• Re: Phillip Johnson wiki

    From Athel Cornish-Bowden@21:1/5 to RonO on Thu Aug 29 09:26:25 2024
    On 2024-08-29 01:16:08 +0000, RonO said:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki. There seems to be no valid
    reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed
    the editor that made the edit to see what was going on. I guess
    nothing has come of the request.

    No. I had a back-and-forth discussion with the editor in question,
    mainly consisting of me suggesting a wording that he would accept and
    refrain from editing it back to what it was. He objected to all of
    these, except the last, which he hasn't replied to. I thought I'd leave
    it a month and then fix it.

    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which a
    major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent design creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught in
    the public schools. He had made it part of his Wedge strategy. It was
    one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but 20/20
    hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the science,
    and did not understand that the ID perps never had any legitimate ID
    science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not understand scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on Science and
    Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial by Nancey Murphy,
    an associate professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as "dogmatic and
    unconvincing", primarily because "he does not adequately understand scientific reasoning."" Johnson had been convinced by the other ID
    perps that the ID science existed, and could be taught in the public
    schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam. Most notably then Senator Santorum. Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the IDiotic
    "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation that was submitted
    by Santorum and ended up in the appendix of that legislation. Both
    Santorum and Johnson claimed that the inclusion of the "amendment"
    supported teaching intelligent design in the public schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute likely understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID science in the
    public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID perps were invited
    to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio State School board the ID
    perps decided to start running a bait and switch scam where they would
    just use ID as bait, but only give the rubes an obfuscation and denial
    swtich scam that the ID perps would tell the creationist rubes had
    nothing to do with ID. It does not look like the ID perps bothered to
    inform Santorum and Johnson of what they planned to do because both
    Johnson and Santorum came out in support of teaching ID in the public
    schools in Ohio before the bait and switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait and
    switch was going down in Ohio. There is no reason why Johnson would
    hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait and switch
    scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for Santorum to have written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait and switch was going
    down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express
    them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education
    is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's defense
    of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include intelligent design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate from Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift for
    the ID scam. After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach ID scam
    as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any creationist rubes
    that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch had
    gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58


    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
    Local school boards and state education officials are frequently pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding biological
    origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National Academy of Sciences,
    go so far as to deny the existence of any genuine scientific
    controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless, teachers should be
    reassured that they have the right to expose their students to the
    problems as well as the appeal of Darwinian theory. Moreover, as the
    previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the authority to
    permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory as an
    alternative to Darwinian evolution--and this includes the use of
    textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that present evidence for the
    theory of intelligent design.

    The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of alternatives
    to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives are based on
    scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly religious concerns.
    Since design theory is based on scientific evidence rather than
    religious assumptions, it clearly meets this test. Including
    discussions of design in the science curriculum thus serves an
    important goal of making education inclusive, rather than exclusionary.
    In addition, it provides students with an important demonstration of
    the best way for them as future scientists and citizens to resolve
    scientific controversies--by a careful and fair-minded examination of
    the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in every instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum supported
    the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover public schools
    in 2005. Santorum was eventually clued in and had to flip flop on the
    issue during his campaign for reelection. As sad as it may seem some
    of his republican opponents in the primary questioned his religious convictions due changing his mind about teaching intelligent design in
    the Pennsylvania public schools. Santorum was not reelected, and when
    he ran for president he no longer claimed to support intelligent
    design, but instead claimed to support creationism. It would take some willful ignorance of what the ID perps were doing by running the bait
    and switch, but the ID perps still called the switch scam "Teach the Controversy" and if you look at the old propaganda produced by the
    Discovery Institute teaching ID was part of the controversy that they
    wanted to teach. You can see ID included in the conclusion of the
    teach ID booklet quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with
    the video that they had produced as one of the goals listed in the
    Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson claimed
    that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public schools.
    Johnson sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and changed his
    mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution


