Posted on 01/17/2008 7:42:51 AM PST by ZGuy
Really? So who's the designer of cancer? The devil?
Sure they do. Try getting a theologian into court as an expert forensic witness. Or a faith healer as an expert witness on the proper treatment of disease.
Politics after all makes for strange bedfellows.
Could be he believes Franken doesn't have a snowballs chance.
But, Franken is still his friend.
No man is right 100% of the time, Stein is right more then he's wrong.
May you enjoy as healthy a record as Mr Stein.
An forensic expert can serve as a witness only if the matter falls within his competence. He is going to testify on what ought to go into a school curriculum? It is this “findings of science,” that I find objectionable. As for a theologican testifying? If his expertise is germane, then he will be heard. Say a case of supposed diabolical possession. The judge can admit theological testimony, just as he can admit psychological testimony. That is, if we are trying to determine the facts. Even you will admit that pyschology is no hard science.
I agree, and evolution is a forensic science.
Funniest sentence of the day.
No, evolution is a broad category that has so many elements that many different specialists can testify about it. My personal objection is the claim that Darwin’s theory has the same sourt of explanatory power as say Newton’s theory of gravitation. If you read the book, the theory is just not there. There is basically an assertion backed by a careful marshalling of evidence based on personal observation. More like a legal brief than principia mathematica.
The element of evolution that the Dover school board found offensive was common descent. There really aren't any competent scientists who disagree with common descent. Even the Discovery Institutes's experts do not question common descent.
A school board cannot override the consensus of science because it finds science inconvenient for religious reasons. And the religious motivation of the school board was established beyond doubt by testimony given under oath.
As far as consensus is concerned, the great majority of scholars disagreed with Galileo about the reality of a heliocentric universe. When “everyone” is an an Aristotlean, a contrarian has few allies. As you admit, the ID people accepted common descent so the judge chose one theory of evolution over another, even though one has the merit of being less offensive to the community than others. At bottom, the judge was simply bowing to convention, the “everyone-I-know—voted— for— McGovern” syndrome.
“Nonsense. Divine intervention offers zero potential benefits to scientific medical research. It’s the antithesis of scientific research. Teach ID in social studies, political science or religious studies, not science class.”
Nay. Your view is utter nonsense.
While Darwin was coming up with his endlessly revised theory, his contemporary Louis Pasteur was providing science groundbreaking progress in microbiology based on specific Biblical teachings which formed the basis of his hypothesis - namely that God designed living things to reproduce after their own kind.
Evolution contributed to the idea of natural selection - an aspect that is not generally disputed. (And it harmonizes with the Biblical concept of inherited traits.) Common descent, the part of evolutionary theory that rejects “after it’s kind” Biblical doctrine, has contributed nothing more than any random, taxonomic nomenclature could offer because that is what it is. It is an arbitrary and capricious way of organizing living things. It contributes no more to scientific knowledge than the Dewey decimal system contributes to the contents of the library books it organizes. There is no “truth” in it.
Ha, ha, ha. So have you reverse-engineered the complex, non-linear structure of the blueprint of life? Please share how this was accomplished, and how it disproves design. I hope you realize that your statement contradicts the biggest argument made against ID - namely that it is supposedly untestable and therefore unscientific. But you just proposed a test which you claim it failed. Amazing what you accomplished all in one little sentence!
Anti ID folk often do this. They claim ID is not science because it cannot be tested. Then they contradict themselves by saying how evidence refutes ID. You can't have it both ways.
Recently my biology professor stated that he witnessed macro-evolution. If that is the case, then National Geographic should erect a statue in his honor to witness such an event. He claims that creationism is not taught because it was not observed. When I told him neither was evolution, he deflected the question.
It’s going to be a long semester....
” Ha, ha, ha. So have you reverse-engineered the complex, non-linear structure of the blueprint of life? Please share how this was accomplished, and how it disproves design.”
I’ve not reverse-engineered DNA, the scientific community has. The entire human genome has been mapped, for instance - an astounding feat.
It has not “disproven” design, but it has made it look unlikely by revealing the amount of randomness and entropy in the DNA sequence. It has also revealed the signature of retroviruses that have altered DNA over time - a very long time.
“I hope you realize that your statement contradicts the biggest argument made against ID - namely that it is supposedly untestable and therefore unscientific. But you just proposed a test which you claim it failed. Amazing what you accomplished all in one little sentence!”
It’s amazing what people will read into things when they want to...
So, do you think God created life when he created the universe almost 12 billion years ago, or did he wait 10 billion years as the fossil record seems to indicate?
I rather doubt if that's true. My understanding is the Pope didn't dispute Galileo's science, but reserved the right to leak it out under the authority of the church.
What I dispute is the authority of the church, and in this country, I have the law on my side.
Gotta disagree with the statement that we produce so few expert scientists. I've worked with genius, studied under genius. It was homegrown Americans. But most of these guys just want to be left alone politically. Talk to them one on one, you'll hear their views. Free markets, capitalism, liberty. It's there. Check out the DOE labs.
The claim that ID research can produce breakthroughs in medicine is a fantasy. The only discovery that will come out of such research is the one we already know, namely that ID doesn't work.
Stein's argument is breathtaking in its audacity. He says that the only intelligence about which we know anything - our own - has failed to explain the origin and development of life; therefore, life must be the creation of intelligence.
You know when and where life first arose?
I'm impressed!
>>As far as consensus is concerned, the great majority of scholars disagreed with Galileo about the reality of a heliocentric universe. When “everyone” is an an Aristotlean, a contrarian has few allies. As you admit, the ID people accepted common descent so the judge chose one theory of evolution over another, even though one has the merit of being less offensive to the community than others. At bottom, the judge was simply bowing to convention, the “everyone-I-know—voted— for— McGovern” syndrome.<<
Is your argument that we should reject whatever the scientific community agrees on because in the past the consensus has been wrong?
Should we reject atomic theory and the laws of motion etc?
False. The school board is chartered by state law, and may not violate it. If the state law mandates that science be taught, then teaching ID as though it were science is a high crime, and the high criminals on the board should be impeached, tried by the state senate, and forever banned from holding any office.
A Judge, a federal judge, non-elected, having NO authority to represent the community in such a issue,
Actually, the plaintiff parents (Kitzmiller et al) represented the community. The evildoers on the school board were voted out of office before Jones' ruling.
The judge represents the rule of law - in this case, he ruled that the Dover school board was violating the 1st Amendment. The evidence was unequivocal.
ruled not only that the school board may not speak a certain thing -- speech by label on a book -- but ordered that we we speak of science or teach of science that only the orthodoxy of the modern Darwinism be taught and spoke of. The Judge overstepped, and stole rightful authority. He stole not only "free speech" rights, but many others.
The school board lacks both the authority and the expertise to decide what biology is - only scientists can do that. Since over 99% of biologists agree that the ToE is an integral part of biology, that's that.
Making up false "controversies" as though they actualy existed in science is mistreating children by lying to them, and should be tried civilly as well as in the state senate.
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