Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

wande-Do you not know the number of parents taking action as a % of the total number of parents who have children at school/s under Dover school board "control".

Let's get some science into this.I am a scientist after all.How many schools are there under the jurisdiction of the Dover school board?

And isn't it an unsupported assertion that protecting their rights is the reason these parents are taking this action.Isn't that a "belief".They might simply like stirring the mud up or they might hope there's money in it somewhere or they might hope it goes to the Supreme Court and they will become minor celebrities and be on coast to coast chat shows or they might have an axe to grind.Since when have you started believing what people say?You can't even believe people these days when they are under oath.

So let's do the numbers first eh?

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Numbers are irrelevant. Under the U.S. legal system, people may seek protection of their rights whether they are part of a majority or only represent themselves.

If numbers are important, the Dover school board would never have made a decision that is contrary to the thousands of other school boards in the United States.

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Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

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Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

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wandeljw wrote:

Here is a link that will "magically" transport you to the court where the trial is taking place:

http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller.htm

spendius,

Here again is my link to the court. Court documents show that the parents are requesting protection of their rights under the "establishment clause" of the United States Constitution. My assertion is therefore not "unsupported".

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wande-

It is unsupported in the sense that one cannot always believe what people say and especially when there are possibilities of other advantages which they might prefer not to admit.I can easily see that the Court documents show what you say they do.There would be no case if they didn't.Do you dismiss entirely the possible advantages I suggested to which I might add being the centre of attention on the Warholian 15 minute principle.Some people enjoy litigation.

It looks from here that there's a suspicion that your reticence about numbers is because the % might be tiny.And then the door is open for some very strange ideas to come floating in.A juror would assume a tiny % if that side continually evaded the numbers question.I agree that makes no difference to the principle but the courts will take it into account I should have thought.

May I ask once again-what number of Dover parents are not taking action either because they agree with the board or they are not bothered.Is it hundreds or thousands?Just a rough estimate will do.

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spendius,

My assertion is well-documented. Your suggested "advantages" are not documented at all.

You misunderstand my "reticence" about numbers. I do not have any numbers concerning the parents who have children at the Dover school. Moreover, you have not acknowledged the fact that "numbers" did not prevent a lone school board from taking an action that thousands of other school boards have not taken. You have not acknowledged the fact that any individual may seek to protect his rights whether he belongs to a majority or not.

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Generally speaking, any individual in the US can bring a suit to protect their constitutional and civil rights. It's not about "numbers" in any shape or form.

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Sturgis

Quote:

May I ask once again-what number of Dover parents are not taking action either because they agree with the board or they are not bothered.Is it hundreds or thousands?Just a rough estimate will do.

You can ask the question, but any judge will sustain an objection of irrelevance. One parent is sufficient to file suit.

Quote:

And then the door is open for some very strange ideas to come floating in.

Yes, as in the lonely Copernicus postulating his thoughts on solar rotation.

But your fear of a strange idea floating in is otherwise well founded. ID has arrived and it is strange. Neither science nor philosophy, neither fish nor fowl, a bit like thinking or wishful thinking or perhaps a belief in magic, it has arrived. We shall now shine a great light upon it.

Joe(Whoops, it starts to shrivel.)Nation

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Joe-tasty man.

If counsel asks a question and the judge sustains the objection it doesn't mean the question hasn't been asked even if it is struck out in the record.It merely means the question needn't be answered here in court.But a juror would know the question had importance from it having been asked and being objected to.He can find the answer elsewhere surely in a case like this.I don't think the ideas in ID need detain us.It is the fact that people have them that is interesting.

I like the "shine a great light".It suits my scientific spirit.Animus almost.

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Gotta go.

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spendius wrote:

If counsel asks a question and the judge sustains the objection it doesn't mean the question hasn't been asked even if it is struck out in the record.It merely means the question needn't be answered here in court.But a juror would know the question had importance from it having been asked and being objected to.He can find the answer elsewhere surely in a case like this.I don't think the ideas in ID need detain us.It is the fact that people have them that is interesting.

spendius,

There is no jury in the Dover case. It is a "bench" trial. The judge alone makes the decision.

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Gee wande-

Are all Sders as pedantic as this?

Judges are known as jurists.When counsel asks the question that the objection is sustained for he is simply reminding the judge not to ignore it.The counsel would know that there would be an objection and that it would be sustained.You don't think they don't know what Joe knows do you.

Why do you keep underestimating people.These guys are not mugs.

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What's the bloody % for f***s sake?

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It may suit your scientific spirit, but it still won't stand in court.

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3600 is the number and 11 is the other number.

Thus 3589 children have parents who either wish ID to be taught in Dover Board schools or are content to leave such things to the Board.Which is roughly 99.7%.

There is the letter of the law and there is the spirit of the law.