    This is the quote that was removed. In one post in the previous thread
    I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design
    at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s
    comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific
    people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims. I used to quote
    two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
    of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational
    world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
    just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue
    at all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
    glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now
    that the public schools are not going to change their line in my
    lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to
    be.”
    END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also admitting
    that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical creationism because
    of his claim that "the courts are just not going to allow it. They
    never have." Only Biblical creationism had, had previous Federal court failures and one failure in the Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after
    Kitzmiller. After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary
    celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial. At the time I did
    not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was strange that Johnson did not participate in the celebration, but Johnson had likely already given the interview published in the Berkeley Science Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto


    --
    Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
    in England until 1987.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris Thompson@21:1/5 to RonO on Thu Aug 29 22:39:01 2024
    RonO wrote:
    On 8/29/2024 2:26 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
    On 2024-08-29 01:16:08 +0000, RonO said:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no valid
    reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed
    the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I guess
    nothing has come of the request.

    No. I had a back-and-forth discussion with the editor in question,
    mainly consisting of me suggesting a wording that he would accept and
    refrain from editing it back to what it was. He objected to all of
    these, except the last, which he hasn't replied to. I thought I'd
    leave it a month and then fix it.

    If you do not get this guys buy in, can he just remove it again?  What
    were his reasons for removing a perfectly valid quote, and Johnson's admission about the ID scam when Johnson never retracted what he had said.

    In the previous thread I note other people using the quote including Ken Miller in a public presentation, and I do not recall any blow back from Johnson.


    It's instructive to look at Laurence Moran's attempts to correct
    Wikipedia on the subject of junk DNA. A long-term editor/contributor
    (who is not a biologist/chemist/biochemist) to Wikipedia put up a ream
    of garbage on the topic and Larry rewrote it. The editor deleted Moran's
    work and put his own back up. They went around a few times but of course Larry's expertise meant nothing and the buffoon's seniority at Wikipedia
    meant everything.

    If the person who changed the Johnson page is someone with an ax to
    grind and has been at Wikipedia for any length of time, it's probably
    useless to try to present anything (s)he doesn't like.

    Chris

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Athel Cornish-Bowden@21:1/5 to Chris Thompson on Fri Aug 30 09:50:27 2024
    On 2024-08-30 02:39:01 +0000, Chris Thompson said:

    RonO wrote:
    On 8/29/2024 2:26 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
    On 2024-08-29 01:16:08 +0000, RonO said:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki. There seems to be no valid
    reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed
    the editor that made the edit to see what was going on. I guess
    nothing has come of the request.

    No. I had a back-and-forth discussion with the editor in question,
    mainly consisting of me suggesting a wording that he would accept and
    refrain from editing it back to what it was. He objected to all of
    these, except the last, which he hasn't replied to. I thought I'd leave
    it a month and then fix it.

    If you do not get this guys buy in, can he just remove it again? What
    were his reasons for removing a perfectly valid quote, and Johnson's
    admission about the ID scam when Johnson never retracted what he had
    said.

    In the previous thread I note other people using the quote including
    Ken Miller in a public presentation, and I do not recall any blow back
    from Johnson.


    It's instructive to look at Laurence Moran's attempts to correct
    Wikipedia on the subject of junk DNA. A long-term editor/contributor
    (who is not a biologist/chemist/biochemist) to Wikipedia put up a ream
    of garbage on the topic and Larry rewrote it. The editor deleted
    Moran's work and put his own back up. They went around a few times but
    of course Larry's expertise meant nothing and the buffoon's seniority
    at Wikipedia meant everything.

    If the person who changed the Johnson page is someone with an ax to
    grind and has been at Wikipedia for any length of time, it's probably
    useless to try to present anything (s)he doesn't like.

    In his User Page, GuardianH describes himself as follows:

    "I'm an American high school student from Massachusetts with a passion
    in history, philosophy, and law along with an additional interest
    pertaining to sociology and higher education. I write and edit
    primarily on topics concerningconstitutional lawand legal
    scholarship."

    No obvious expertise in Intelligent Design, therefore, but he has been
    a very active editor, with more than 40000 contributions to Wikipedia.
    I'm not sure he has an axe to grind, but he's just stuck his heels in.

    --
    athel cb : Biochemical Evolution, Garland Science, 2016

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Athel Cornish-Bowden@21:1/5 to RonO on Fri Aug 30 09:43:32 2024
    On 2024-08-29 21:21:32 +0000, RonO said:

    On 8/29/2024 8:28 AM, RonO wrote:
    On 8/29/2024 2:26 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
    On 2024-08-29 01:16:08 +0000, RonO said:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no valid >>>> reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed
    the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I guess
    nothing has come of the request.

    No. I had a back-and-forth discussion with the editor in question,
    mainly consisting of me suggesting a wording that he would accept and
    refrain from editing it back to what it was. He objected to all of
    these, except the last, which he hasn't replied to. I thought I'd leave
    it a month and then fix it.

    If you do not get this guys buy in, can he just remove it again?  What
    were his reasons for removing a perfectly valid quote, and Johnson's
    admission about the ID scam when Johnson never retracted what he had
    said.

    In the previous thread I note other people using the quote including
    Ken Miller in a public presentation, and I do not recall any blow back
    from Johnson.


    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which a
    major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent design
    creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught in
    the public schools.  He had made it part of his Wedge strategy.  It was >>>> one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but 20/20
    hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the science,
    and did not understand that the ID perps never had any legitimate ID
    science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not understand >>>> scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on Science and
    Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial by Nancey Murphy, >>>> an associate professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological
    Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as "dogmatic and
    unconvincing", primarily because "he does not adequately understand
    scientific reasoning.""  Johnson had been convinced by the other ID
    perps that the ID science existed, and could be taught in the public
    schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam.  Most notably then Senator >>>> Santorum.  Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the IDiotic
    "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation that was submitted >>>> by Santorum and ended up in the appendix of that legislation.  Both
    Santorum and Johnson claimed that the inclusion of the "amendment"
    supported teaching intelligent design in the public schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute likely
    understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID science in the
    public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID perps were invited >>>> to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio State School board the ID
    perps decided to start running a bait and switch scam where they would >>>> just use ID as bait, but only give the rubes an obfuscation and denial >>>> swtich scam that the ID perps would tell the creationist rubes had
    nothing to do with ID.  It does not look like the ID perps bothered to >>>> inform Santorum and Johnson of what they planned to do because both
    Johnson and Santorum came out in support of teaching ID in the public
    schools in Ohio before the bait and switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait and
    switch was going down in Ohio.  There is no reason why Johnson would
    hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait and switch >>>> scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for Santorum to have >>>> written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait and switch was going >>>> down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express >>>> them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education >>>> is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the >>>> classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's defense >>>> of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to >>>> students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching
    standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught that may >>>> generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include intelligent >>>> design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a
    first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate from
    Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International >>>> copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift for
    the ID scam.  After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach ID scam >>>> as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any creationist rubes
    that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch had >>>> gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/
    scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58

    As I noted this is the booklet that the ID perps used to give out with
    their Wedge video.  The booklet was published in 1999 and the link that
    I give above is what was available in 2005.  If you click on the
    download link you get a 2004 pdf copy of the booklet.  It is no secret
    that teaching ID in the public schools was one of the 5 year goals
    listed in the Wedge document.

    This booklet is also infamous for being used by the Thomas More lawyer
    defending the Dover rubes when an ID perp tried to lie about the
    Discovery Institute selling the teach ID scam to school boards.  The
    lawyer pulled the booklet out of his pocket and quoted from it.  Meyer
    the director of the ID scam unit was one of the authors of that booklet
    along with DeWolf head of legal for the Discovery Institute, and a law
    professor (DeForrest) from Gonzaga that claimed to have been a
    Discovery Institute fellow on his web site.

    http://ncse.com/news/2005/10/discovery-institute-thomas-more-law-center-
    squabble-aei-foru-00704

    The More lawyer describes the bait and switch that the Discovery
    Institute ID perps had been running on the creationist rubes, but he
    called it a "strategy" instead of the bait and switch scam that it has
    been.

    QUOTE:
    Now, Stephen Meyer, you know, wanted his attorney there, we said
    because he was an officer of the Discovery Institute, he certainly could
    have his attorney there. But the other experts wanted to have attorneys,
    that they were going to consult with, as objections were made, and not
    with us. And no other expert that was in the Dover case, and I'm talking about the plaintiffs, had any attorney representing them.

    So that caused us some concern about exactly where was the heart of
    the Discovery Institute. Was it really something of a tactical decision,
    was it this strategy that they've been using, in I guess Ohio and other places, where they've pushed school boards to go in with intelligent
    design, and as soon as there's a controversy, they back off with a compromise. And I think what was victimized by this strategy was the
    Dover school board, because we could not present the expert testimony we thought we could present
    END QUOTE:

    What the intelligent design wiki should note is the events surrounding
    the defection of the ID perp expert witnesses that the More lawyer
    claims occurred at a time when they could not be replaced. Things were
    not going well for the ID perps in terms of their depositions, and they
    began requesting that they have their own lawyers (Why would an expert witness need a lawyer?). Dembski was wise cracking as usual, but he
    panicked and withdrew from the case after sitting in on Forrest's
    deposition. Half of the ID perps withdrew including Meyer after
    Forrest's deposition. Forrest had laid out the name change in Of
    Pandas and People from creationism to intelligent design that had
    occurred after the Supreme Court ruling against teaching creationism in
    the public schools. At that time Meyer had been known to have written
    the teachers notes for that book, and Behe would admit to having
    written some of it, but he had not been credited. Dembski was editing
    the update of Of Pandas and People. The drafts of Dembski's book had
    also been subpoenaed, but the subpoena was dropped after Dembski's
    defection. No one ever hears about that book, but it was eventually published. Nothing associated with Dover will ever see use in the
    public schools. As the More lawyer states Meyer had no reason to
    withdraw at that time because they had agreed that he could have his
    own lawyer, but Meyer decided that having his own lawyer wasn't going
    to do him any good.

    It should be noted that in the teach ID scam propaganda cited above,
    and the conclusions that the More lawyer quoted from that booklet, that
    Meyer was one of the authors of that booklet, and that booklet had recommended using Of Pandas and People to teach ID in the public
    schools. The Dover creationist rubes had taken them up on it, and had
    bought Of Pandas and People to use in their public schools. Wiki
    claims that the Dover School board was contacted by a Discovery
    Institute rep who's job it was to run the bait and switch, and that he
    had tried to get the Dover rubes to bend over for the obfuscation and
    denial switch scam, but he failed to follow up, and the Dover rubes disregarded his advice and tried to teach ID anyway. The bait and
    switch had gone down on all the creationist rubes that had bought into
    the ID perp's teach ID Wedge strategy for 3 years, and it had likely
    become routine, and Cooper did not bother to follow up. He did not
    realize that the Dover rubes were so ignorant and incompetent that they
    did not know that the Discovery Institute was responsible for selling
    them the teach ID Wedge scam, so his advice was disregarded. Only a
    complete incompetent would not back down after having the guys that
    sold you the scam tells you not to do it, and in nearly every case the
    rubes have dropped the issue instead of bend over for the ID perp's
    switch scam.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

    QUOTE:
    This story made the York newspapers, and Buckingham was telephoned by Discovery Institute staff attorney Seth Cooper, whose tasks included "communicating with legislators, school board members, teachers,
    parents and students" to "address the topic of ID in a scientifically
    and educationally responsible way" in public schools. He later stated
    that he made the call to "steer the Dover Board away from trying to
    include intelligent design in the classroom or from trying to insert creationism into its cirriculum [sic]", an account Buckingham has
    disputed. Cooper sent the book and DVD of Icons of Evolution to
    Buckingham, who required the Dover High School science teachers to
    watch the DVD. They did not take up the opportunity to use it in their classes.
    END QUOTE:

    Ron Okimoto


    Ron Okimoto


    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
          Local school boards and state education officials are frequently
    pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding biological
    origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National Academy of Sciences, >>>> go so far as to deny the existence of any genuine scientific
    controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless, teachers should be
    reassured that they have the right to expose their students to the
    problems as well as the appeal of Darwinian theory. Moreover, as the
    previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the authority to
    permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory as an
    alternative to Darwinian evolution--and this includes the use of
    textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that present evidence for the
    theory of intelligent design.

