Revote today [Dover, PA school board]

York Daily Record [Penna] ^ | 03 January 2006 | TOM JOYCE

[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.

[hosepipe]

[ The Giver is a book in all of the grade school libraries in our school system. ]

Must be a "giver" to the government.. a.k.a. slave of socialism..
cause one things sure.. socialism is slavery by government..

[forsnax5]

... a Reader's Digest summary of the high points?

Perhaps tomorrow. He spoke for one hour and ten minutes, and there were sixteen questions from the audience. I have four+ pages of notes, and I have to get up early in the morning.

Most of what was said was familiar to anyone who frequents these threads. Even the Flying Spagetti Monster made an appearance in the questions segment...

:)

[YHAOS]

”What does that leave?.. massive feminized cowardice.. maybe..”

Hmmm . . . I had a different solution in mind. Less wear and tear on the patrons.

[tortoise]

I would have questions as to how the abstractions of math can be accurately applied to physical objects

Feel free to come up with an example of a physical object that the abstractions of math do not apply to. I'm sure physicists will be very interested in your reply.

For example, if these calculations, or this definition of intelligence, can be applied to an object that is known to be the product of human intelligence, how much does it tell us, and how accurate is the telling?

You are either being intentionally dense or you have a really difficult time with reading comprehension.

One more time: There is no more intelligence implied by the existence of a physical object than the intelligence of the physical object itself. Period. End of story. In other words, the existence of a rock implies no more intelligence than exists in that rock, no matter what its form. The existence of a statue does not imply an "intelligent sculptor", though at least we are pretty sure sculptors exist. The existence of a human implies no more intelligence in the universe than is intrinsic to that human -- not very much in other words.

This is really an elementary notion that you are very resistant to even though a little thought should make it obvious that this must be the case. The fact remains: there is no construct in the universe that requires intelligence to have been formed. Just because you wish it was not so does not change this fact.

[darbymcgill]

Must be a "giver" to the government..

In this case the "giver" is the government... all the good things you get are from the gov't. anything you do on your own is a crap shoot and potentially deadly.

socialism is slavery by government..

Correct, socialism the trojan horse hiding the religion of the left...

[Fester Chugabrew]

The fact remains: there is no construct in the universe that requires intelligence to have been formed.

Yeah. It's all 1s and 0s. It is a simple matter to assert that intelligence is not a "requirement" WRT to any physical object. But is it such a simple matter to prove that the measure of predictive error complexity objectively applies to, or represents, the physical world?

[Fester Chugabrew]

Feel free to come up with an example of a physical object that the abstractions of math do not apply to.

Why should I feel compelled to provide evidence that would controvert the scientific model of intelligent design? Why don't you supply an example of a mathematically inaccessible entity so we can all be amused by the chaos?

[betty boop]

I said "condemned", not "embraced". Still doesn't make sense to me.

As far as I know, neither Luther nor "the Pope" (which Pope? Certainly not the present Pope, nor his immediate predecessor) "embraced" heliocentrism.

I'm sorry, Virginia-American, but I am really not following you here. Help???

[Fester Chugabrew]

The existence of a statue does not imply an "intelligent sculptor", though at least we are pretty sure sculptors exist.

Wow. Pretty sure. Umm-hmm. To be honest, I've never seen a guy carving rock into statues. You may be right. All the evidence heretofore is hearsay. Good heavens. The Statue of Liberty may have sprung up out of the Hudson River by a pure act of nature. I'm pretty sure it didn't, but only pretty sure.

[betty boop]

Dear darby, sounds like shades of Animal Farm to me (not to mention The Communist Manifesto also). I wonder, how many different ways can this self-same story be told, in so many different languages, and still there are people who do not get the point?

Thank you so much for writing!

[hosepipe]

[ Hmmm . . . I had a different solution in mind. Less wear and tear on the patrons. ]

True.... but honest conflict trumps weasly conflict..
The American people have pretty much been brain washed into being socialists.. especially oldies and minoritys.. Weasly confict will not de-program them..

