Evolution vs Intelligent Design in PA court case

[Nightwing]

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Link: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/112764580269740.xml&coll=2
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In Pennsylvania, challenge to evolution in public schools gets day in court

In a nonjury civil trial expected to last until late October, the latest challenge to evolution in public schools receives its first courtroom scrutiny.

<snip>

Intelligent design holds that Charles Darwin's theory can't explain all the complexity of life; there must have been a designer. The movement has spawned disputes about science teaching nationwide since the 1980s. They're raging now in Kansas, California, Colorado and other states.

Asked by a reporter last month, President Bush weighed in for intelligent design. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," he said.

<snip>

The story began last fall, when the school board in Dover, a town of about 1,900 people 25 miles south of Harrisburg, became the first in the nation to require introduction of intelligent design in science class.

Science teachers balked. So just before the ninth-grade unit on evolution, which state standards require, an administrator went to class and read a statement.

Evolution is "theory . . . not fact," and it has "gaps," the statement said. It went on to alert students to intelligent design and point them to a book on the subject in the school library.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. There is no "controversy"over evolution

there is not one shred of "scientific" evidence for ID


What a sorry, stupid country.....

:(

[Birthmark]

2. IDers are ignoramuses or worse.

Sorry if that offends anyone, but doubting evolution makes even less sense than doubting gravity. Anyone who doubts evolution either doesn't know much about it, or is trying to sell something.

[HereSince1628]

6. Personally I think they are clever manipulators

They understand popular sentiment for "fair play" and they exploit it.

They understand that society believes it only takes one hole to sink a boat.

[Birthmark]

11. Yup. That's the "or worse" part.

The leaders of the ID/Creationist movement are quite cynical and dishonest. I don't blame their followers for being duped - up to a point - since the leadership is very slick.

[SaveElmer]

3. For educators they are pretty ignorant...

Obviously unaware about the scietntific use of the term "theory." For scientists it represents a high degree of certainty. Like the "theory" of gravity. There is no dispute about it's existence and manifestations, even though everything about gravity is not known.

Evolution has gaps simply because science has not yet uncovered every aspect of it. There is no credible dispute as to its existence and manifestations however!!!

[RoBear]

4. So where's the state-bashing?

The other day I posted a message about some idiocy in Kansas and immediately there were three or four responses blasting Kansas. Apparently Kansas can be all idiots because of a few assholes, but the same doesn't apply to other states.

:sarcasm:

[stepnw1f]

5. So Stupid People Are Trying Legitimize Their

inability or unwillingness to think. That's why it's in court.

[HereSince1628]

9. They feel intellectual enlightenment has squeezed God out for centuries

ID'ers lawsuits are motivated to construct a shelter for believers in science curricula.

ID is ruse used to enable appeals to legal remedies to widen the scope of science education so that it can include the possibility of a creator and thus not work against fundamentalist support for allegory as reality.

ID advocates have nothing that could be said to really be evidence of a designer (for example, a divine drafting table or sketch pad). What they have are attempts to find flaws in the evidence and confounders to interpretations of science.

ID lawsuits continue to try to find legal mechanisms to force the hand of local and state school boards to construct these haven's for creators because public school governance engages general community input in specific curriculum policy.

As Rummy would say, ID'ers are dead enders. Their appeal to the courts is evidence of the depauperate nature of what they claim as scientific argument. If their arguments had been good they would not have failed in the rough and tumble arena of no-holds barred science.

[BlueJazz]

7. I LOVE this part >>>

"Asked by a reporter last month, President Bush weighed in for intelligent design. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," he said.

LOL..That's like asking a Cockroach to set up IP addresses on a Windows 2003 server. :)

[Toots]

8. Scientific Theory is fact until proved otherwise

Their theory not fact LIE is just that...

[WritingIsMyReligion]

10. There is a great

political cartoon about "teaching both sides:" "magic and science," "round earth vs. flat earth," etc. Very amusing.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Both sides