The ritual honors having been duly rendered, what's wrong with Lucy?
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.
Sounds to me like a close election where one side (the agitated one) got its voters out to the polls and lopsided liberal media coverage did the rest. However, I'm willing to abide by the will of the voters on this issue. Are you? Not just in this election, but in any others that may occur, including those where the other side wins?
Unfortunately, yes.
Whenever people try to redefine the word "Theory" that list has to be dragged out.
Shame that I have to do it, but words mean things.
Kind of like Howard Dean's leadership of the Democratic Party -- the Republicans are wrong, therefore we are right (without having to present any actual arguments for our program).
Hmmm.. First my apologies for not being more clear on this. Lets see....
Newton came up with a mathematical formula that described a falling object or a planet in orbit around the Sun, etc. We call this force Gravity.
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation
"Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects."
F=Gm1m2/r2
Where:
F equals the gravitational force between two objects
m1 equals the mass of the first object
m2 equals the mass of the second object
R equals the distance between the objects
G equals the universal constant of gravitation = (6.6726 )* 10-11 N*m2/kg2 (which is still being refined and tested today)
(BTW this is a simple form of the equation and is only applied to point sources. Usually it is expressed as a vector equation)
Even though it works well for most practical purposes, this formulation has problems.
A few of the problems are:
It shows the change is gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously (Violates C), assumes an absolute space and time (this contradicts Special Relativity), etc.
Enter Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity
In 1915 Einstein developed a new theory of gravity called General Relativity.
A number of experiments showed this theory explained some of the problems with the classical Newtonian model (Law of Gravity). However, this theory like all others is still being explored and tested.
You're always clear, Radio Astronomer, it's just that your expertise on matters such as gravity is far above that of most of us!
It takes a village?
But this concept is not science and should not be in a science class.
Thank you for the complement. :-)
Hope the above was a bit more understandable!
Yet simply stated - what goes up must come down. Please don't make this more complicated than necessary. We all know gravity exists. We may not be able to explain it, but we certainly can verify it. Not so with TOE (of course no one is arguing adaptation of species). But as I've often said, no one's mind will be changed on FR. We have believers on both sides of the argument who, come hell or high water, aren't about to change their beliefs.
Hope you and your family had a wonder Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Actually, it is Christianity. It just won't mention that fact since they're trying to get it into schools, and they know that coming out honestly will prevent that. So they use fuzzy, vague terms. But make no mistake - the promoters of this political agenda are indeed Christian, and it is an attempt to get their faith in science classes.
I guess then the IDers would have no problem if we said Mohammed was the 'Designer', since it is sect neutral, huh.
Prove it.
Hmmmm... (Well no - escape velocity comes to mind :-)) LOL!
However, that is not what I was driving at.
Let us try a different tack:
The Law of Gravity is wrong! Gravitational Theory is "more correct". However, it will continue to be refined as new evidence comes to light.
This is no different than the Theory of Evolution.
What I am driving at is even though something may be called a Law, it does not mean it is the "end all". In all actuality a theory in science is the "highest level" we can obtain.
No matter how much evidence is produced (such as dropping a brick on your foot), a theory will always remain a theory.
Maybe not, but it does indicate questions and possible weaknesses in the theory of evolution. These questions will not be allowed in the public school classroom. This is because, at bottom, evolutionists have just as much of a personal stake in this as creationists do. Evolution has been the philosophical presupposition of Western society for the last century. It is much more than a scientific theory, it is a philosophical touchstone of reason for its adherents. That is why no other competing ideas are allowed. I have no faith that the evolutionists will ever claim that ID, creationism, or any other idea has the merit of a "theory" and should be taught in the classroom.
If people have been that rude or hateful to you, you should know that this is not the example of Christ. Christ himself would not be rude to you. Just wanted to let you know. - Zack.
Not really. The so-called "holes" in evolution do not bear up under scrutiny; indeed from the many posts on these threads over the past seven years detailing these "holes" it becomes readily apparent that your average ID advocate has a woeful lack of knowledge when it comes to the theory of evolution.
However, if you're game, go ahead and post what you believe to be the problems with evolution. You might be surprised at the avalanche of information your post will generate.
The ritual honors having been duly rendered, what's wrong with Lucy?
but it does indicate questions and possible weaknesses in the theory of evolution. These questions will not be allowed in the public school classroom.
Nonsense. Flat out nonsense.
The weaknesses are discussed in science classes. The problem for IDers is that the strengths of the theory vastly outweight the possible questions.
I have no faith that the evolutionists will ever claim that ID, creationism, or any other idea has the merit of a "theory" and should be taught in the classroom.
It's not a matter of ID being handed the title "theory." It's a matter of ID's proponents being unable to fulfill the most basic requirements for the term.
No. You should provide evidence how ID falls in the realm of science and thusly should be included in science class.
Yes, but ultimately gravity itself isn't understandable in terms of its whys and wherefores. We can observe gravity's effects and catalogue them, but we still have no idea where such a force came from. Does it simply exist or did God design it to operate as it does?
Yet, even on a matter such as gravity, most Christians don't request that God be specifically credited with establishing gravity in school curricula. We understand, more than some of the evolutionists here may think, what science is and what its limitations are.
But gravity is generally not used to bash people of faith. Darwinism often is. Go to a militant atheist political site and you'll find that they're selling Darwin fish stickers, T-shirts, etc. Look at all the evolutionist scientists who have had second careers as secularist ideological activists (Gould, Huxley, and even Hawking to an extent).
One of the most important principles of the faith of millions of Americans is our personal relationship with God, knowing that we were created in His image. We can't know how He did it, and 99.9% of the time we have no problem with science noting how things work, even though that notation is often theoretical and this year's hot theories may be tomorrow's discarded ones.
But given the tendency of evolutionary theory to be used as a battering ram against our faith, notwithstanding that it's a theory and like any theory it could be wrong and could even be discarded by science itself someday, we do on occasion ask that our kids be reminded that there could be more to human life than naturalistic processes.
That doesn't seem like too much to ask, especially considering that facets of natural selection (possible gender, racial, or group differences, as an example) are routinely left out of school curricula to satisfy PC group demands.
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