The “Nova” episode of ‘Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial’ is based on the case “Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District” which took a place in Pennsylvania. While watching the episode, I remember watching this episode in my Bio 1 course with Dr. Coleman at Sacramento State. I was very shocked when I watched the episode first time about 3 years ago. The main reason of this trial was when Dover Area School District made the policy that their school will be required the teaching of intelligent design. The intelligent design is a religious argument that explains that universe and living things happened because of intelligent cause, not because of natural selection. Also, sometime this case is referred to “Dover Panda Trial” since a book …show more content…
One of the interesting fact I learned from the video that book they were trying used had a big debate between board members. The purchase of the book was put on hold because Bill Buckingham was not comfortable about using the book. This episode really get exciting after the plaintiff has come up with such a solid case and defense have to approve the intelligent design is scientific theory. One thing that really caught my attention was the reply from Paul Nelson when he was asked that is intelligence design just a critic of evolutionary theory or does it offer more? His response was “easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a real problem. Without a theory, it’s very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions and a handful of notions such as “irreducible complexity” and “specified complexity” but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.” I totally agree to the idea that Intelligence design is a religious view, not a scientific
The Dover Area School District of Dover, Pennsylvania is seeking approval from the General Assembly of Pennsylvania House to include the theory of intelligent design in the instruction of biology. Intelligent design, also known as I.D., is a theory that seeks to refute the widely-accepted and scientifically-supported evolution theory. It proposes that the complexity of living things and all of their functioning parts hints at the role of an unspecified source of intelligence in their creation (Orr). For all intents and purposes, the evidence cited by I.D. supporters consists only of the holes or missing links in evolutionary theory; it is a widely-debate proposal, not because ?of the significant weight of its evidence,? but because ?of the implications of its evidence? (IDnet).
The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee vs. Scopes but given the nickname “The Monkey Trial”, has been credited as starting the popular legal dispute between evolution and creationism in the court, and its impact in the 20’s was immeasurable. The interpretation of the case is just as popular, if not more, than the actual result of the case. The worldwide attention and media coverage the case received produced many opinions. Scholar’s opinions range from describing the case as an irrelevancy and a good show to describing it as a “Watershed in American religious history” (Ronald L. Numbers, 1998, p. 76).
In 1986, Richard Dawkins suggested that Paley's "design" argument might have been the best explanation in the 19th century for the existence of God and the intelligent design of the universe in his novel The Blind Watchmaker. Although Paley succeeded in making his argument, Dawkins argued that it had one major defect; the explanation itself. “Paley’s argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong.” (Dawkins : 606) Paley gave the traditional religious answer to who our designer is: God.
The documentary begins with Stein speaking before an audience, addressing the principle of freedom in America. He then advances to discourse of the loss of academic freedom in the scientific community through interviews of scientific figures such as Richard Sternberg, Caroline Crocker, Michael Ignore, Robert Marks, and Guillermo Gonzalez. These interviews are contrasted with clips of scientists who refute the idea and validness of intelligent design. To get a perspective about the credibility and thoughts of Darwinism and intelligent design in the scientific community, Stein is referred to talk to other figures of science such as Bruce Chapman, Paul Nelson, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, and Jonathan Wells. Stein then begins his in depth investigation interviewing Richard Dawkins, David Berlinski, and Michael Ruse, looking to determine how Darwin theory applies to the cr...
