Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Dover Goes to Trial Today

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

The Dover Area School District trial about the teaching of ID starts today, and you can expect a lot of press coverage concerning it. Yesterday evening, the BBC interviewed me and Robert Boston of Americans United for Separation the Secularization of Church and State regarding Dover (it was a telephone debate). Boston was following the script of the Secular Coalition for America to a tee: ID is biblical creationism with biblical references omitted (so what do you do with Plato, Aristotle, and Antony Flew?); ID has no presence in the scientific community (so what do you do with the recent peer-reviewed publications?); yeah, but 99.9% of publications reject ID (but just moment ago you said it was 100%); etc.

Dealing with people like this convinces me that we need to redouble our efforts to hasten the demise of Darwinian materialism (and regardless of the outcome of the Dover trial). It’s not just that this ideology is wrong. It’s that its proponents don’t deserve the prominence and power they have in our culture. The real pseudoscience here is the appeal to materialistic evolutionary mechanisms that have never demonstrated the creative power to produce large-scale biological innovations.

Comments
With regard to the 1st amendment, atheists want to have their cake and eat it too. They disavow being a religion when it comes to establishment but claim to be a religion when it comes to freedom (and tax exempt status). It's really funny. They're going to lose. They can't have their cake and eat it too. It's only a matter of time. It takes a long time (due to intelligent design of the U.S. constitution) to change the makeup of the Supreme Court. But that long process is just about complete. Now all we have to do is wait for relevant cases to be brought before them.DaveScot
September 29, 2005
September
09
Sep
29
29
2005
11:44 AM
11
11
44
AM
PDT
It seems there are infinite ways to confuse the Truth. For example, in one of Dr. Dembski's articles on his Design Inference page, he does a great job of delineating the differences between ID and creationism theoretically while highlighting similar effects they may both be striving for to defeat materialism. However, this was construed as "Creationism lite" over on the Philosophy of Biology blog.MWC
September 27, 2005
September
09
Sep
27
27
2005
09:03 PM
9
09
03
PM
PDT
re Dover http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-27-2005/0004132403&EDATE=
The ACLU is suing the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania for adopting a policy that requires students to listen to a three-paragraph statement about the theory of intelligent design.
Even this article, which is on our side, gets something VERY wrong in the opening paragraph. No student in Dover is REQUIRED to listen to the ID monolog. Any student may opt out of listening to it. Indeed, no science teacher is even required to read it. They may also opt out and a non-teaching administrator will read it instead. The Dover school board bent over backwards to accomodate a tiny minority. If the minority had even a fraction of the tolerance and accomodation for opinions that differ from their own this ridiculous legal circus act wouldn't need to be performed.DaveScot
September 27, 2005
September
09
Sep
27
27
2005
04:27 AM
4
04
27
AM
PDT
"The real pseudoscience here is the appeal to materialistic evolutionary mechanisms that have never demonstrated the creative power to produce large-scale biological innovations." It's easy enough to understand how the masses, whose only exposure to evolution theory was the Darwinian dogma uncritically taught as settled fact in public school biology class, believe what they were taught. What amazes me is that so-called scientists who're expected to think & question instead of listen & believe hold to their dogmatic beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's easy enough to understand how the scientists from generations past, who were totally unaware of the exquisite complexity of the machinery inside every living cell and did not know that the universe was finite in size & age, found the Darwinian narrative to be a valid scientific theory with great explanatory power. What amazes me is that so-called scientists today who're expected to have reasonable understanding of the complexity of sub-cellular machinery and who should be well aware of temporal and spatial constraints on its evolution should continue to uncritically accept random chance as the designer. It's stupid and dishonest. Stupid and dishonest may not be disastrous in science but it's a show-stopper in engineering where what we believe to be true must be demonstrated by practical application in the marketplace before it has any worth.DaveScot
September 27, 2005
September
09
Sep
27
27
2005
03:41 AM
3
03
41
AM
PDT
Perhaps all those who fear ID on religious grounds could tell us which religion ID is supposed to represent? ID proponents come from many different religious backgrounds (and some claim no religious affiliation at all.) In the courts, "religion" is a very elastic term and usually means whatever the presiding judge wants it to mean.DonaldM
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
06:22 PM
6
06
22
PM
PDT
The "secular Coalition of America" (SCA)? Hmmm, silly me, I thought the SCA was the "Society for Creative Anachronism" http://www.sca.org/ Well, maybe they are one and the same...DonaldM
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
06:17 PM
6
06
17
PM
PDT
id have to agree with bill in regards to the courts. i mean, the courts have concluded that a prayer in school is somehow equal to the nation establishing a state religion! same goes for having a minister give a prayer at graduation or even a silent prayer among sports teams! if that was enough to establish a state religion, there would be MILLIONS of state religions! :) the courts have completely lost it when it comes to the Constitution, especially in regards to the free exercise clause. and theyve twisted it to include things that arent even of a religious nature to begin with! now, theyre using that tactic to call ID religion, which makes no sense (as bill pointed out). are they proclaiming that non-religious IDers are liars who actually DO believe in god?! its insane beyond belief. its a sad state of affairs with tiny minority groups can control our lives like this. mislabel a scientific theory, have all your buddies call it psuedoscience and that its a religious idea, then attack it in the courts with disinformation, misapplied labels, smear tactics, etc. classy.jboze3131
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
11:04 AM
11
11
04
AM
PDT
I do not sense anything that is skeptical in Bill's observation. DanDan
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
10:32 AM
10
10
32
AM
PDT
Hey Bill, is there any way of getting rid of these ads on your blog?Benjii
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
09:40 AM
9
09
40
AM
PDT
I'm confident about ID as an intellectual and scientific program. I have no confidence in what the courts will decide about it. That's why I'm not holding my breath and continue to put my nose to the grindstone.William Dembski
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
09:21 AM
9
09
21
AM
PDT
ID is not about to lose--its pending success is leading opponents to redouble their efforts against it. Things get worse before they get better.TomG
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
08:59 AM
8
08
59
AM
PDT
You don't sound very confident. Is ID about to lose?jimpressario
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
08:50 AM
8
08
50
AM
PDT
Bill, I wholeheartedly agree with you! It's funny how this guy accuses you of trying to infuse religion into the schools. When in reality, he would love to infuse atheism. Secular coalition of America: Do I sense an ulterior motive at hand?Benjii
September 26, 2005
September
09
Sep
26
26
2005
07:57 AM
7
07
57
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply