Thoughts on day three of the Dover ID trial...
By MIKE
ARGENTO
HARRISBURG — Wednesday morning, as day three of the Dover Panda Trial meandered into discussions of stoner logic and street cred, one of the lawyers for the school district, Patrick Gillen, asked Robert Pennock, a philosopher of science from Michigan State University and a serious, serious brainiac, whether the idea of “intelligent design� was a Big Ten theory.
Pennock — who, I can’t stress this enough, is an incredible brainiac — looked puzzled. It was clear that he had never heard of any connection between the idea of intelligent design and what some consider the best college football conference in the country. He paused for a moment and then spoke, kind of haltingly.
“As a member of a Big Ten school, I should know that,� he said.
Gillen clarified.
“I said ‘big tent,’� he said.
But when you think about, in the context of Pennock’s testimony and his academic cred, intelligent design really isn’t a Big Ten idea. It’s more of a Conference USA idea.
Think about it. On the surface, intelligent design seems like a credible scientific theory. It sounds scientific. The people pushing it say it’s scientific.
But if you apply the rules of science, the notion that the idea has to be supported and tested using credible, tangible evidence, it really isn’t. It’s like a Conference USA school playing, say, Michigan State and being exposed as a mere facsimile of a major college football team.
Later, Gillen asked Pennock a question about what someone would believe about design when they saw a computer model of evolution that he and other scientists have created.
I’ll get to that, but first, this computer model is kind of hard to explain. Pennock explained, well, how it worked and what it demonstrated and just how incredibly amazing it is. And it really sounded amazing. As best as I can describe it, it starts with a line of computer code that can replicate itself. Then, it replicates and mutates. And here’s where the mechanisms of natural selection come in. Most of the mutations are bad and those codes don’t do anything. Some, though, evolve and grow more and more complex.
In the end, the scientists have a digital organism — for want of better expression — that can perform complex tasks and by examining the record of its creation, they can figure out how it happened.
Really, it’s a lot more amazing than I make it sound.
Did I mention that Pennock is a brainiac? Anyway, back to Gillen’s question about whether somebody looking at the computer program could believe that it was created by a programmer. Pennock explained how the program worked, and that during the process as the code evolves, and at the end of the process, you can’t really tell who or what created it because it essentially created itself.
Gillen persisted and Pennock explained he couldn’t really answer the question. “You’re asking me a psychological question about what somebody believes. They could believe all sorts of things,� he said.
He got into what some people believe later. Young Earth creationists, for instance, believe our planet is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old, based on analysis of Scripture. Sure, you can believe that, Pennock said. But it ignores the evidence or claims that the evidence was placed there by God to fool us, which, when you think about, is a kind of odd way to describe the deity, as some kind of cosmic prankster.
And that’s when Pennock unloaded this: “For all we know, the world may have been created five minutes ago and we’ve all been implanted with memory chips.�
Whoa.
Dude.
And thus did intelligent design somehow join the wow-have-you-ever-looked-at-your-hand-I-mean-really-looked school of stoner intellectual epistemology.
Later, the trial took a fun turn, if your idea of fun is watching a lawyer badger some woman.
You knew it was going to be fun when Richard Thompson, another of the lawyers for the school district, referred to “a bit of street wisdom� while questioning Julie Ann Smith, one of the plaintiffs in the case and the mother of two.
Thompson, a white guy in a dark blue suit on the descending side of middle age, is all about the street, homey.
The street wisdom was “don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.�
Word, Home-Slice.
And yet, that wasn’t the most entertaining aspect of Wednesday’s proceedings.
That came when Robert Muise, the third member of the school district’s legal team, rose to object when plaintiff Beth Eveland began to testify about a letter to the editor she had written.
“Hearsay,� he intoned.
In general legal terms, hearsay is essentially a witness testifying to something they learned from a third party, and, except for some exceptions, is not permitted in court since the person repeating the words has no idea whether they are true because they were obtained third-hand. (And some people say this column has no educational content.)
