A chance to be a pro-science activist!

That's a very loaded analogy you're running there. The existence of an intelligent being is much more debatable than whether or not the Holocaust happened. A much more appropiate analogy is whether or not slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There are many theories as to what caused the Civil War. And there are many theories over the origins of life: evolution, intelligent design, and some others like the Gaian theory.

Even if I overshoot the mark with that analogy, evolution vs. intelligent design is still much more debatable than the existence of the Holocaust. Even if intelligent design does not have as much evidence, would that be enough to justify outright exclusion? The Center for Science and Culture reports that "Intelligent design theory is supported by doctoral scientists, researchers and theorists at a number of universities, colleges, and research institutes around the world. These scholars include biochemist Michael Behe at Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, biologist Paul Chien at the University of San Francisco, emeritus biologist Dean Kenyon at San Francisco State University, mathematician William Dembski at Baylor University, and quantum chemist Henry Schaefer at the University of Georgia." Intelligent design has its followers, too, and intellectual ones at that, too. For all of the work people like these have put into intelligent design, you want to totally exclude it from the curriculum.
Frequently Asked Questions | Center for Science and Culture If you cover evolution more, you reduce the breadth covered on a different theory.

Unfortunately, you can't see scarcity here both ways. This scarcity exists for both evolution and intelligent design. Reducing scarcity for one theory increases scarcity for another theory. I don't know how exactly you're planning to run this, but it does seem to be viewing evolution as a "sacred dogma." The Center for Science and Culture wants to stop that view and so do I. Not quite. Intelligent design directly contrasts the most prevalent form of evolution, neo-Darwinism. I'll quote the Center for Science and Culture again on this one. "However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, a purposeless process that 'has no specific direction or goal, including survival of a species.' (NABT Statement on Teaching Evolution). It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges." Therefore, your process of eliminiation doesn't work here. And even if you want to bring up the other forms of evolution that could be compatible with intelligent design, these forms would not have nearly as much evidence behind them, thus diminishing your "evidence overload" argument. Which means that resources for school have to be allocated to one theory or the other.

There seems to be an inherent contradiction here. In your first letter, you say, "Since the school district has made clear that its sole interest is in teaching ALL sides of the controversy, and not in advancing or favoring any particular viewpoint," and your signature includes "DebunkCreation". Also, you explicitly said your motive for this donation was to counter the board's descision to teach ID. Perhaps that will give you a clue as to why the donation is under review.

NosyNed is moving that part of the discussion to a new topic, so hold off your replies until then.

I'm no expert on Dover school board policy, so I can't answer your second question, but going to the first question, the motive does have some impact. Accepting the books would be like conceding to the protest from the DebunkCreation group, especially given the publicity this event is already receiving. One time the Pharisees had to reject the money Judas returned to them because it was blood money (and even if you're not a Pharisee, you probably wouldn't want to accept blood money). Now what was the problem with the donation? Money by itself has no moral connotation (it's not inherently good or evil), but the use of the money drastically changed the situation.Your reference to mainstream science is very tricky, too, because you refer only to mainstream science on evolutionary theory, which is why "all sides" becomes important.And remember, reviewing the books does not equal rejecting them. You're making an awfully big fuss even though the books could still be accepted anyway.

I actually had a quote from that Center for Science and Culture earlier that counters that perception that ID doesn't have science, but NosyNed planned to move that.However, it will suffice to say that a biased, haughty attitude towards ID like that won't put someone in good standing with Dover. You can maintain this extreme viewpoint within this forum, but here we have an example of your perceptions hitting the world of reality (more specifically, the Dover school board).

Oh, I see, you want to play some ad hominem to discredit ID solely because it might have some Christian heritage. I'm sorry, the scientific method doesn't have any room for ad hominem; it focuses strictly on evidence. And FYI, creationism and ID aren't the same. Creationism specifically refers to the Biblical God as the intelligent being, while ID is more deistic, saying there is a god or an intelligent force, but it never says whose God.

Excuse me, but AdminJar and NosyNed are working on a new thread, and AdminJar specifically replied asking you to have patience. Now, I'm going to be patient and wait for the new thread to be created. In the meantime, I would like to follow the advice of those two without being mocked about it.

You need to check your facts on this one.
York Daily Record
Last year, a group of residents donated 58 copies of the textbook, Of Pandas and People to Dover. The school board had researched the book, which espouses the intelligent-design concept of how life evolved, and approved it as a reference book. It is housed in the school library.And here's something from the first post by schrafinator.
"Board president Sheila Harkins said the board's curriculum
committee will review this donation the same as it did the "Pandas"
donation." Pandas and People wasn't protesting anything. It was the book that started the entire dilemna, meaning that the donaters [edit: of the Panda books] didn't have much to protest before donating it. The controversy erupted after the donation. Furthermore, the school didn't have much on ID before then, so it was a welcome addition. Once again, this is one-sided mainstream science, and your outlook on ID is very one-sided, too. The whole point of the analogy was to show that the motive does matter. If you don't like that specific analogy, then I can conjure up a new one, but the basic point of the analogy will remain the same.
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End the bias as well. You and others have portrayed IDer's as the following:
fringe nutcases, no science, acting against science, etc.If that is true, then why do you need to keep harping about it on this forum? Is this controversy solely generated by religious radicals, and no one within this time frame ever dreamt of scientifically backing intelligent design? Why did the Dover board even consider the Pandas book? If it's so one-sided, why does this forum exist? Get real!This message has been edited by commike37, 03-23-2005 07:17 PMThis message has been edited by commike37, 03-23-2005 09:46 PM

Are you here to debate, or make fun of me? It's starting to seem more like the latter. All I'm saying is to toss the haughty attitude, and to wait for the new thread.

There are numerous flaws here.
1. You don't specifically point out how it doesn't mention any review. This is just an unexplained assertion.
2. I quoted both an article and the transcript of the e-mail posted by schrafinator. So unless you want to argue that both of those are wrong and that the Lenny Flank, who made the donation, misquoted the Pandas book as being reviewed, you have no credibility.
3. Even if there no mention of the Pandas book being reviewed, it does not mean that the the books weren't reviewed; it simply means we don't know whether or not they were reviewed. Your burden of proof is to cite something specifically saying that the Panda books were not reviewed. I'm pissed off at being accused of being fed by a propaganda machine, believing a nonsense science, etc. for simply believing in intelligent design. I'm a 4.0 junior at my high school who is taking 4 AP exams this year, and I've also attended the 2004 Missouri Scholars Academy, which is offered each summer to the 330 most academically talented sophomores in the state. I have a capability to think for myself, so don't accuse me of being deceived by a propaganda machine.To say that ID is a scientific nothing--that the Kansas school boards are teaching a scientific nothing, that organizations like Access Research Network and the Center for Science and Culture are promoting a scientific nothing, that all this controversy was generated by a scientific nothing, is an assertion which you are incapable of proving.I do not understand how any progress can be made on a creations versus evolution board and how it can have any purpose if you want to maintain that it is a fact that ID has gotten nowhere scientifically.