Posted on 03/15/2006 4:19:42 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A lawsuit challenging the Understanding Evolution website on constitutional grounds was dismissed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on March 13, 2006. Understanding Evolution, a collaborative project of the University of California Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education, was originally intended as a resource for teachers; it subsequently expanded to appeal to everyone interested in learning about evolution.
Among the resources for teachers is a brief discussion of the idea, labeled as a misconception, that evolution and religion are incompatible. The website notes, "Of course, some religious beliefs explicitly contradict science (e.g., the belief that the world and all life on it was created in six literal days); however, most religious groups have no conflict with the theory of evolution or other scientific findings," and provides a link to NCSE's publication Voices for Evolution.
A California parent, Jeanne E. Caldwell, subsequently filed suit, complaining that the Understanding Evolution website thus endorses a number of religious doctrines, thereby violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by favoring certain religious groups over others. Caldwell is the wife of Larry Caldwell, who also filed a suit against the Roseville Joint Union High School District after it declined to implement his proposals for evolution education.
In granting the motion to dismiss in Caldwell v. Caldwell et al. -- the first defendant is Roy Caldwell, the director of UCMP -- Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton held that the plaintiff failed to allege that she had federal taxpayer standing, failed to sufficiently allege state taxpayer standing, and failed to establish that she suffered a concrete "injury in fact." Since those considerations sufficed for dismissal, Hamilton did not consider the merits of the Establishment Clause claim.
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Not a very exciting outcome. I suppose someone will come back for a second round.
"We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rest. To reject this truth or to treat it as 'one theory among others' is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children." -- Source
True. I think a very large number of cases get resolved on issues of procedure. However, this indicates the controversies that are lurking out there.
How can they possibly think that doing that is a good idea?
If it was not dismissed with prejudice, they will correct the filing and be back. I have a nephew who sued the city over a police frame-up of an innocent kid. The judge said the original filing was the worst he had ever seen. This just might have been a bit of politics, since the city stood to lose millions of dollars and be embarassed.
The suit was refiled and eventually settled for big bucks.
It's stranger than that. What they are asking for is critical analysis. That would mean putting religious teachings like Noah's flood up against geology, and Genesis up against physics.
Science is seamless. You can't attack evolution without attacking all of science. If you require critical analysis of religious teachings, you are putting Biblical literalism up against all of science.
Why would anyone want this?
Why would anyone want this?
Seamless or in a bubble? It would seem to me that allowing a little discussion would be good for science unless there were some gaps in the "seamlessness".
What is more telling is that some twit would file a law suit against a web site because it dared to mention that adherents to many religions had their reasons to think that something other than evolution is what put us here.
Feel free to explain in detail what is wrong with physics, chemistr, geology, palentology, biology and astronomy.
The lawsuit in this article seems aimed at physics rather than at biology.
Some of the leading scientists in the field of genetics, molecular biology and people who have spent their entire academic careers supporting "evolution" have studied this in depth, in order to disprove "intelligent design" and found, seemingly to their dismay, that the complexity of cells and their thousands of functions at a molecular level, is far too complicated to be a simple matter of natural selection. There is nothing religious in their findings they simply say that the smallest cells have such enormous complexity that there is no possible way for anything other than intelligent design to explain these systems of cells. Darwin spent one month at the age of 22, in the Galapagos, then wrote his opinions about his findings 25 years later. He had no idea about DNA and the complexity of life at a molecular level, so his "findings" have been completely discredited by science. Unfortunately, the issue has been used by many to attack religion but advances in the scientific world cannot be suppressed and the truth will become evident to all.
Science not only "allows" discussion, it encourages it. It requries it and it enforces it.
What you're really upset about is that the objections raised were easily dismissed based on sound, objective, logical scientific reasons.
Thank God!
Presumably you can name these people. No ID advocate that I know of fits the description of leading scientists in the field of genetics, molecular biology and people who have spent their entire academic careers supporting "evolution". Certainly Behe, Denton, Meyer, and Dembski don't fit that description so you must be thinking of some other people. Please share.
ping
Sorry, I forgot an additional point. I am not aware of a single scientific ID advocate who doesn't *still* support evolution. Behe is on record under oath as agreeing that the physical evidence (molecular, paleontological, morphological, phylogenetic, biogeographical amongst other forms of evidence) overwhelming supports evolution as fact, and the theory of evolution as the best explanation we have. Denton, Meyer, and Dembksi are all on public record agreeing with this position.
If you are looking for ID science (such as it is, and there ain't much) as a rejection of evolution then your faith is misplaced. Someone sold you a pup.
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