Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

That would be a reasonable analysis.

It is a pity it is besmirched by such usages as-

"lick-spittle", "canards", "stealth", "swallow", "song and dance".

Any pretence of objectivity is thrown away when such obviously unscientific terms are used.

One presumes that the court which is forecast to "swallow the song and dance" is an important institution and therefore the phrase is easily interpreted as an attack on that institution's integrity and,moreover,for something it hasn't done yet or even looked like doing.

spendius, thats the whole point.

Set, this had occured to us in PA and the issue o "throwing the bums Out" made the possibility of an appeal even more remote. The costs of these trials is high and the voters want education but are being drowned in ever increasing school taxes in suburban/rural areas that have seen large influx of city folks. They want schools with swimming pools and weight rooms and up to date shops. All these cost more than theyre willing to pay. Then when we add on a lawsuit like at Dover (where the Discovery Institute recognized early in the "discovery " process that they had a really bad case) the costs , all the way to the SUpreme Court start adding up like Everett Derksins famous pronouncement.
I think in Kansas they will have a smoother transition because they havent bonded with any organization of "shills".
They are being careful not to leave large footprints of either Discovery or CRI on the curricula. I only hope that Judge Jones decision will cast a large enough shadow and have the intended influence that he hoped for.

What are "shills".

It isn't a word I'm familiar with although I have a memory that it is an American expression for someone who is brought on stage from an audience pretending to be an ordinary member of the public but in actual fact is an employee of the show's management.

Is that right?

yep

Well-in that case wouldn't it be possible,if there is an undercover eugenic agenda in back of opposition to religion (in general),or a feminist agenda or any of a number of agendas it is possible to suggest,to designate at least some of this opposition as "shills".

I mean by being reasonable and allowing that if one suggests a back door agenda for religion one ought not to be too shocked if someone suggests a back door agenda for anti-religion.

Rejection of such an idea implies a distortion of language in one direction only and constitutes rigging the evidence and that is hardly scientific.

You take a lot of liberties with your assumptions. And it's clear that you transfer a lot of your own problems onto others.



You are quite the showpiece Spendi. Let's hear more of what you have to say...



You've heard of the house that Jack built, well this is the hole that Spendi dug... and fell into.

Try to avoid being so unutterably silly ros.You sound like a young lady social worker with that drivel.What do you suggest my problems are and what is the mechanism by which I'm supposed to transfer them to others.Your statement is a well know tactic usually employed within uneducated circles.It involves what is known as "projection" and is normally deployed when no other answer is readily available.It's a flounce actually.

It has been admitted,not many pages back,that religion isn't going to disappear by one of your side so what are you on about.You might as well rage against the weather as against something else that isn't going to disappear.And,unlike you,I will refrain from discussing the psychological categories involved in that behaviour even though I am familiar with them.You do have a set of psychological categories like the rest of us don't you?



Haven't I provided enough unanswered stuff?But don't fret-there's plenty more.

Why wouldn't a scientific world view accept the senseless savagery of nature and go along with the sordid scramble for profit,position and power exclusively and set aside ideas of beauty,security and experiences beyond the common range which believers,admittedly pursuing an impossible dream,refuse to give up on because they find the black pit of materialism and Philistinism too hard to bear.The scientific world-view has a bed to lie in.I think you are are snuggled up in Religion's bed right now and can't see it simply because you have nothing to say in it and so attacking it gives you something to say which is conveniently easy and possibly convenient in other areas as well.

Will that do for now?



At least that's a novel empty assertion for which we owe thanks.

There are two houses.If one calls the other a hole well it is just as easy to reverse it and you are straight back to the playground and the "It is/No it isn't/Oh yes it is/It jolly well isn't." Fleshed out a bit with words just as meaningless as the argument is as one gets a little older.

Try discussing one of my posts for a change.I'm more that eager to learn where I have been mistaken if I have.It's just than I'm not keen on accepting the assertion "You're mistaken" with nothing behind it.I would have to have a belief in your words of wisdom to do that and I'm not strong on beliefs I'm afraid.Nowhere near as strong as you because I don't believe in magical incantations like you lot of scientifics seem to do. You do seem to have a tendency to think that an assertion that I'm stupid will be believed by those readers of this thread who have run viewing figures up to nearly 40,000.(Is it-it's a lot).As a scientific fact I mean.
I don't think those readers are quite so simple as you think.

That sounds interesting.What was it?

I wouldn't have bothered you but Google didn't click it.

Derksen said
"a Billion dollars here, ten billion there, pretty soon were talking about some real money"

The dollar consideration is certainly a valid one, Hey-Zeus, and one which makes it more difficult to work this through a school board--what i was thinkig was that as Roberts is now obviously a ringer on the Supremes, and with Alito likely to join him, they may hold out to throw all of their resources into a later appeal. That would seem plausible, at least, and the more so if the Shrub does any more appointments to the Supremes.

This is what i'm getting at, FM, and what made me think of it. I've had Alito in mind for a host of reasons; then, in another thread, Thomas mentioned Mr. Justice Taney's decision in Dred Scott. That decision upholding slavery was completely out of step with the times, and counter to the will of the majority of the population; however, on a strictly legal basis, slavery was enshrined in the constitution, and Taney's decision was correct. It was therefore necessary to amend the constitution to end slavery (Thomas has said that Lincoln had ended it, which was not correct, the ratification of the XIIIth amendment ended slavery, after Lincoln was dead and buried).

If the court were sufficiently conservative, then it is possible that the "right" case could be construed as an issue referring to the IXth or Xth amendments, and the court could find that they had no jurisdiction in matters of the decision of a local school board (IXth amendment) or of a state board of education (Xth amendment)--and it occured to me that the ID crowd got sucked in with the Dover issue, and that they were not really prepared, but that they may have it in mind to push this in the future when they think the court may be more sympathetic to an argument that it is not a matter for the federal judiciary to decide.

Now we are,at last,getting somewhere.

It has taken a while but it might have been worth it.

History is what's going past your eyeballs.

Setanta,

If a conservative court tried that approach, wouldn't they be ignoring the fourteenth amendment? Judge Jones ruled that the establishment clause applied to the local Dover school board by virtue of the fourteenth amendment. Maybe some other court would construe it differently, but I hope they do not get away with anything like this.

wande-

If there is a 90% acceptance of a "belief" in some states and a 90% acceptance of "unbelief" in others
wont the suggestion made be the way out of the impasse.

That is one of the things I have always thought not just likely but necessary.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/war.shtml

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Catalano/box/laymans_response.shtml

fresco-

You're an expert on these matters.

Could you tell us what % of the population have IQ's between 90 and 110.

I believe the answer to that is 50%

(25% <= IQ 90 & 75% <= IQ 110)

http://www.audiblox.com/iq_scores.htm

Right.Do you expect the 75% to understand this stuff or even be interested.And they all have votes.

Are you part of the 75%, spendi?

Yes.I should think so.Why?

Don't you know that intellectualism can be seen as a conspiracy against the state and the people.A conspiracy moreover organised sitting in chairs.Some people even think party politics is a conspiracy against the state and the people.