Category: Free Speech
He Said, She Said: Washington Post vs. Associated Press
Coverage of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial has been about as could be expected, all over the board. There’s been good, bad, and downright ugly. Here then is a snapshot of how reporters can shape the public’s perception in the way they report a single statement. This example comes from the coverage of Michael Behe’s testimony in the courtroom yesterday.
Biochemist Michael Behe Testifies in Dover Trial
Today biochemist Michael Behe testified as an expert witness for the defendants in the current trial, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board. According to Discovery Institute’s Logan Gage, who observed all of Michael Behe’s testimony today at the Dover trial in Harrisburg, Pa, Behe covered a wide variety of topics. Below is an informal report on some topics covered by Behe’s testimony, based upon Mr. Gage’s report. Links are provided after some of the bullet points to articles where Dr. Behe has discussed these topics outside of today’s testimony. Points Behe made today during his testimony:
Discovery Institute Tells Dover Judge Teaching About Intelligent Design is Constitutional
Today, the Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading think tank researching intelligent design, filed an Amicus Curiae (i.e. “Friend of the Court”) brief in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case urging the judge to rule that it is not unconstitutional to teach about the scientific theory of intelligent design. The filing of the brief coincides with the beginning of the defense offered by the Dover School Board, which has required students to be notified about the existence of the theory of intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinian theory. “The ACLU is claiming that no matter how carefully intelligent design is presented, and no matter what good educational reasons there might be for teaching it, doing so is just Read More ›
Pennock to the Court: “Methodological Naturalism is all there is, or was, or ever will be”
As I noted in a previous post, this week philosopher of science Dr. Robert Pennock testified at the Dover trial that scientists must assume that there are no influences other than those which exist in the material world then they practice science. Pennock called this methodological naturalism (MN), and emphatically told the Court that this is the way science has worked, does work, and ever will work, at least since we became enlightened during the enlightenment. The reality is that the consensus among philosophers of science is that there is no consensus among philosophers of science on the definition of science. The one exception seems to be Darwinist philosophers of science recommending MN as a definition for science when they Read More ›
Transcript of Opening Arguments in Kitzmiller Case Posted
You can now read the transcript of the opening arguments in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case on Discovery Institute’s website here (the transcript is posted as an Adobe pdf document). The opening statements provide a good snapshot as to what each side is intending to show in the case. In its opening statement, the ACLU makes clear that it is essentially trying to prove two things: