Deinonychus antirrhopus

A No Win Situation

This article suggests that the boycott of the Kansas Kangaroo Court is due to weakness.

Another witness, Charles Thaxton, who lives near Atlanta but is a visiting assistant professor of chemistry at the Charles University in the Czech Republic, said the boycott is a sign of weakness.

"They've lost so many debates over the years, even their own supporters say, 'Don't do it,'" he said.

Science is determined by who wins a debate. Mr. Thaxton should be ashamed of himself for even suggesting something like that. Science depends on the evidence and the evidence in favor of the Theory of Evolution (ToE) is overwhelming.

Creationists like to claim there are no transistional fossils. This is flalse. Archaeopteryx is a transitional fossil. Archaeopteryx has features found on both dinosaurs and reptiles. Then there are the jaws of early mamal-like reptiles (Pelycosaurs) up through primative mamals (Morganucodon) in the jurassic (Talk Origins has a nifty picture showing the progression here). Does the picture show every single step? No. Why not? Well because fossil formation is a rare event not a common one. Also, these fossils have to be found. So, is the fact that there are gaps in the fossil record shocking? No, not at all. We should expect it. So this claim by Creationists is just outright deception. They are relying on the ignorance of people to score a debate point.

The problem for the biologists/scientist that wants to argue in favor of the ToE is that it is a complicated thing. Putting such a debate into a court room style setting is not a good move for the proponents of science. Court rooms have not been very good venues for arriving at good scientific conclusions.

The most fantastic verdict recorded so far was worthy of a tabloid: With the backing of "expert" testimony from a doctor and police department officials, a soothsayer who decided she had lost her psychic powers following a CAT scan persuaded a Philadelphia jury to award her $1 million. The trial judge threw out that verdict. But scientific frauds of similar character if lesser audacity are attempted almost daily in our courts, and many succeed. The traumatic cancer cases are decades old, but the others are recent.

On top of this, all three of the Board of Education members on this "court" are either anti-evolution or have introduced creationists standards. So even participating wouldn't have helped. At least this way when the "jury" comes in with a verdict in favor of intelligent design, it will be a somewhat hollow victory.

Update: This article underscores the bias inherent in this "court".

Three board members, including Morris, presided at the hearings. Kathy Martin, of Clay Center, said she had d looked over the entire evolution-friendly document but not read it "word for word."

Indeed, she wouldn't read it word for word. She already knows that evolution is wrong.

Also, this post at Red State Rabble is interesting. Particularly this part:

As the Kansas science hearings progress last week in Topeka, Science Coalition attorney Pedro Irigonegaray had an increasingly had time getting intelligent design witnesses to express an opinion about the age of the earth.

But of course. You see, many of the neo-Creationists (intelligent design proponents) are either young earth creationists (the earth is only 6,000 or so years old and definitely not billions) or they don't want to risk losing support of those in the public who are young earth creationists.

Also, note one other implication of that post. Intelligent Design and neo-Creationism calls into question not only evolutionary theory, but physics and chemistry as well.

All rocks and minerals contain minute amounts of radioactive material. These radioactive elements are unstable, over time they spontaneously decay into more stable stable atoms. This decay occurs at a constant rate specific to each isotope -- isotopes are different forms of a single element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. The rate of decay is usually described in terms of a half-life

Uranium 238, for example, has a half life of 4.5 billion years. It decays into a stable daughter product, lead 206. Uranium 235, with a half life of 708 million years, decays into lead 207. By looking at the ratio of parent to daughter isotope, geologist can determine the age of the rock. By looking at the ratio between both Uranium 238 and Uranium 235 and their respective daughter isotopes, geologists get a check on the date of the rock they are testing.

There are only two ways out of this problem.:

1. Disregard this evidence and say it is simply wrong.
2. Believe in a trickster God who is not above lying to his flock.

Neither is particularly palatable, but most will go with number 1. This is why Intelligent Design and Creationism in general is anti-science. It is "science" that must conform with religious dogma.