An argument is defined as presenting reasons for a conclusion in order to convince an audience of a certain point of view and an explanation as a clarification of why something has happened. An argument contains some form of an opinion while an explanation holds only facts, this does not mean that a well-constructed argument is not without facts. The second piece, Lisa Fullam’s, Of God and the Case for Unintelligent Design is evidently the argument. The title itself, “unintelligent design” proves this reasoning, she provides facts/reasoning for her audience to believe that the notion of intelligent design is unintelligent in and of itself because nature has too many flaws. Fullam provides facts about rabbit digestion, horse digestion, mammalian testicles, and human back ache followed by her opinions. First, to Elizabeth Bumiller, who doesn’t take a side while providing facts for each side, Fullam feelings strong about her opinions, her sarcastic questions help the audience tap
Haertlein, Lauren L. “Immunizing Against Bad Science: The Vaccine Court and The Autism Test Case.” Law and Contemporary Problems 72 (2012): 211-32. EconLit. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Jones states that intelligent design is a religious view, based of creationism and not a scientific theory. He adds that the Dover school board’s claim to be examining an alternate form of science is simply, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom. After the judge decision the school board, consisting of newly-elected, pro- science members. The federal courts have ruled that creationism, creation science, and intelligent design are not science, but instead endorse a specific religious belief. Therefore, these topics are not appropriate content for a science classroom. Neither Intelligent design nor any other form of creationism has met any of the standards of science and cannot be tested by the scientific method. On the other hand, evolution, like all other sciences, is founded on a growing body of observable and reproducible evidence in the natural
John Polkinghorne’s The Universe as Creation does its best to not convince the reader of Intelligent Design, but rather to dissuade the reader from the notion that although the is intelligently designed, but in this way, it has made science possible.
The concept of creationism has a strong religious history and very deep religious overtones, and the constitutionality of teaching the subject in a public school immediately was questioned. Called to preside over the resulting legal case was U.S. District Judge William Overton. Thu...
...s. The scopes case was fought on two levels which have still continued to be discussed today. The first with legal and political questions about what was allowed and what was not allowed to be taught in public schools and who was to make the decision, but other than these arguments, there was clearly another level. Both Bryan and Darrow thought that the theory of evolution and religion did conflict and that one had to be right and one had to be wrong. America, along with the rest of the world, began to decide their take on the Scopes Trial. ‘Most southern Baptists saw the trial as a morality play in which goodness had vanquished evil’. There was great offense taken by the fundamentalists when they were compared to a lower species of animals by the evolution theory. The theme good vs. evil was the point of the trial for Fundamentalists where evolution was the evil.
In a tiny courtroom in the county of Dayton Tennessee, the jury settled into their seats, ready to return the verdict in the most controversial case of the 1920’s, the scopes “monkey” trial. Up to this point, the trial itself had been a media spectacle; the lawyers, the witnesses, even the defendant had become media icons in the commercialism of the twenties. The trial itself was set up to be a media demonstration to challenge the constitutionality of the butler act. This act prohibited the teaching of “any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the bible,” and in particular, the theory of evolution. the American civil liberties union petitioned for a teacher to challenge this statute; john Thomas scopes, the local high school track coach and science teacher accepted the challenge and stood trial for teaching evolution the previous spring. Over the course of the trial Charles Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, the attorneys on the case, debated each other profusely. Eventually Bryan even testified to the truth of the biblical story, even though he was massacred by Darrow upon examination. Despite all that the trial stood for, the most lasting aspect of the trial was that it brought the media into the courtroom, and the courtroom into the daily life of the American citizen.
Ever since science began to explain the previously unexplainable, it has caused conflicts with religion. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial of Dayton, Tennessee was one of the most talked about trials in history because it was one of the first and most publicized times that this conflict occurred. The trial showed the schism between the faithful fundamentalists and the newly formed group of evolutionists. Although the jury was reminded that they only had to decide if Scopes had broken the law, the verdict was seen as much more than that. For one of the first times in history, it seemed as if the jury had to choose either religion or evolution. For the time being, there could not be both. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial revealed the ongoing conflict with faith and science and set a precedent for decades of conflict to come.
In the last decade, many states are trying to reinstate the teaching of creationism in public schools under the more academic title of “intelligent design.” Funded heavily by the Discovery Institute, a conservative think-tank, intelligent design is an attempt to produce scientific backing for the idea that an intelligent being (the Abrahamic God) has designed all life on earth.... ... middle of paper ... ... Branch, Glenn. A. A. "Intelligent Design is not Science, and Should not Join Evolution in the Classroom."
Talking on both sides of the debate, each side feels as though the other has no scientific reasoning come up with their theory. In reading the article written by Shipman, the evolutionists believe that intelligent design has no concrete evidence on how the world was crea...
Evolution & creationism court cases - History of evolution court cases. New York Times Company. 2011. http://www.about.com Accessed September 25, 2011.