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Topic: RE: virus: Evolution Lawsuit Opens in Pennsylvania (Read 769 times) |
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Blunderov
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RE: virus: Evolution Lawsuit Opens in Pennsylvania
« on: 2005-09-27 02:00:59 » |
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[Blunderov] In this case it seems to me that the creationists (because that
IS what they are) have condemned their case out of their own mouths with
the statement that "intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of
life that differs from Darwin's view".
Evolution, as far as I know, is not an explanation of the 'origin' of life
in the sense of 'why'; it is an explanation of the origin of life in the
sense of 'how'. Yet the creationists have been allowed to get away with this
rank equivocation and it is upon this that the lawyers are happily feasting.
(A lawyer joke from the movie "Hook": Scientists are replacing lab rats with
lawyers because they find that they become less emotionally attached to the
lawyers.)
Best Regards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/education/27evolution.html
Evolution Lawsuit Opens in Pennsylvania
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: September 27, 2005
HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 26 - Intelligent design is not science, has no
support from any major American scientific organization and does not belong
in a public school science classroom, a prominent biologist testified on the
opening day of the nation's first legal battle over whether it is
permissible to teach the fledgling "design" theory as an alternative to
evolution.
"To my knowledge, every single scientific society that has taken a position
on this issue has taken a position against intelligent design and in favor
of evolution," said the biologist, Kenneth R. Miller, a professor at Brown
University and the co-author of the widely used high school textbook
"Biology."
Eleven parents in the small town of Dover, just south of here, are suing
their school board for introducing intelligent design in the ninth-grade
biology curriculum. The parents accuse the board of injecting religious
creationism into science classes in the guise of intelligent design.
Professor Miller, their main expert witness, was the only person to take the
stand on Monday.
Intelligent design is the idea that living organisms are so complex that the
best explanation is that some kind of higher intelligence designed them. The
notion has gained a foothold in some states and school districts as an
attractive alternative to evolution, but is shunned by most mainstream
scientists.
In a sign of how important this trial is to the adversaries in the
intelligent design debate, they came from across the country to hear the
opening arguments and to present their case to the cameras waiting outside.
The two sides agree that no matter how Judge John E. Jones III decides the
case in Federal District Court here, it will probably make its way to the
Supreme Court.
Casey Luskin, a program officer at a group that advocates intelligent
design, the Discovery Institute, said in an interview outside the courtroom:
"No one is pretending that intelligent design is a majority position. What
we're rebutting is their claim that there's no controversy among
scientists."
The school board members, represented by a nonprofit Christian law firm
based in Michigan, are taking the stance that students should have access to
a variety of scientific theories.
"This case is about free inquiry and education, not about a religious
agenda," Patrick Gillen, a lawyer for the board said in his opening
statement.
The board president, Sheila Harkins, said in an interview during a break,
"The whole thought behind it was to encourage critical thinking."
It was "not true at all," Ms. Harkins said, that board members were
motivated by their religious beliefs.
The front rows of the courtroom were filled on one side with members of the
Dover school board, the defendants, and on the other, the Dover residents
who filed suit. On both sides of the aisle the mood was grim, and there was
barely a look or a handshake exchanged across it.
The plaintiffs are trying to show that intelligent design is just "the
21st-century version of creationism," as a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Eric
Rothschild, put it in his opening argument.
Mr. Rothschild said that the board's own documents would show that the board
members had initially discussed teaching "creationism" - one former member
said he wanted the class time evenly split between creationism and evolution
- and that they substituted the words "intelligent design" only when they
were made aware by lawyers of the constitutional problems involved.
The board ultimately settled for directing that a four-paragraph statement
be read to the students at the opening of the semester's biology class. It
says, in part: "Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be
tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the
theory exist for which there is no evidence."
The statement says that "intelligent design is an explanation of the origin
of life that differs from Darwin's view," and it advises students that a
textbook that teaches intelligent design, "Of Pandas and People," is
available in the school library.
In his testimony, Professor Miller called the Pandas textbook "inaccurate
and downright false in every section." The board's statement "undermines
sound science education" by conveying to students that only evolution merits
such skepticism, he said.
Professor Miller projected slides that he said contradicted the core of
design theory: that organisms are irreducibly complex. He also denigrated
intelligent design as "a negative argument against evolution," in which
there is no "positive argument" to test whether an intelligent designer
actually exists. If the theory is not testable, he said, it is not science.
Randall Wenger, a lawyer for the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, the
intelligent design advocacy group that produces the Pandas textbook, said,
"If they decide that intelligent design is just a remake of creationism,
that horribly undermines" both the Pandas textbook and "the motivation for
scientists to study intelligent design."
---
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Blunderov
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RE: virus: Evolution Lawsuit Opens in Pennsylvania
« Reply #1 on: 2005-09-28 03:05:20 » |
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[Blunderov] Direct evidence of the outrageous sophistry that is ID.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509270008
"On Lou Dobbs Tonight, Sherwin spoke in favor of intelligent design against
Scott, who opposed teaching the theory in classrooms. But in introducing
Sherwin, Dobbs merely stated that he represented "the Institute of Creation
Research" and is a supporter of "teaching the theory [intelligent design] to
students," without providing details on the organization's clear goal of
advancing creationism as a Christian orthodoxy. As the Institute of Creation
Research's (ICR) website proclaims:
'We believe God has raised up ICR to spearhead Biblical Christianity's
defense against the godless and compromising dogma of evolutionary humanism.
Only by showing the scientific bankruptcy of evolution, while exalting
Christ and the Bible, will Christians be successful in "the pulling down of
strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every
thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Corinthians 10:4,5)'."
[Bl.] Also
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/205807.htm#more
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