Posted on 11/20/2007 10:27:07 AM PST by CottShop
PBS Airs False Facts in its "Inherit the Wind" Version of the Kitzmiller Trial (Updated)
UPDATE: A tenth PBS blunder is addressed, where PBS makes the false insinuation that intelligent design is no more scientific than astrology. Scroll down to read more.
More than 50 years ago two playwrights penned a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial called "Inherit the Wind" that is now universally regarded by historians as inaccurate propaganda. Last night PBS aired its "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design" documentary, which similarly promotes propaganda about the 2005 Kitzmiller trial and intelligent design (ID). Most of the misinformation in "Judgment Day" was corrected by ID proponents long ago. To help readers sift the fact from the fiction, here are links to articles rebutting some of PBS's most blatant misrepresentations:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/11/pbs_airs_its_inherit_the_wind.html
(Excerpt) Read more at evolutionnews.org ...
[[I don’t know the judge’s sentiments on ID. :-D]]
I’ll help yuou out htere- the judge admitted his sentiments and agenda ruling on the learey show- it’s in one of hte links above- so there’s really no need to wonder- he spelled it out perfectly clear
Nothing prevents ID from being science except the absence of a hypothesis regarding the activities of the designer, something equivalent to theories of ancient civilizations formulated by archaeologists.
A theory of design would, at the very least, specify some instances of intervention. There have been, of course, attempts to declare that no intermediates have been found -- say between land animals and whales -- but facts keep getting in the way of such declarations.
Similarly, declarations are made that there is some kind of probability barrier preventing formation of complex structures, but these declarations also keep getting overturned by facts and events.
Enouhg for otday- I won an art competition for Nov. and I’m taking hte rest of the day to enjoy the win
Umm, no. My dad is an impartial witness. He states the facts. He's not trying to manipulate them in order to achieve a conviction or acquittal. The lawyers involved cannot misrepresent his opinions because my dad presents them himself. The lawyers cannot damage my dad's reputation because he does his job conscientiously. Even if he had screwed up and it might come up in testimony he wouldn't have a lawyer because his job is not to cover up his incompetence (he's not on trial), but to state the truth.
Plantiffs and Defendendts both have a basic right to competent council
Where do you see the word "witnesses" on that list?
Congratulations!
You provided no link to any declaration by Dembski that he was denied counsel, nor any example of an expert witness requiring personal counsel. If he required counsel, it was certainly the responsibility of Thomas More to provide it, since they requested his testimony.
As for the charges made by the Discovery Institute, I can certainly understand why they are upset. In one case, they destroyed their reason for existence, and probably destroyed the entire ID movement as a legal and political force. But it’s their own doing. No one forced them, against the advice of their own strategists, to enter the political arena before conducting actual scientific research.
You keep claiming the Discovery Institute is not the big gun behind the recent push for Intelligent Design.
Yet every link in your post #238 -- all nine of them -- is to the Discovery Institute.
You have refuted your own argument you know; it really is the Discovery Institute that is doing most of the pushing on ID.
And they are trying to hide their earlier emphasis on religion. Their website evolved, as they gradually tried to hide the evidence, but the trail is clear courtesy of the Wayback Machine. Here is a good thread covering the topic: The Evolution of the Discovery Institute's Website Rhetoric.
And the whole sordid tale is laid out in the Wedge Strategy. Somebody leaked that out of the DI and spilled the beans (whoops!).
One of my favorite passages from the Wedge Strategy:
Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.What are they planning, a theocracy? Because that is what it would take to completely destroy the science we know and replace it with "theistic" science --whatever that is.
Paging Nehemiah Scudder. Pick up the white courtesy telephone please.
Defendent? He was supposed to have been an expert witness for the defense. What the hell does a witness need with a lawyer?
What you said is basically my point. ID requires the lack of evidence for it’s claims. When evidence is found, it needs to look elsewhere. Natural selection is at work and is a valid, ongoing mechanism explaining the origin of species. ID’s last hope is that research cannot fill in a few gaps, but at this point, it will never replace evolution. And even then, it’s hyptheses are dependent on negative findings.
Actually it wasn't.
But why be surprised that PBS misrepresents the facts about ID. When have they ever told the truth about anything?
