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.
Science undertaken with the presupposition of natural law is science undertaken with the presuppostion of intelligent design. The fact that an intelligent agent may at any time override natural law is no more "supernatural" than the fact that the owner of a car can intervene, soup things up, tear things down, build them again, or make something up altogether different out of the very same raw materials.
"Set phasers to 'FABULOUS!'"
So, then... And please answer this seriously as I mean it seriously. Is the science of embryology and human development "atheistic"?
I've never seen a science text of any description anywhere that teaches embryology as anything but a purely naturalistic process. Yet the Bible asserts repeatedly (sometimes directly quoting God) that God is personally and intimately involved in the creation of individual humans beings; and not just "souls" but the physical body as well. See the standardly cited anti-abortion proof texts: God "forms inward parts" in the womb, he "knits" fetuses together of bone and sinew, etc.
If embryology is not atheistic, then how is it not atheistic while evolution is? Or if embryology is atheistic, then why has no one ever (to my knowledge) complained about it's teaching.
I'm genuinely curious about this.
For example: Science can't tell us that the God of the Bible does not exist (but that hasn't stopped many of it's practioners from doing so).
For example: Science can't tell us that the claims of the Bible are not true (but that hasn't stopped many of it's practitioners from doing so).
Science is the study of observeable processes...natural as a qualifier to processes presupposes a philosophical/religious bias, which is unscientific.
Science in no way demonstrates that "the supernatural is not necessary"...but thanks for providing evidence for my hypothesis and for making my point for me.
You went way out of the bounds of "science" by making that claim!
You posted: There is no separation of "religion and government" other than the government can't establish a state run church/denomination.
Reply:
You seem unfamiliar with the First Amendment. It states: "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
The Constititution also states in the original, in Art VI, "there shall be no religious test for public office".
Note carefully: the words are "religion" and "religious". It is not about a church establishment. It is about religion. The courts have, for 200 years, understood this in its original intent--there shall be no establishment of religion. And Deism and other non-religion counts. The Constitution never mentions "churches". The economically non-productive clergy were often excluded from participating in town councils in colonial times as being parasitic and having nothing of value in practical affairs of men. (Matters of women were rarely considered in those times.)
First, human intelligence took the raw materials and, assembled the technology and substance needed to make X-rays. Second, although unseen, all the particles necessary to complete this process and make it repeatable have remained organized and consistent so as to make the application of human intelligence possible.
The fact that X-rays themselves are not mentioned in the Bible has no bearing on whether or not they are intelligently designed. When the Bible speaks of intelligent design as related to the things science has to work with, it denotes all the substance and processes science has heretofore been able to indentify, plus many things science has yet to identify.
As a non-scientific person I was attempting to craft a response, but your's is far more eloquent and "scientific." I would only add that it takes far more faith to believe intelligent humans can evolve from mindless slime than to believe that an intelligent Creator created the heavens, the earth, and humans to populate the earth. So... I guess I could argue that all classes that teach evolution are classes of GREAT faith.
But God has chosen the things which the world regards as foolish, in order to put its wise men to shame; and God has chosen the things which the world regards as destitute of influence, in order to put its powerful things to shame. (1 Corinthians 1:27)
"Atheistic" is an adjective, and it applies to all science that is undertaken with the assumption God is forever and always outside of its purview.
#181
Science undertaken with the presupposition of natural law is science undertaken with the presuppostion of intelligent design.
So, if science appeals solely to natural law, then that excludes God and is atheistic. But, if science appeals solely to natural law, then that also presupposes ID and is therefore theistic. So does this make science polytheistic? No, that doesn't work. How about paratheistic?
Thomas you should read Rehnquits dissent in Wallace v Jaffree for a primer on estabishment clause jurisprudence and original intent. You're lost in a lost world.
Note also (pby) that the establishment and free exercise clauses share the noun "religion". The word is only used in the establishment clause and simply referred to in the free exercise clause: "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Therefore if you construct the establishment clause such that "religion" must be understood to mean something like "state religion" or "national religion," then the government would only be prevented from prohibiting the free exercise of "state religion" or of a national church. But this construction is (one would hope) obviously absurd.
Was that a repeat?
See above. And 200!
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