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Federal Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design
evil agent writes "CNN is reporting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III has ruled that Intelligent Design cannot be discussed in Dover, Pennsylvania biology classes. Dover Area School Board members had previously mandated that Intelligent Design be included in the biology curriculum. According to the judge, 'our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'" Update: 12/20 23:40 GMT by J : eSkeptic has a look back at the trial and what led to it. And the Discovery Institute has issued a press release.
and on the N+1th, first post!
Thank God for that!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the almighty spaghetti monster for all that He has done for me.
Not only has He used divine intervention in Dover but He has shown me the way! I await his presence in pirate heaven with the stripper factory and beer volcano.
Believe.
My work here is dung.
Thank God!
As a proponent of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we in the ID community must stand up to this nonsense.
The Dover school board need just introduce a new course "Mysticism, Superstition and Things That Go Bump in the Night". Then they could teach ID.
Trolling is a art,
From the BBC's coverage: It provoked US TV evangelist Pat Robertson to warn the town was invoking the wrath of God.
Seems Pat wanted to see a smackdown of a different sort.
Signed - Snow Miser
I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted Pasta out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His noodly forgivness because he might not be there.
Was there any mention of Intelligent Falling?
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
Clearly this "federal judge" has been sent by God to test our faith. Don't be fooled people!
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Then all biologists should be charged with violating the DMCA, shouldn't they ?
If ID was taught in Biology classes, also Pastafarianism would have to be taught.
:(){
Uh... you realize that Footloose was a fictional movie, right?
I read an apt parallel for ID and evolution. It went something like this:
Intelligent Design is as scientific an explanation for the evolution of man, as Angels Bowling is as an explanation for thunder. Both are possible, but neither is science.
The smack down was pretty complete and thorough in this case. The school bored members specifically said that they wanted to teach ID for religious reasons. That in it of itself killed them. The judge then went further and called ID a load of shit. The fact that the bored members were motivated by religious convictions is undisputable. I doubt there will be an appeal.
What I imagine will happen is that they move and hope to find a challenge that they can actually defend. What is defendable? I have no idea. I will be amazed if an ID challenge gets as high as the supreme court before being smacked down in the next 10 years. Even if they managed to get it to the Supreme Court, you can pretty much guarantee that the Supreme Court would smack them down. The Supreme Court (yes, even the Republicans) take this stuff very seriously and will step on it regardless of their personal feelings.
IDs only hope is to conduct a scientifically verifiable experiment. I laugh at the prospects of ID ever getting published in Nature. If scientists record the hand of God, Zeus, UFOs, or His Noodleness spontaneously converting one species to another spices, we will all eat our words. Until then, the ID folks can expect to be laughed out of court and any scientific journal of any repute.
Personally, I hope they try again. Reading some of damning excerpts from this ruling makes the whole exercise seem worthwhile.
I invite you to help yourself to last year's flu vaccine.
Okay, so intelligent design is out... can we discuss STUPID design instead? Classic topics are: Who's the moron who put this DNA thing together? ,etc..
Give me a test that can be done to show that the requirements of falsifiability in science can be falsified. You can't. Therefore, the current view of science is self-contradictory. Karl Popper and the so-called scientific establishment are working within a framework of absurdity.
> The only way to prove/disprove Intelligent Design is to find a tablet
> between 100,000,000 and 25,000,000 million years old that says
No. It must be 6009 years and 42 days old.
As Scott Adams once said:
If you have a room full of monkeys and type writers, given enough time you will have a room full of dead monkeys. Hint, it's worth feeding the monkeys once in a while.
Posted as AC because of mod points
It's more like a bunch of philsophers looked at the world and thought it was way to complicated to have occurred by chance.
I am disgusted that some activist judge such as this one has chosen to abolish faith for American schoolchildren. Yet I am even more disgusted that the Dover school board would not consider teaching my alternative to evolution, FSMism, which I hold to be an equally valid, competing hypothesis.
Only if you slam a 40 and overload your bladder...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
"Then you can blame CNN. The quotes came from their site."
So, um, you're saying you, um, didn't RTFA?
As has the spelling of "definitely".
When all else fails, attribute it to Oscar Wilde.
For the record, "not collecting stamps" is a hobby. It is one of several I have, actually.
Which big band was it that we started with? Benny Goodman? Count Basie?
llamaluvr wrote:
Stop right there. In these discussions, the only definition of ``universe'' that is any way useful is ``everything that exists.'' What Dr. Sagan called the Cosmos.
And there're plenty of things that really, truly, are impossible in any universe (assuming there's more than one) in the Cosmos. Making 1 + 1 equal anything other than 2 (using the most common definitions of those terms) would be one of them, for example.
Exactly. Logic is the rock that even God can't lift. So, if even God's hands are bound by logic, then logic is stronger than God. And who created logic, thus forever defeating God? God couldn't have, for--as we see everywhere we turn--logic is greater than he is.
The only solution to these problems is to realize that the premises are faulty. Don't ask, ``Who created the universe?'' Instead, ask, ``Is there even any possibility that the universe was created?'' The answer, clearly being, ``No,'' makes the first one moot. And, at that point, the idea that there's some all-powerful entity within the universe...but that this entity didn't create it...well, it's instantly obvious just how silly the whole thing is. Might as well talk about turtles springing from the navel of a flower.
Cheers
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.