Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
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Posted on 09/22/2005 6:53:07 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based nonprofit that describes itself as a "nonpartisan policy and research organization," recently issued a policy position against Dover in its upcoming court case.
John West, associate director of Discovery's Center for Science & Culture, calls the Dover policy "misguided" and "likely to be politically divisive and hinder a fair and open discussion of the merits of intelligent design."
Eleven parents filed a federal suit last December, about two months after the school board voted to include a statement about intelligent design in its ninth-grade biology classes.
Intelligent design says living things are so complicated they had to have been created by a higher being, that life is too complex to have developed through evolution as described by biologist Charles Darwin.
The parents, along with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union, said the board had religious motives for putting the policy in place.
The non-jury trial is expected to start in Harrisburg Sept. 26.
No surprise: The school board's attorney, Richard Thompson, said he isn't surprised the Discovery Institute has distanced itself from the school board's stance.
"I think it's a tactical decision they make on their own," said Thompson, top attorney with Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, a law firm that specializes in cases related to the religious freedom of Christians.
Though the Discovery Institute promotes the teaching of intelligent design, it has been critical of school boards that have implemented intelligent design policies, Thompson said.
Discovery Institute's Web site offers school board members a link to a video titled "How to Teach the Controversy Legally," referring to the organization's opinion that there is a controversy over the validity of the theory of evolution.
The video doesn't specifically mention teaching intelligent design.
But Discovery Institute is the leading organization touting intelligent design research and supporting the scientists and scholars who want to investigate it.
Dover is the only school district that Discovery has publicly spoken out against. West said that's because they mandated the policy. Discovery Institute supports teaching intelligent design, but not requiring it through a school board policy.
He said there are few proponents of intelligent design who support the stand Dover's board has taken because the district has required the reading of a statement that mentions intelligent design and directs students to an intelligent design textbook.
"They really did it on their own and that's unfortunate," West said.
The "bad policy" has given the ACLU a reason to try to "put a gag order" on intelligent design in its entirety, he said.
Discovery also spoke out against Pennsylvania legislators who wanted to give school boards the option of mandating the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution.
Avoiding politics: Teaching intelligent design is not unconstitutional, but the institute doesn't support the Dover school board's stand because it doesn't want intelligent design to become a political issue, said Casey Luskin, program officer in the Public Policy and Legal Affairs department at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.
He said the Discovery Institute is "not trying to hinder their case in court," but the organization wants intelligent design to be debated by the scientific community, not school boards.
Lawyer: Won't hinder case: Thompson said the Discovery Institute's noninvolvement in the trial won't hinder Dover's case because "the judge is going to look at the policy ... not who is in favor of it on the outside."
But the institute has been a hindrance to the school district's attempts to find "scientific" witnesses to testify about intelligent design, Thompson said.
Though Discovery representatives said they have never been in support of Dover's policy, Thompson said the organization's unwillingness to get involved in the trial became evident after it insisted that some of its fellows -- who were lined up to testify -- have their own legal representation, instead of the Thomas More Center, which bills itself as "The Sword and Shield for People of Faith."
Some of the Discovery Institute's intelligent design supporters backed out of testifying, even after Thompson told them they could have their own legal representation if they wanted, Thompson said.
"It was very disappointing" that the institute would prevent its members from testifying, Thompson said.
But he still found some willing Discovery fellows to testify that intelligent design is not a religious movement: Michael Behe from Lehigh University and Scott Minnich from the University of Idaho.
West said Discovery fellow Charles Thaxton is also slated to testify.
They're desperate to keep this information from becoming part of the court record:
Discovery Institute's "Wedge Project". Replacing science with theism.
The Wedge at Work. The Discovery Institute's war against reason.
The "Wedge Document": "So What?" The Discovery Institute defends the Wedge document.
Bravo....
Unfortunatly, they'll answer that the "world is sinful", or some such stuff and so it should not be believed. These people are all wrapped up in sin and hell and emotion so that no logic about the real universe will penetrate.
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
Men are so wise about the "real universe". The arrogance is amazing...
oh well...to each their own.
"The Controversy" is indefensible anyway, as none of the attacks on evolution have any real merit under critical examination. Dover's policy of teaching "ID" alongside of evolution is a real laugher.
"What we've been discussing for the last 50 minutes, class, is what we call "the evolutionary scenario." Now, as to the other theory: God, er, that is, the Intelligent Designer--maybe it was the Raelians but that would be silly--may have designed it or something like it sometime. Nobody knows for sure."What's that, Billy? That's not really equal time? How long does it take to say, 'The Intelligent Designer did it?'"
He funded the magazine Chalcedon Report, which carried an article calling for homosexuals to be stoned. He funds the Claremont Institute, a think-tank which promoted a video in which Charlton Heston praises "the God-fearing Caucasian middle class". Although donating to the United States Republican Party, some of his donations have been returned because of his views.
I can do without the promotion of the homosexual lifestyle. I think it's unhealthy for the body and culture. But stoning? That's over the top.
I like Charlton Heston and I like what he did with the NRA. but "the God-fearing Caucasian middle class" quote sounds a bit racist to me.
It was probably smart for the Republicans to return some of his money. It's enlightening that the Discovery Institute does not.
Are you saying that what you see around isn't "real". It is the untranslated work of God, yet you reject it. Why?
The ToE is neutral on the subject of God.
I think ID is better looked as an innoculation than as a disease.
I suppose from your perspective you don't see much difference, but not all people have spent their professional lives thinking through the issues in biology.
Discovery Institute, painfully aware that it has no intellectual content in the bag called ID, has decided that science for now must "teach the controversy."
I have no problem with "teaching the controversy." Here's all that needs to be said.
"Class, from time to time there are groups that object to evolution because it doesn't conform to their personal religious beliefs. Those objections have all been based on emotion and not reason, and have not had any scientific merit whatsoever."
End of lesson.
Bingo! Cretigo!
I think it was JOb who was admonished for demanding the world be what he wanted it to be rather than what it is.
I am pretty sure Job is one of the last, if not the last book of the Hebrew Bible. It is a response to those who noticed that the good don't always prosper (as previously promised). It is internal evidence within the Bible itself, that not everything in scripture can be taken literally. A little warning that we have to think about reality for ourselves.
I see quite a few people who have no trouble speaking on behalf of God. I find that rather arrogant...
In other words, God does make junk. Seems rather ungrateful to me.
I dont want to argue with you about this but I will comment for clarity.
Viewing the world God created can not be done in entirety without using his word as a guide.
To me it would be silly to think you can discover all you wanted to know about the world while denying or rejecting the creator that made it.
His word talks about why the world was made and how it fits into his plan. Knowing this provides insight.
To think that "logic" is found outside of this isnt...the way I do it.
I have, as a matter of fact, pretty extensively.
Darwin was a creationist and a convinced Christian at the time he first conceived the idea of evolution. This was around 1837. (Sailors on The Beagle joked about Darwin's propensity to quote scripture in answering "philosophical" questions.) Only a year or two before he'd still been expecting to proceed with a career in the clergy. Near the end of the The Beagle voyage Darwin and the ship's captain Fitzroy talked about working together in support of missionary work. (They did write a joint letter extolling the humane and civilizing effects of missionaries they had observed in their journeys, and defending them from calumnies which were becoming common at the time.)
Darwin didn't fully abandon Christianity until around 1851, a full decade after his ideas on evolution had taken pretty much their final shape. This was seemingly a result not of evolutionary thought but of the horrific death of a cherished young daughter, Annie. He then drifted from theism to agnosticism as he passed through middle age.
Darwin was admittedly exposed to religious skepticism and "free thought" as a youth. This was through his grandfather (indirectly via his father) and through a student mentor named Grant at Edinburgh (who Darwin however disliked for his political radicalism) through friends of his brother Erasmus, etc. However the main figures young Darwin modeled himself on and admired were mostly pious: e.g. his sisters (who raised him, his mother having died when he was young) and Henslow, Adam Sedgewick and other teachers/clergymen at Cambridge.
Yeah, me too.
Without reading the word while people speak for him a person wouldnt understand if what people say is truth or not.
It helps to actually study the word to make sure the person is not a false preacher. I dont remember the verses that echo this.
Cretigo: Bingo game on the Crevo threads!. An oldie goldie.
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