More Intelligent Design

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by warch

The rules are made by whoever shows up.

Poor, self-righteous Pat Robertson is sad and ridiculous. He should be allowed every opportunity to prove it to a wide audience.

Of course, if he were to get electrocuted or struck by lightening, the spin doctors would label it as "G-d calling him to his side" instead of punishment.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by hampor

If gravity is only a theory, does that mean that we will have to worry about learning IF (intelligent falling)?

Not worry -- Intelligent Falling gets taught in judo class.

[BigV]

Well, back on topic, I heard on the radio just now that the Dover School Board has been told they violated the law requiring intelligent design to be taught in biology classes. The court has ruled that intelligent design is not science. Hallelujah!

Judge rules against Dover school board

Daily Record/Sunday News

Dec 20, 2005 — A federal judge ruled today that the mention of intelligent design in Dover Area School District's ninth-grade biology class is unconstitutional because it amounts to establishing religion in public schools.

U.S. Middle District Court Judge John E. Jones III wrote that Dover cannot require "teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution" or "refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID."

Jones also ruled that the defendants are subject to liability for plaintiffs' attorneys' fees.

In October 2004, the Dover school board voted to add a mention of intelligent design to its ninth-grade biology curriculum. Intelligent design holds that life had to have been created by an intelligent force because it is too complex to have happened otherwise.

Board members who supported the change said students should learn about alternative theories to evolution.

Eleven people whose children attend or plan to attend Dover schools sued the school board and district, claiming the board's decision to make intelligent design part of the science curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The trial began Sept. 26 and ended Nov. 4.

[Happy Monkey]

Jones also ruled that the defendants are subject to liability for plaintiffs' attorneys' fees.

Maybe this will discourage more of this idiocy.

[Griff]

Of course the voters already cleaned house...

[richlevy]

Make way for the indignant fundamentalists with torches (insert appropriate smiley) yelling 'activist judge, activist judge'.

[monster]

So what if there is a god, but s/he is actually a product of evolution rather than the mastermind behind it? What if one twig of the hairless ape branch developed extreme intelligence, telepathic capability and an ability to be invisible to the human eye? As a group they are omnipresent and omniscient, and individually are physically similar to humans.

Maybe about 2000 years ago they got a little worried about the human population and the possibility of it’s self-destruction and determined to intervene? Being genetically close, they decided to provide an advisor to the human race. By cross-breeding with the humans they produced an ambassador accepted by and visible to the humans and yet able to see and communicate with themselves. The human mother was known as Mary. The rest, as they say, is history.

-------

Is this really a less valid proposal than Intelligent Design?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Welcome to the Cellar, Monster.
limey expat, huh. This place is getting awfully civilized.

Oh, by the way... the creative writing section is further down.

[monster]

Thanks. Nice place. Creative writing section, huh?

[tw]

I don't remember ever reading a decision so one sided against the criminals. Testimony even from defendant's own witnesses - people promoting Intelligent Design in Dover PA - all but incriminated the defendants. Defense witness also justified that astrology be taught as science. That ID is really about "supernatural causation". The judge even all but decrees defendants as liars (repetitious, untruthful testimony). Some excert from the judge's 138 page decision are provided. Yes, much reading because so many sweeping statements against those defendants says much about who they really are:

The court in McLean stated that creation science rested on a "contrived dualism" that recognized only two possible explanations for life, the scientific theory of evolution and biblical creationism, treated the two as mutually exclusive such that "one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution," and accordingly viewed any critiques of evolution as evidence that necessarily supported biblical creationism.
...

Accordingly, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas deemed creation science as merely biblical creationism in a new guise and held that Arkansas' balanced-treatment statute could have no valid secular purpose or effect, served only to advance religion, and violated the First Amendment.
...

The concept of intelligent design (hereinafter "ID"), in its current form, came into existence after the Edwards case was decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child.
...

One significant difference is that the words "God," "creationism," and "Genesis" have been systematically purged from ID explanations, and replaced by an unnamed "designer."
...

In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere.
...

Moreover, a review of the letters and editorials at issue reveals that ... community members postulated that ID is an inherently religious concept, that the writers viewed the decision of whether to incorporate it into the high school biology curriculum as one which implicated a religious concept, and therefore that the curriculum change has the effect of placing the government's imprimatur on the Board's preferred religious viewpoint.
...

We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. ... it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
...