It has been said that the case will go to the Supreme Court so,to save time and money,let us go there now.Correct me if I'm wrong but there are 9 judges I gather.Are the SDers on here predicting a 9-0 verdict for the 0.3%.I doubt it.
Let us say that it comes down to 4-4 and there's a casting voter.

Are you trying to claim that the 9th judge will not know these numbers or,if s/he does know,which is a certainty,will not take them into account irrespective of them having being struck from trial records.

Are you saying that for 4 of the judges the epithets used on this thread to describe IDers are appropriate.Are you saying that the casting vote judge couldn't write a judgement for either side.And thus that personal feeling will swing it and when he looks at things like the objection to the simple question which everybody knows the answer to and the pedantic attitude to a basic fact of life displayed by SDers he might well decide that the SD position is untenable as a way of running a society.

S/he will also take into account having to face a disgruntled School Board if s/he votes SD.Not to mention other staff and parents who favour ID.And,one presumes,states which returned Mr Bush will likely be disgruntled too with an SD decision.

I think SDers will lose the case simply because of the way they have proceeded.The stubborn refusal to supply a friendly,disinterested observer with the figure for the number of children under the Dover Board's authority exposes,in my view,a side to SD that may not have been fully appreciated before.A barrack room lawyer side.

I take no view on the argument.If a school board which had fully implemented the SD position was being challenged by 0.3% to bring in ID against their policy I would say exactly the same thing as I have said.Surely the Dover School Board would have to resign if it loses the case.Is that the name of the game?Political games with the kids as the ball.

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spendius,

I am saying your line of argument is completely irrelevant.

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Quote:

Book snubs evolution evidence, court told
(BY BILL SULON, The Patriot-News, October 15, 2005)
Proponents of intelligent design, including the authors of the textbook "Of Pandas and People," can't or won't accept ample fossilized evidence that living things evolved over millions of years, said an expert in paleontology and macro-evolution.
"Pandas" is cited as a reference book in Dover Area School District's disputed policy requiring that ninth-grade science students hear about intelligent design at the start of a unit on evolution. The book ignores evidence of fossils that show examples of transitional features in birds, fish and mammals, and instead wrongly proposes that life materialized abruptly, with features intact, said Kevin Padian, professor of integrated biology at the University of Berkeley, California.
"Intelligent design proponents either do not understand or accept how scientists establish relationships among organisms," Padian testified yesterday in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg, where 11 Dover parents are suing the school district to eliminate the reading of the statement on intelligent design.
**************************************************
Asked his opinion of the four-paragraph statement, Padian, testifying on behalf of the parents opposed to the Dover policy, said, "I think it makes people stupid. I think it makes them ignorant."
He said the statement asks students to ignore a broad body of evidence supporting evolution, creates confusion for students, and has "clearly caused a great division" in the community of Dover.
The statement calls evolution "just a theory" with unexplainable "gaps," and refers students to "Pandas" in the school library as a resource on intelligent design.
In the book, authors say, "Darwinists object to the view of intelligent design because it does not give a natural cause explanation of how various forms of life started in the first place. Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact."
Decades before "Pandas" was published in 1989, scientists had fossilized evidence that feathers, gills and appendages of creatures changed over time, Padian testified. More evidence has been unearthed since 1993, when the latest edition of "Pandas" was published, he said.
Padian, curator of his university's museum of paleontology and president of the National Center for Science Education, said "Pandas" also misleads students by including graphs that "suggest organisms suddenly appeared."
Fossil evidence shows that certain winged creatures from the dinosaur era did not fly but rather used their rudimentary wings for warmth, camouflage and to shelter their eggs, Padian said, referring to a photo displayed in the courtroom of a well-preserved fossil. Over time and on an "evolutionary pathway," wings and feathers became more complex and eventually became the "aerodynamic structures," he said.
Under cross examination by school district lawyer Robert Muise, Padian acknowledged that he has referred to the Cambrian Explosion, 500 million years ago, as a period when there was "an abrupt" appearance of life, and he agreed with similar statements made by other experts. But he said "abrupt" in science means, "that's the first place where we found it." He said the initial appearance of a species does not detract from the scientific evidence that morphological changes occurred.

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wande said-

Quote:

I am saying your line of argument is completely irrelevant.

And I am saying it is the only line of argument that is relevant and I think events will prove me right.

The piece you quote from Patriot News can be argued about until the end of time and no conclusion reached.

It is a political question and will be adjudicated politically.

I think your statement quoted here is just another refusal to address the issues I have raised.It is a variant in the "it is"/"no it isn't" school of debate.You have ignored also a couple of other posters.

And your refusal to allow any sociological or psychological considerations speaks volumes for the SD side of things and it won't be going un-noticed.

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spendius,

I meant no disrespect. If other A2K posters wish to pursue your sociological/psychological approach to this topic, they are free to do so.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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