In this case, Muise was objecting to Eveland testifying about her own words.
Judge John E. Jones III, the federal jurist hearing the case, looked at Muise, bearing an expression that he couldn’t really believe what he just heard.
The judge asked Muise, “Who wrote the letter?�
Muise said, “She did,� and sat down.
As they say on the street, the judge punked him.
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Mike Argento, whose column appears Mondays and Thursdays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints, can be reached at 771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com. Read more Argento columns at ydr.com/mike.
"And thus did intelligent design somehow join the wow-have-you-ever-looked-at-your-hand-I-mean-really-looked school of stoner intellectual epistemology."
Bravo!
Entertaining column, but there is one problem. Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted (in that out-of-court statement). It applies even if the statement was made by the person testifying. It really has nothing to do with a third-party distinction, even though that is how it typically comes up in court. There was some other legal issue operating here. Maybe the statement wasn’t being offered for its truth, or maybe the objection had to do with claiming authorship of the letter. Obviously there are other explanations too.
Really enjoyed article. Keep at it.
The Dover school board is a circus act.
Hard to believe people can be so ignorant.
I am a recently retired public school teacher who taught a yearly lesson (for five years) that showed students that evolution is impossible and Intelligent Design is scientific. I did this with the full knowledge of local and state education officials and the ACLU.
Also, Dr. Mastropaolo and I have yet to find an evolutionists that will dispute our claim that evolution is inverted anti-science and creation is science. See the Life Science Prize at http://www.csulb.edu/~jmastrop/
Well...now that you mention it..Evolution cannot be tested using credible, tangible evidence all the way through. Who can explain the Big Bang Theory or find the missing link between apes and humans? Sounds like Intelligent Design is no more sound than evolution.
Great column. Very entertaining and informative.
Just one more quick remark on the subject of hearsay. "Anonymous" above makes a valid point, but fails to "stick the landing" as they say in gymnastics. I understood the absurdity you intended to describe when you discussed a defense lawyer's awkward and aborted objection on hearsay grounds to a woman testifying about a letter that she herself had written to a newspaper.
I'm a newspaper reporter who has cover the courts for two decades, so let me offer a simple explanation if I may. First, think of a newspaper article as "hearsay" because the piece of paper itself cannot testify. However, it is no longer hearsay if the author of the article gets on the witness stand and, as lawyers put it, "authenticates" it - in other words, says it again.
This issue is sure to come up again very soon in this trial when two newspaper reporters are called to testify. They will be asked about some of the quotes in their articles and they will be asked to "authenticate" those quotes. in other words, they will be asked to swear under oath that the words they typed were truly uttered by the person they quoted.
Under hearsay rules, this is allowed because the quoted individuals are defendants in the suit and their quotes may include what lawyers call "admissions." Since the quoted individuals apparently are now denying ever having said what was printed, it is necessary to put the reporters on the stand to testify that they heard them say it. Although hearsay is generally prohibited in court, there are many "exceptions" to the hearsay rule and this is one of them.
"I am a recently retired public school teacher who taught a yearly lesson (for five years) that showed students that evolution is impossible and Intelligent Design is scientific. I did this with the full knowledge of local and state education officials and the ACLU." (from wikipedia)
Dangerous delusions. How can Intelligent Design be scientific when it has drawn up precisely ZERO testable hypotheses? It's nonsense. Science is all about theory, and despite recent ID advocates attempts to downplay the importance of theory science is just not possible outside its definition, thus:
"In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from observable facts or supported by them. Scientific theories are formulated, developed, and evaluated according to the scientific method"
ID was never formulated, developed or has it been evaluated. ID should be recognised as a phenomenological pursuit and placed in religious studies classrooms alongside its big brother, Christianity
The brainaic's evasion about the fact that someone had to write the original code speaks volumes. ID doesn't rule out mutations, mearly suggests that some force had to organize things originally, e.g.: write the line of code. Or as the scientists put it, QED: ID.
