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.
It's not the evidence that is subjective, but my interpretation of it. As long as science is conducted by human beings it will be subjective.
I maintain that science is capable of being undertaken with more than one assumption, and that the observer is free to choose those assumptions. Science from a theistic or atheistic point of view is never entirely testable or falsifiable because science is by nature limited. It cannot test every case imaginable. To that extent, and that extent only "neither can be chosen over the other" as absolutely determinative, or descriptive, of objective reality. That is quite alright, because science is not defined by proofs alone, nor will it ever be absolutely determinative or descriptive of objective reality.
The bottom line is that the tired old argument "intelligent design is not science" fails. It is not true. If evolutionism is to be held to the same standards you believe are required of science, then it too should be disqualified as science. Neither you nor anyone else is qualified to assert "scientifically" or "objectively" that God is beyond the scope of science. Neither you nor anyone else has objective "proof" that the history of mankind began with single-celled or simpler creatures and progressed to its current state.
Actually, I've forwarded the link to some math instructors I know ... all of whom probably had a hand in writing it.
We should recognize it for what it is: an inescapable reality. Unless you can come up with a way for science to be conducted without any human element.
Some people believe you have you're truth, I have mine.. which in effect makes truth an opinion.. and they are O.K. with that.. Its a variation on the, If a tree falls in the forest.. sophomore'ism.. all totally logical to the logic impaired..
Probably they dropped out of engineering classes and majored in Journalism.. or Linguistics i.e. Noam Chomsky..
"We should recognize it for what it is: an inescapable reality. Unless you can come up with a way for science to be conducted without any human element."
Scientists require testing and repeatability because they are trying to make their statements as objective as possible. You, on the other hand, embrace subjectivity as being not problematic in the least.
You switched the terms. I said it is the observer that is subjective by nature, not the evidence. Do you know the difference?
The presence of organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws is objective evidence for intelligent design, because intelligent design by definition entails organizing matter along with the parameters by which it will be governed. Where is your objective evidence that man began as a simple creature and progressed from there? Can you present objective evidence that entails not the slightest amount of inference or subjective notions? No.
No wonder. They are typically operating with organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws. Without intelligent design there would be no testing, let alone repeatability. Intelligent design is an objective reality that governs all of science. Your subjective person will never be able scientifically to explain it away.
How does admitting the existence of subjectivity equate with "embracing" it as "not problematic in the least?" It's obviously been a problem with you, because you cannot objectively understand any connection between intelligent design and organized matter.
True..... UNLESS;
God is a real and operable force in this Universe..
holding all things together and by "it"(God) all things consist..
If that were true, then modern science, especially quantum physics(meaning those that seek that knowledge ), rejects the very source of what they trying to deduce..
Also; if that were true, a "scientist" that didn't pray ugh!, attempt communication or knowledge of/with that force whom is(could be) a personality is carrying on a monologue with himself and is looking into a universal mirror and is shaving knowledge and brushing ignorance's teeth..
ya think?..
####Scientists require testing and repeatability because they are trying to make their statements as objective as possible. You, on the other hand, embrace subjectivity as being not problematic in the least.####
But doesn't every scientist have to be subjective sometimes? Suppose there are two competing theories concerning a given observation.
Aren't Hawking's frequent atheist rants subjective? No one exorcises him from the science community for delivering these rants, even though he often delivers them as part of an otherwise scientific commentary.
A similar scene occurs in Strindberg's "A Dream Play" during a dispute among the faculties of Law, Theology, Medicine.
On the other hand, this could be correct in the sense that ALL Gods of this earth are mental constructs, except the real one..
Upon a brief study of the available God's man has invented for himself.. Without knowing the real one.. The subject of "a God" could seem to be a joke.. i.e. Jupiter, Diana(with multiple breasts)
Reminds me of a cliche'.. "When God seems far away, WHO MOVED?.. Some people have seemed to have moved intellectually to a far place.. a 2nd reality insolated from reality.. by creating a reality of thier own.. sealed from the truth.. and looking at things thru a filtered lens..
The true honest agnostic approach should be, if there were no God, well their ought to have been one.. and maybe there really is one, I just happen to NOT know who "it" is..
Wrong. We draw subjective conclusions and inferences from objective evidence.
Inference is not necessarily subjective.
Wrong. Inferences cannot be made apart from human assumptions and limitations. Inferences are inherently subjective, just like the ones you make from the fossil record. The fact that those inferences are subjective does not make them unscientific, because they are based upon objective evidence.
Because you said that you chose ID for subjective reasons.
Yes, I chose ID subjectively because it is what best fits the objective evidence. Get it?
"But doesn't every scientist have to be subjective sometimes? Suppose there are two competing theories concerning a given observation."
If there isn't enough information to make an objective choice between theories, then the issue is undecided by science. Scientists who do take sides are therefore doing so for extra-scientific reasons.
"Aren't Hawking's frequent atheist rants subjective?"
Yes.
"No one exorcises him from the science community for delivering these rants, even though he often delivers them as part of an otherwise scientific commentary."
Because his science statements are not of this nature.
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