ID takes a natural phenomenon and, instead of accepting or seeking a natural explanation, argues that the explanation is supernatural. ... Defendants’ own expert witnesses acknowledged this point. ... First, defense expert Professor Fuller agreed that ID aspires to "change the ground rules" of science and lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology.
...

... i.e. if it looks complex or designed, it must have been designed. This inference to design ... is a completely subjective proposition, determined in the eye of each beholder and his/her viewpoint concerning the complexity of a system. Although both Professors Behe and Minnich assert that there is a quantitative aspect to the inference, on cross-examination they admitted that there is no quantitative criteria for determining the degree of complexity or number of parts that bespeak design, rather than a natural process.

Plaintiffs' expert in biology [the expert from Brown U promoting ID], ... provided unrebutted testimony that evolution, including common descent and natural selection, is "overwhelmingly accepted" by the scientific community and that every major scientific association agrees.
...

On cross-examination, Professor Behe admitted that: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred." [Every claim by Professor Behe to defend ID is listed by the judge, using Behe's own testimony, has having nothing but Behe's own believes to support his ID claims.]
...

... we find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science.
...

When he ran for the Board in 2001, Bonsell told Jeff Brown he did not believe in evolution, that he wanted creationism taught side-by-side with evolution in biology class, and that taking prayer and Bible reading out of school was a mistake which he wanted reinstated in the Dover public schools.
...

Finally, although Defendants have unceasingly attempted in vain to distance themselves from their own actions and statements, which culminated in repetitious, untruthful testimony, ... Any asserted secular purposes by the Board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective. ... Defendants’ previously referenced flagrant and insulting falsehoods to the Court provide sufficient and compelling evidence for us to deduce that any allegedly secular purposes that have been offered in support of the ID Policy are equally insincere.
Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause.
...

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. ... Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator. ... As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. ... The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID.

The judge goes even farther limiting defendants as to how they may promote ID due to the nature of their past illegal actions. And if that was not enough, those illegal promoters of ID must pay all Plantiffs legal costs:

3. Because Plaintiffs seek nominal damages, Plaintiffs shall file with the Court and serve on Defendants, their claim for damages and a verified statement of any fees and/or costs to which they claim entitlement.

This is about as damning a decision as a judge can make complete with a comment about those extremists who would complain about activist judges.

Last time I read a paper this interesting was the 9/11 Commission report - where George Jr even ignored warnings of that attack - he did not even read his PDB. Where top administration officials did nothing on 11 September and some even openly lied to the commission about actions they did not take. You don't get reports that interesting - or as one sided as this one against people who would openly impose their religion on all others - which is unconstitutional.

Why mention George Jr? He openly defended the criminals in Dover PA - as one would expect from a religious extremist who does not even read his PDBs - but knows torture and wiretaps are also legal. It's all about the unexpected Spanish Inquisition.

God's chosen one - the judge - has again slew the evil beast - ID.

[tw]

From Exodus 20:16

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design'
The board members made little secret of their own views, which hewed not so much to intelligent design as to Young Earth Creationism, the fundamentalist Christian belief that the world is but 6,000 years old and that Noah's flood shaped the earth.
...

One board member told a public meeting -- in a remark he later tried to deny -- that the nation "was founded on Christianity, and our students should be taught as such."

These are people who would also promote Armageddon. Why? Satan would lie to promote Armageddon. So who really are these people who promote Intelligent Design (ID) - who would even lie to impose their religion on all others?

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's a shame this is only a minor setback. The juggernaut will keep trying to crush everyone in their way.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The January 16th Mallard Fillmore has a good intelligent-design joke.

[wolf]

You could have linked to it, you know ...

[mrnoodle]

All the fighting and such is fun, but I don't see what part of evolutionary science discredits the notion of intelligent design. Let's assume that everything in existence evolved from some prior form, so on and so on back for gazillions of years. There's no proof of that, of course, but from the few connections we've been able to make, there's a relationship amongst similar species, etc.

The science of figuring out those connections and hypothesizing what earlier forms might have been is one thing. Mandating that the only possible beginning is a big bang, or forcing children to learn that we all come from a single-celled organism 1 x 10^1000000000 years ago is, to me, just as self-serving, and just as big a stretch as saying "God started it all". What makes you so sure you're right? Your "proof" of man's origins ends at the Paleolithic era, and most of that is inference and guesswork.

I don't think your big bang trumps my God. In even the most skeptical of minds, they are only on equal footing, at best.