues to face besides intelligent design. Among them are scholastic scores and improving the curriculum for younger grades.
And though he would share the duties with former opponents, he said, he is certain they would be able to work together.
"I believe deep down inside, we all have the interest and goal to benefit the kids," he said.
Regardless of the turnout of today's election, Reinking said, new board members have their work cut out for them. It's unusual for a board to have so many new members starting at the same time, she said.
"We can get to all those things that school boards usually do," she said.
Madame, it appears someone urinated in your breakfast cereal this morning.
We've been over this many times. There are "facts" -- things fall, populations of organisms change over time. The theories of science are proposed to explain those facts -- deformation of space-time, mutation and natural selection. Facts and theories are complementary. Theories are never "proved" because in the real world there is always a potential for falsification; however, theories are the highest order of scientific explanation in that they fit with the evidence and have been tested and retested by numerous researchers.
No. We can do experiments and gather lots of data that is consistent with the theory of gravity, and none that is inconsistent with it, but that doesn't prove it. There really could be angels pushing everything around.
"Believe in what exactly?"
Yes. Isn't that a puzzling construction in English. Why would one ask, "Do you believe IN gravity?" What on earth does that mean, really?
I believe that gravitational forces exist. I can measure them, at least to a satisfactory degree needed for terrestrial needs.
I believe that there must be something underlying these forces. I do not know what that is, and that's not my field, so it's not something I can investigate personally.
So, I read a paper now and then on the subject, find out that we still don't know yet, and wait for further results.
But what would it mean to "believe IN gravity." That makes no sense to me, really.
"There really could be angels pushing everything around."
Well, then I suppose we should be teaching that also.
However, it is wrong. It assumes gravity is an instantaneous force; which it is not.
"There really could be angels pushing everything around."
Man...they must be getting tired after a few billion years of it. Talk about your dead-end jobs! Whew!
"It assumes gravity is an instantaneous force; which it is not."
Has that been determined experimentally? I admit that gravitational theory is not one of the areas I read in frequently. Where should I go to see something about this?
ROTFLMAO!
(I have always suspected such)
"ROTFLMAO! "
On that salubrious note, I will stop for the day. A good laugh is always a good emotion to stop with.
Straw-man argument...Nobody has a direct, or indirect, interest to "keep kids ignorant".
On the contrary, we may want to set the kids free from the ignorance related to the assumed conclusions associated with the "theory" of evolution (HOX gene mutations giving rise to arms/legs with hands/feet from lobe-finned fishes, "feathered dinosaurs" like Sinosauropteryx and etc.), for which there is no evidence.
Changes in homeotic (HOX) genes cause monstrosities (two heads, a leg where an eye should be, etc.), not profound beneficial changes that explain, and/or provide evidence for, reptile to land mammal evolution and common ancestry.
Should the kids learn about these truths and the related, actual, scientific study (see Dr. Christian Schwabe, Medical University of South Carolina, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)? Or should we just let this unscientific explanation stand in order to support and underpin Darwinian evolution?
Which side is really promoting scientific ignorance here?
Is it scientifically-informed and intellectually honest to put feathers on dinosaurs for which there is no such evidence (see Dr. Alan Feduccia's October 10, 2005 Press Release related to his team's study of Sinosauropteryx. The Press release is at the UNC Chapel Hill website (News Archives) or the actual study at the Journal of Morphology website)? Shall we inform the kids or just keep them ignorant?
And given what science is...the best, and only thing, "science" can offer is naturalistic explanations for origins (abiogenesis). Some scientists say origins had it's cause in unguided natural processes via random chance. Some, like Dr. Crick of DNA Double Helix fame, say that origins was the result of space aliens (ID gone wild). These theories are philosophical/religous in nature too.
So how do you propose that we eliminate the teaching of some philosophy/religion in the science classroom? And how do these forementioned abiogenesis theories trump the assumption that God did the creative work in accordance with what the Bible says?
Which is worse...ignorance or "scientific" propaganda that produces ignorance?
You wrote: "So the students can't make up their own minds?"
Reply:
I love this one. It exactly mimics the new age movement of the 1960s. Teachers don't know anything and everyone can make up his/her own mind. Did Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence? Did Stalin actually exist? If you divide 1/2 by 3/4 do you actually get 2/3? Let every student make up his/her own mind! Exams and grades can go out the window.
I think you can't be serious.
So your response is to dumbed-down education is to dumb it down even further?
Not, I think, a very good idea.
I've not been able to find anything specific (admittedly I didn't search very deeply), but Special Relativity implies that gravity, like everything else, is limited by the speed of light. According to general relativity, gravity propigates at lightspeed. It's hard to get a lot of solid information given that gravity is far less understood than other more well-established scientific theories, like evolution.
Let's take a look at that. If we include natural processes in the definition of intelligence, we broaden the definition of intelligence beyond the useful. With that definition, *any* selection, one of the main mechanisms behind evolution, becomes intelligent. It also removes any purpose to pursue ID.
"I think what this brou-ha-ha is ultimately about is methodological naturalism is a scientific method based on only two of Aristotle's four causes: the material and the efficient. It is a "reductionist" method, in that it omits to consider the formal and final causes. ID is interested in all four causes.
Why should science be concerned with anyone's dislike of 'reductionist' methods? Exactly what advantage would there be in adopting all of Aristotle's causes? What purpose is served by including those causes?
"Ultimately, this fight is not over a "creator." It's about what causes the scientific method ought to address, going forward. FWIW
Yet the result of including those causes is to open science up to the supernatural. How does this jibe with the claim that ID is not interested in the supernatural?
And where are the anti-science types, squawking that we teach their Biblical notions to counter this?
Surely, if they were intellectually consistent, they would wish to have the "gaps" in gravitational theory pointed out to students....
Medical leeches (Hirudo medicinalis) are currently used in medical schools for research and in hospitals for treatment.
They are used in association with osteoarthritis (see Dr. Gustav J. Dobos from the University of Essen, Nov. 4, 2003 addition of Annals of Internal Medicine).
They are also used in treatment of venous congestion, a complication of reconstructive surgery (Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Journal of Rehibilitation Research and Development, Vol. 39 No.4, July/August 2002).
Seems like the George Washington era folks knew a little more about it than you do.
It is noteworthy that "intelligent design" has never produced a single graph. Never produced a cause and effect account. Never described a new species. Never contributed an iota to the classification of animals or plants in the taxonomic descriptions. Never introduced a new idea into technology.
In fact, ID has never contributed anything positive. It's all negative--"Evilution" has "flaws"--therefore ID must be right. Such a silly argument. It's really an afront to our god-given ability to look at the evidence and feel comfortable as to where this leads us.
Creationists have given me an enhanced respect for the FSM.
Preacher: Do you believe in baptism?!
Congregant: Believe in it, hell I've **seen** it!
Gumlegs has virgins for sale (only slightly used, if understand correctly). I think with each new purchase he'd be glad to toss in a jar of leeches as well.
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