www.conservapedia.com - What do you think?

Further errors in the Scopes piece:Scopes did not "unwittingly" become a test case. As I understand it, he volunteered for the position. IIRC, a group got together in a drug store in Dayton and decided to put on a test case. They asked Scopes if he would agree to be the defendant and he did.There's actually some question about whether Scopes ever indeed taught evolution. From this site:

quote:

---

One of the enduring debates concerning the Scopes trial revolves around whether Scopes ever actually taught the subject of evolution. George Rappalyea posed the question, holding up a copy of George W. Hunter’s Civic Biology, at Robinson’s drugstore. “You have been teaching ”em this book?” he asked. Scopes answered, “Yes,” then went on to explain that, while substituting for the regular biology teacher in April 1925, he had assigned his students Hunter’s chapter on evolution. Illness the next day, however, kept him home and, to his recollection, no class discussion of the evolution materials ever took place. Scopes, however, remembered teaching the topic in a general way earlier in the same month to his general science students.

---

The ACLU was involved, but in fact it did not want Darrow as the defense attorney. Dudley Malone, Darrow's eventual co-counsel on the case, first proposed Darrow to the ACLU, but his participation was bitterly opposed by the steering committee of the ACLU for the Scopes case. Among other things, committee members were worried that Darrow's status of being a "headline chaser" would divert attention from the issues involved. It was actually Scopes who endorsed Darrow, pointing out that William Jennings Bryan was no wall flower himself, and that there was already such a carnival atmosphere in Dayton that the presence of Darrow couldn't make things any worse.The Butler Act did not have a "mere $100 fine." The penalty for a violation of the Act was supposed to have been between $100.00 and $500.00, to be determined by the jury. However, Judge Raulston instead imposed the fine himself. In fact, it was this procedural error that resulted in the appellate court overturning the conviction.As crash pointed out, Scopes did not plead guilty. In fact, after the jury announced the verdict, Judge Raulston asked Scopes if he had anything to say before sentencing. Scopes said,

quote:

---

Your Honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom”that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our Constitution of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is unjust.

---

As far as Darrow reneging on his "promise" to testify after Bryan, here's how that arose in the first place:

quote:

---

Hays--The defense desires to call Mr. Bryan as a witness, and, of course, the only question here is whether Mr. Scopes taught what these children said he taught, we recognize what Mr. Bryan says as a witness would not be very valuable. We think there are other questions involved, and we should want to take Mr. Bryan's testimony for the purpose of our record, even if your honor thinks it is not admissible in general, so we wish to call him now.

​

The Court--Do you think you have a right to his testimony or evidence like you did these others?

​

McKenzie--I don't think it is necessary to call him, calling a lawyer who represents a client.

​

The Court--If you ask him about any confidential matter, I will protect him, of course.

​

Darrow--On scientific matters, Col. Bryan can speak for himself.

​

Bryan--If your honor please, I insist that Mr. Darrow can be put on the stand, and Mr. Malone and Mr. Hays.

---

Darrow did not renege on anything. The Court adjourned the trail in the middle of Darrow's cross-examination of Bryan and, on the next day, decided that no purpose would be served by continuing the examination. Darrow was never called.As far as whether Bryan "performed well," I leave that to the reader to decide. Bryan's testimony can be found here.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Sorry nator, but that comment is no better than conservapedia.comIf you think for one second that most people who are conservative are stupid, you need to go check your statistics. With 97% of the American public scientifically illterate, whos who?

That is a great statement.

Schraf: Rat: I have a reading comprehension test for you rat, where in schraf's quote (or if thats too easy, try the original post) does she say that most conservatives are stupid?Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.

---

Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

please, oh please tell me that "1973" is a typo!please, I beg of you. if it's real, does the person who wrote that not realize we were getting out of Vietnam in that year?Does he think we fought WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam war all at the same time?This is truly scary.

It's very easy to read between the lines and say that that she is implying that most conservatives are stupid.But that wasn't my point, my point was to counter what she said, in that most people in general are stupid, doesn't matter your political view. And that is something I have been saying since I joined this forum, and something I will stick by forever.
And stupid in the sense, that 80% of people are not good at what they do, and don't think things through at all. God forgive me.
But I cannot deny the facts that I have experienced throughout life.
It doesn't mean that people are bad, either.

Sure it is, if your intent is to misrepresent what she said.

quote:

---

As much as is possible, American spelling of words must be used.[1]

---

quote:

---

Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. Look up "Most Favored Nation" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling "Most Favoured Nation." Look up "Division of labor" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling "Division of labour," then insists on the British spelling for "specialization" also.[8] Enter "Hapsburg" (the European ruling family) and Wikipedia automatically changes the spelling to Habsburg, even though the American spelling has always been "Hapsburg". Within entries British spellings appear in the silliest of places, even when the topic is American. Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.

---

AND!

quote:

---

2. The Moon presents the same side to Earth at all times, even though the Moon revolves around the Earth. That requires the rotation of the Moon to be timed precisely to offset the separate effects of the revolution around Earth. This has an awesome artistic or design effect without any plausible physical reason.

​

Skeptics sought to explain this remarkable phenomenon by saying that tidal forces on Earth caused a bulge on the Moon, thereby locking in the rotation of the Moon so that its same face always presents to the Earth. They asserted that the planet Mercury has a similar locked rotation due to gravitation forces from the sun, such that the same side of Mercury always faces the sun.

​

But this explanation was ultimately proven wrong.[1]Mercury does not always present the same face to the sun as claimed, and instead switches the side that it presents to the sun every full revolution. As to the Moon, the tidal forces on the Earth cannot account fully for its bulge or egg shape. The cause of the bulge on the Moon to lock in its rotation remains a mystery to those who reject design.

---

quote:

---

The Moon could never have been closer than about 150,000 miles or it would have been broken up by tidal forces.

---

WOW! Not only is the site openly biased, prejudice, and ethnocentric against non-American English, but it also claims that tides cause moon "buldges"... and that tidal forces on Earth could actually have broken the moon into pieces if it ever got too close! Max

Either way, that is an unsupported claim.
BTW, I amnot sticking up for conservatives.

I am confused, are they actually claiming that the tidal forces are effecting the moon? Isn't it the other way around?And the moon doesn't always have the same side facing us, it rocks ever so slightly.

I agree, NJ. This is one of the main reasons I avoid wiki as a reference where ever possible. Unless it deals with some subject on which I already have some knowledge, I'm hesitant to accept what is written in an environment where basically anyone can "spin" to their hearts' content. And no, I don't have any examples of un-factual or erroneous information on wiki - it's a gut reaction. I find the peer-reviewed journals better all around.

Thanks, rat!

quote:

---

This morning I noticed that someone had written a long article on Hillary Clinton. I noticed, because last night it was only a paragraph long. It mentioned that she was involved in the national health care debate a few years ago. "National health care" was a link, and when I clicked on it I got the page on Communism.

---

Wow, I had no idea that Canada was a Communist nation!

I strongly disagree. In my experience the majority of church-going Chrisitans in the UK are left wing, while Tony Blair is probably the most vocally Christian Prime Minister we've had.

Tidal forces are gravitational. You can't have one body pulling on another with gravity without having the second body also pulling on the other.As I understand it the behaviour of the moon can be calculated very accurately with newtonian mechanics - there is no mystery.