Dover Penn ID trial

[Flo]

I read some of the transcript and it reminded me of the saying:

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b******t"

 

[headscratcher4]

More fun from Penn. From the AP wire on the trial:

Ex-School Trustee 'Misspoke' on Evolution

A former school board member who denied saying creationism should be taught alongside evolution in high school biology classes changed his story Thursday after being confronted in court with TV news footage of him making such comments.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051028...7b32mWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

Damn those cameras! Instruments of Satan!

 

[Mojo]

A former school board member who denied saying creationism should be taught alongside evolution in high school biology classes changed his story Thursday after being confronted in court with TV news footage of him making such comments.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051028...7b32mWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

Damn those cameras! Instruments of Satan!

I had it in my mind to make sure not to talk about creationism.

It's all a bit like Basil Fawlty trying not to mention the war.

 

[Upchurch]

Slight tangent:

Intelligent design loser in moot court

In a mock courtroom case that revolved around the concept of intelligent design, a fictitious junior high school teacher likely would have lost his bid to teach the controversial theory.

The case, which is similar to actual court cases, including one federal trial being held in Pennsylvania, involved an eighth-grade teacher who taught intelligent design despite a school district policy prohibiting the concept.

However....

But Judge Carr stressed that their decision was not an indication on how they would rule if an actual case involving intelligent design or creationism versus evolution came before any of them.

Which makes it sound like their decision was based more on the quality of the presentation rather than the quality of the facts presented.

For what it's worth.

 

[drkitten]

Which makes it sound like their decision was based more on the quality of the presentation rather than the quality of the facts presented.

Well, that's always the case in any legal proceeding.

For example, my reading of the transcript suggest that Behe crashed and burned on the witness stand (and the rest of the experts are bailing out precisely for that reason). My opinion might be tempered slightly if I had seen the actual testimony, but most likely, if I had seen Behe hemming and hawing and adjusting his collar and stammering as he got backed further and further into a corner, it would only have been strengthened.

But let's give credit where credit is due. Behe has successfully testified before in other cases without going down in flames. Rothschild is demonstrably brilliant at cross-examination. Given the same witness, the same environment, the same depositions, and the same facts, I don't think I could have done the same job. If the ACLU had been dumb enough to retain me, I would have lost the case for them....

 

[headscratcher4]

It's all a bit like Basil Fawlty trying not to mention the war.

Which, of course, points up one of the great and interesting facets of this whole thing...the willingness of the other side (i.e. the creationists) to lie and dissemble to make their case. Beginning witht he premise that it is acceptable science (so acceptable that the football game between the sides would be like the University of Michigan playing the University of Alaska, Nome in U.of M. stadium). Then they have to hide the real agenda...which is to re-introduce religion into the science curriculum via the science of "ID" which is just a cleaned up version of creationism. I guess what I am trying to get to is that it is politics and poltical strategy (a'la the civil rights movemtn) not scientific discovery or research that is driving this cart...

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Jump ship! Jump ship! This is so much fun I'm getting the heebie-jeebies.

Is that cruel of me?

~~ Paul

 

[delphi_ote]

But it's worse than just "not science." These are supposedly "Christians..."

Do not make false statements to one another; because you have put away the old man with all his doings... Colossians 3:9

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't boast and don't lie against the truth." James 3:14

I have not written to you because you don't know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth." 1 John 2:21

And most importantly...

DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

(Which was apparently literally written in stone at one point...)

Why is it they never seem to read their own book? Why do their fellow Christians never condemn them for this behavior? They seem to be willing to flush all of the teachings of their religion just to make sure nobody contradicts a fairy tale.

 

[Mojo]

But it's worse than just "not science." These are supposedly "Christians..."

Why is it they never seem to read their own book?

I was wondering about this. I know that there was a 1631 edition of the Bible that accidentally had the word "not" omitted from the seventh commandment, so I've just checked the Authorised Version (AKA King James Bible) to make sure it's there in the ninth commandment. It is. Maybe they just don't consider non-creationists to be their "neighbours."

Incidentally, why did these clowns decide that a seventeenth century English translation was inerrant?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Former Dover Area School board member Bill Buckingham struggled to clarify Thursday how he raised $850 at his church for copies of the textbook "Of Pandas and People" even though earlier he gave a deposition saying he didn't know how the books were donated to the high school.

I love this guy.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Incidentally, why did these clowns decide that a seventeenth century English translation was inerrant?

And why didn't the seventeenth century translators notice that they were inerrant and mention it?

 

[Mojo]

From another column by Mike Argento:

It was like he had a Homer Simpson moment. He was thinking "Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism." And then he opens his yap and says "creationism."

D'oh!

 

[Dr Adequate]

So where are the transcripts?

I guess the people at talkorigins are laughing too hard to type.

 

[hammegk]

But it's worse than just "not science." These are supposedly "Christians..."

Perhaps. Which suitable studies that test your hypothesis do you find most convincing?

Evidence of improbability is of course all around us. For example, what are the odds that you'd turn up at exactly the point in the universe where you are right now? And let's not forget that flagellum, people! That is the kind of structure I call "undeniaby improbable".

My question is, why does it even have to be an intelligent entity? Maybe there is a whole dimension of invisible astral enzimes that tend to mutate DNA strands to produce new, advantageous structures. Perhaps this dimension occasionally collides with our own plane of existance, and results in such events.

I find out-of-the-box thinking more interesting than regurgitation of liturgy.

Who is the Anthropic Principal? Some senior figure at your High School?

Oh, and appearances can, of course, be deceptive.

Agreed, yet appearance via perception is all we have to work with sfaik.

The current Theory of Evolution does not require any "striving for complexity" or any striving at all,

No, it doesn't.

Natural selection is anything but random! You might want to clarify.

Timing of specific environment & timing of rna-dna available for mutation is not random?

Or does environment specify and direct mutation? LOL.




And for the pedants, yes it should have been "principle" not "principal".

 

[Dr Adequate]

Hey, hammy, you've gatecrashed this party.

I can tell you don't belong here because the invite said "huge smug grins to be worn", and you're the only person here not wearing one.

 

[Bronze Dog]

Timing of specific environment & timing of rna-dna available for mutation is not random?

Or does environment specify and direct mutation? LOL.

Once again, I get the feeling that hammy doesn't know what random means.

 

[drkitten]

Once again, I get the feeling that hammy doesn't know what random means.

Why should "random" be unique in this regard?

 

[hammegk]

Once again, I get the feeling that hammy doesn't know what random means.

Do you, in the sense you've actually contemplated the implications of the word?

Why should "random" be unique in this regard?

Oh! You made a funny!

 

[Bronze Dog]

Do you, in the sense you've actually contemplated the implications of the word?

Implications... such as?

 

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Pastor Bentonit
Natural selection is anything but random! You might want to clarify.

Timing of specific environment & timing of rna-dna available for mutation is not random?

Or does environment specify and direct mutation?

Sorry, Hammy, but another of your strawmen is showing. That's not what the Pastor said. Mutation and natural selection are not the same process. Mutation is random; the process of natural selection which acts on the results of those mutations is driven by environmental pressures.