Exercise in Mutation: Try to recombine the letters in the English alphabet any way you chose and come up with a Japanese book.
With all these eons of mutations, how is it that we still have birth defectcs? Seems evolution isn't very effective...
Yogs
Yogurt,
If evolution isn't very effective, then god must be a bumbling idiot. You're telling me the creator of the universe could do not better than this? We have an appendix and wisdom teeth that do nothing but cause problems in people and now you expect me to believe a perfect creator made us? Bunk, pure bunk!
Let's forget all of the genetic evidence in favor Evolution, let's forget how much of the fossil record supports evolution...yeah a bunch of BS.
Besides, if people don't want their children to learn such dangerous ideas, why don't they sedn their children to a religious school or home-school them? Because this is about injecting religion into the public schools and nothing more.
read this:
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2005-11.pdf
Ms. Duffy is generally correct on authenticating documents, but I think the concept of hearsay still needs to be clarified. Suppose a reporter is called to the stand and asked to testify whether Bill Buckingham said, “Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can’t someone take a stand for him?� Such testimony would be admissible specifically because it is not hearsay: the statement being testified about is not being offered for the truth of the matter asserted (that someone died on a cross 2,000 years ago). An “admission� analysis wouldn’t need to be entered into here. A witness can testify directly about any statements she heard without relying on any hearsay doctrines if the lawyer eliciting the statement is not offering it into evidence as proof of the claim made in the statement. If it’s being offered to show only intent/bias/motive etc., there is no hearsay problem. An example of an admission is, “I stole the textbook from the library.�
- "With all these eons of mutations, how is it that we still have birth defectcs? Seems evolution isn't very effective..."
Actually, birth defects can be interpreted as one more piece of evidence in favor of evolution, and could potentially be used as a way to test the theory. We do not expect evolution to suddenly grind to a halt, so birth defects can be seen as just one more mutation that does not benefit the person who ended up with it. Remember that while we know lots about positive mutations, because they are selected for and preserved, it's reasonable to expect a decent spread of both the positive and the negative. The negative ones just don't tend to get passed on, so we don't pay that much attention to past ones.
The test of evolution is not whether we have birth defects now or a few eons from now, but whether we see the same defects long into the future. If evolution is correct, there will still be mutations eons from now, just not the same ones.
To Anonymous: Ahem, it's MR. Duffy.
Without engaging in a lengthy repartee over this hearsay stuff, let's just focus on the newspaper reporters for a moment. I'm not covering this case, but I am a newspaper reporter. Generally we do NOT like to testify in cases. It inevitably makes us look like we're rooting for one side.
The law varies from state to state, but in most courts, reporters can ALWAYS be forced to take the witness stand for the "limited purpose" of authenticating or verifying the quotes from others in an article which that journalist has written.
The only time this process is necessary is when the quoted person denies having made the quoted statement.
As I understand it (from reading news accounts of this case) two journalists will be testifying for this very reason. Lawyers from the ACLU are pointing to newspaper quotes to prove that the motives of some of the school board members was religious. Apparently, those school board members are disavowing some of those quotes.
Shannon - I believe you have hit the nail on the head as far as the Plaintiffs' lawyers' motives for wanting to have th two journalists testify. It is my understanding that there is an issue as to whether or not the board members every asked for a detraction of anything they were ever quoted as saying. I believe none of them ever had. I know from attending the various board meetings, that, after suit was filed, the board members, Bonsell in particular would berate the media during the meeting about them telling lies, etc. But he NEVER asked them to retract.
Sue
I noted the comments above by "Karl Priest," and the name rang a bell. Mr. Priest/Dr. Mastropaolo seems to be quite the ID gadfly, issuing debate challenges left and right, etc.
An account of an exchange he had with Dr. Richard Dawkins may be seen in this article http://pages.sbcglobal.net/amun_ra/
and another here http://stcynic.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_stcynic_archive.html#107402699155391517"
Humph. Someone has to force me to read this post. It's too big and boring. Brevity is the sister of talent, remember that.