[hosepipe]

[ Correct, socialism the trojan horse hiding the religion of the left... ]

The Giverment has nothing to give except what they take..

[dennisw]

God fearing patriots, pioneers, workers, farmers, capitalists and soldiers made America what it is. Sniveling atheist punks are a footnote

[darbymcgill]

and still there are people who do not get the point?

What really concerns me is that "they do get it" and are incrementalizing us all the way to the may pole...

[betty boop]

I'm counting down the days until Justice Alito joins the constitutionalist forces on the high court.

I am too, puroresu -- oh, so am I! Somehow, I think he will not disappoint people who love the Constitution and take it seriously.

Of course, the ACLU (plus NOW, PP, PETA, PFAW, HRC (as in "Human Rights Campaign," not what's-her-name), NAACP, CAIR, et al., ad nauseam -- the "cause people") collectively will have kittens over this -- that is, when Justice Alito is confirmed. :^)

I honestly don't know what problem these people have with Mr. Alito. Good grief, they act as if he were the Antichirst or something. But for such folks, to say such a thing would be to admit an unsupportable, untenable analogy.... So I just think such folks are seriously confused.

Thank you so much for writing, puroresu, and for your very kind words.

[MRMEAN]

The sun is the central object in our solar system. The earth is in orbit around the sun. The earth also rotates on a slightly inclined axis approximately every 24 hours.

You Dogmatic Galileoist. Galileolism is just a religion for atheists who want to deny God, and the Truth of His Scriptures. Galileolism is just a theory; but the God given truth of geocentrism is also a theory with scientific evidence.

The fact that Dogmatic Galileolists control the teaching of Astronomy and refuse to let geocentrism be presented as an alternative hows that they are AFRAID that students will be convinced by THE TRUTH, and that school children will reject their atheistic materialistic secularist indoctrination and instead accept the Bible's truth.

Hitler and Stalin were both ardent Galileolists; the materialist doctrine that allowed them to deny Man's Dignity as God's special creation.

[betty boop]

What really concerns me is that "they do get it" and are incrementalizing us all the way to the may pole...

The good old "Chinese Water Torture," which the followers of Saul Alinsky have well mastered after several decades of practice in the fields of subversive polemics and propaganda, among other, "direct-action" techniques sure to either fascinate or terrify the incorrigibly stupid.

Well then, darby, it would seem that it's time for people to start paying attention to such "achievements," for a change.

It seems to me that, in the long run, the "they" who do "get it" wish most of all for the rest of us to simply agree to undergo mass lobotomy. That would simplify their task enormously. But since they haven't quite figured out how to persuade us to do that yet -- their willful full-time collaborators in the MSM notwithstanding -- they figure they're gonna kill us in the end, by means of a daily saturation of pure, unadulterated, mean-spirited, slander-mongering, conspiracy-minded, hateful, despicable, jealous, deceitful, and ultimately irrational h*rs*sh*t.

After a while, a thinking person might even want to "off himself," after prolonged exposure to this unrelenting miasma of unintelligible and irrational cr*p.

Well, I guess it's time for bed, because I'm running off at the mouth, which probably means I'm just plain tired.

So good night for now, darby! And thank you so much for writing!

[YHAOS]

"The American people have pretty much been brain washed into being socialists.. especially oldies and minoritys.. Weasly confict will not de-program them.."

I continue to pray for a more modest effort being enough, but I must confess that I have more than once stated that the concept of citizen, governed by his consent and at his sufferance, has become so foreign to so many Americans, that no restoration of the concept will be possible, short of a Second Revolution.

[Virginia-American]

Technically, I believe it was the Inquisition, rather than the Pope, who condemned heliocentrism. The Pope did nothing to help Galileo, though, tacitly endorsing the Inquistion's judgment.

The RCC officially adopted heliocentrism in 1822. (link to catholiceducation.org).

Luther's (and other early Protestants') condemnation of Heliocentrism is well known - discussed here

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the pings to your fascinating sidebar with highball!

Materialists do not seem to relate well though to metaphorical language.