Which I interpret to mean a science not founded on the philosophy of materialism. Materialism is not, in my view either , a necessary foundation for natural science. Indeed, it begs the question of what "matter" is. Bishop Berkeley had fun with that a long time ago. Asl it reminds me of the observation of the great thinker Bill Clinton. It depends on what the meaning of "is,", is.
I don't see how you can do science by assuming that supernatural entities of whatever kinds can constantly mess with things.
And I don't see how you can do science at the dictates and whims of any preacher who comes along and says his version of the TRVTH is the only one and science had better conform or else!
That would mean that you would have to figure a way for the earth to be only 6,000 years old, rather than 4.5 billion. And the speed of light would have to be variable. And all of the other problems of trying to force science to come up with the "correct" theistic answers.
Sorry, I think I'll stay with science based on the natural world. But you go ahead and do whatever you want; just don't call it science.
Some are scientists, some aren't -- some work for DI, some don't
Affiliations and credentialsSoutheastern Louisiana University philosophy professor Barbara Forrest and deputy director of the National Center for Science Education Glenn Branch say the Discovery Institute deliberately misrepresents the institutional affiliations of signatories of the statement "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism". The institutions appearing in the list are the result of a conscious choice by the Discovery Institute to only present the most prestigious affiliations available for an individual. For example, if someone was trained at a more prestigious institution than the one they are presently affiliated with, the school they graduated from will more often be listed, without the distinction being made clear in the list. This is contrary to standard academic and professional practice and, according to Forrest and Branch, is deliberately misleading.
For example, the institutions listed for Raymond G. Bohlin, Fazale Rana, and Jonathan Wells, were the University of Texas, Ohio University, and the University of California, Berkeley respectively, the schools from which they obtained their Ph.D. degrees. However, their present affiliations are quite different: Probe Ministries for Bohlin, the Reasons to Believe Ministry for Rana, and the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture for Wells.
Many of those who have signed the list are not currently active scientists, and some have never worked as scientists. For example, Leonard Loose signed the Dissent document at the age of 96, after a career as a high school teacher and missionary, but is listed as being affiliated with his alma mater, the University of Leeds. This is in spite of the fact that Loose's affiliation with the University of Leeds and the scientific community ended over 70 years ago.
... snip ...
... they simply signed DI’s statement concerning the issue that Darwinian evolution was a broken and impossible hypothesis ...
The actual statement is
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
Says nothing about broken or impossible. RM/NS *should* be investigated carefully. In fact it doesn't account for all of evo; there's also genetic drift, for example.
... and who simply beleive that design is evident and has an intelligent agent- they make no statement about what that agent might be, but throuhg their research have come to hte logical conclusion that MaCROEVolution is impossible, and that intelligent design is evident.
Through their research!? Name anyone on that silly list who has done any ID "research"
Oh, and BTW, didn't you say something about the DI being a minor player? Fuond any majors yet?
If the judge was convinced by the I.D. testimony and ruled that it was Science and included the arguments of the defense in his decision, would that make him not ‘cometent’ enough to think for himself?
Your argument has scant basis in fact, no basis in law, and is entirely partisan based upon the outcome you think the judge should have arrived at because it was the outcome you desired.
Your side lost, now it is all over but the crying.
So cry baby cry, make your momma sigh.
The "judge" is not qualified to rule on what is science and what isn't science. He is no more qualified to decide that ID isn't science than courts are qualified to hold that CO2 is a pollutant which is exactly what a majority of the SCOTUS held.
The "judge" overeached and because he overeached you hold him as an exemplar of judicial excellence when in fact he's an activist masquerading as a scientist.
Pretty funny actually.
Nor do I. Do you really think I believe in the gods? Or in Allah, the God of Mohammed? The pope at Regensburg spoke of the difficulty of "dialogue" with Islam because Muslims DO think of God as an arbitrary being. We Christians do believe that He is not, that this is an orderly universe. If you are referring to miracles, do not most of them relate not to the disturbance of order but to its restoration? Men ought to see. To cure a blind man is simply to restore the right order of things. Now most people are more concerned about abundant disorders, because we have come to expect order. .. Pagans think of actions as the whims of many gods, who play with us. Muslims don't have this problem, because they do think that there is a single god but he acts arbitrarily. What happens is simply his will. Our task is to submit to it. I think that the unifying them of the Bible is how we have got away from these notions.
Do not judges USUALLY include the arguments of the lawyers of the prevailing side?
Did not both sides ask him to rule on if I.D. was Science?
I am not a Historian, but I am intelligent enough and educated enough to know that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and “Hitler’s Diaries” were frauds and not a part of the actual historic record except as frauds. I am not a Lawyer, but I can listen to Judge Thomas’s arguments and follow along, and make a determination is something is actually part of the Constitution or just an emanation or penumbra. I am not a Garbage man, but I can make a determination what needs to be thrown out or not.
You are apparently not a Biologist, but somehow you think you are competent enough to render a decision on if Natural selection and mutation are sufficient to account for common descent of species. You are apparently not a Lawyer, but somehow you think you are competent enough to render a decision about what is or is not judicial activism.
Use logic much?
Catholics have little trouble with evolution; many fundamentalists see things quite differently.
What I object to is this "theistic science" which the Discovery Institute is pushing. It will have no relation to the science that helped make this nation great.
Scientists would constantly be forced to comply with the dictates of the head theocrat, as a theocracy seems to be what the DI is pushing. Geology can't find evidence of the global flood? Gone! Defunded or outlawed.
I would not like to work under such a theocracy, but that is exactly what is being pushed--there is no other way to enforce such a theistic science.
If you are worries about the Discovery Institute, your fears are excessive, I think. As for theocrats, well, we also have the “atheocrats” who fill the best-seller lists nowadays.
Very funny! But the only constitutional question before him was whether or not the Dover School Board policy violated the Establishment Clause. That's it, the judge has no power, training or mandate do decide what is or isn't science.
Only when he came up with the obvious answer that it is not Science did you think he was an activist.
You of course are fos as evidenced by the myriad posts here at FR decrying judicial activism but you would be unfamiliar with that since it's a conservative thing. I actually think the case had no business in a federal court, that's another conservative thing which would be foreign to you, the federal courts staying out of state and local business.
Do not judges USUALLY include the arguments of the lawyers of the prevailing side?
Competent judges decide on the issue before the court not on all possible legal issues arising out of that. Longstanding SCOTUS precedent suggests just that, narrow holdings are preferable to broad holdings. Incompetent activist judges do as Judge Jones did, make broad sweeping rulings on issues that are secondary to the issue before the court which have no precedential value at all. It's a hubris thing, like you suffer from.
Did not both sides ask him to rule on if I.D. was Science?
:-} If this is the extent of your argument, you need to bring another one because the only thing that the judge could hold on was a constitutional issue. Is ID science is not covered by the constitution. Try harder!
I am not a Historian, but I am intelligent enough and educated enough to know that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and “Hitler’s Diaries” were frauds and not a part of the actual historic record except as frauds.
Whether you are intelligent or not is your opinion. I'm glad you have a high opinion of your intellect but your analogies suck. See above discussion.
I am not a Lawyer, but I can listen to Judge Thomas’s arguments and follow along, and make a determination is something is actually part of the Constitution or just an emanation or penumbra.
Here I have my doubts since you seem to think that federal judges should be deciding local school board issues. Is there any place you would not have federal courts reach?
I am not a Garbage man, but I can make a determination what needs to be thrown out or not.
Great, you can start with your previous post, it is laced with effluent.
You are apparently not a Biologist, but somehow you think you are competent enough to render a decision on if Natural selection and mutation are sufficient to account for common descent of species.
Correct, I am a blue collar guy and I am 99% sure that RM/NS alone is not sufficient to account for the biological diversity we see around us. But I also know for a fact that RM/NS changes allele frequency in populations but since I am not a biologist, I must be wrong about that as well. Such is life.
You are apparently not a Lawyer, but somehow you think you are competent enough to render a decision about what is or is not judicial activism.
:-} Yes, heaven forbid conservatives recognize judicial activism when they see it. And probably we should be put in the stocks for writing about it on a conservative website opposed to judicial activism and federal overreach, don't you think?
Use logic much?
Really don't need much for the pap you handed up.
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