          The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision in
    Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of alternatives >>>> to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives are based on
    scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly religious concerns.
    Since design theory is based on scientific evidence rather than
    religious assumptions, it clearly meets this test. Including
    discussions of design in the science curriculum thus serves an
    important goal of making education inclusive, rather than exclusionary. >>>> In addition, it provides students with an important demonstration of
    the best way for them as future scientists and citizens to resolve
    scientific controversies--by a careful and fair- minded examination of >>>> the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in every >>>> instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum supported
    the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover public schools >>>> in 2005.  Santorum was eventually clued in and had to flip flop on the >>>> issue during his campaign for reelection.  As sad as it may seem some >>>> of his republican opponents in the primary questioned his religious
    convictions due changing his mind about teaching intelligent design in >>>> the Pennsylvania public schools. Santorum was not reelected, and when >>>> he ran for president he no longer claimed to support intelligent
    design, but instead claimed to support creationism.  It would take some >>>> willful ignorance of what the ID perps were doing by running the bait
    and switch, but the ID perps still called the switch scam "Teach the
    Controversy" and if you look at the old propaganda produced by the
    Discovery Institute teaching ID was part of the controversy that they
    wanted to teach. You can see ID included in the conclusion of the
    teach ID booklet quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with
    the video that they had produced as one of the goals listed in the
    Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson claimed
    that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public schools.
    Johnson sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and changed his
    mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://
    sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution

    This is the quote that was removed.  In one post in the previous thread >>>> I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design
    at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s >>>> comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific >>>> people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite >>>> convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is
    ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims.  I used to quote >>>> two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent >>>> design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job >>>> of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational >>>> world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any >>>> efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are >>>> just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than
    accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue
    at all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
    glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now >>>> that the public schools are not going to change their line in my
    lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to >>>> be.”
    END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also admitting
    that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical creationism because >>>> of his claim that "the courts are just not going to allow it.  They
    never have."  Only Biblical creationism had, had previous Federal court >>>> failures and one failure in the Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after
    Kitzmiller.   After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary
    celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial.  At the time I did >>>> not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was strange that >>>> Johnson did not participate in the celebration, but Johnson had likely >>>> already given the interview published in the Berkeley Science Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto

    On checking my discussion with GuardianH (the editor in question) I see
    that he did send a reply on 13th August that I had failed to see. In
    it, he says "WP:NOR states that verifiability should be explicit,
    rather than implicit. So its necessary to have a secondary source to
    support this. GuardianH (talk) 01:23, 13 August 2024 (UTC)". Is there a
    good secondary source to confirm that Johnson really did say this, in a
    serious newspaper, for example?

    --
    Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
    in England until 1987.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From x@21:1/5 to RonO on Sat Aug 31 13:36:22 2024
    On 8/28/24 18:16, RonO wrote:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no valid
    reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I guess nothing has come of the request.

    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which a
    major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent design creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught in
    the public schools.  He had made it part of his Wedge strategy.  It was
    one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but 20/20
    hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the science, and
    did not understand that the ID perps never had any legitimate ID science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not understand scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on Science and
    Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial by Nancey Murphy,
    an associate professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as "dogmatic and
    unconvincing", primarily because "he does not adequately understand scientific reasoning.""  Johnson had been convinced by the other ID
    perps that the ID science existed, and could be taught in the public
    schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam.  Most notably then Senator Santorum.  Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the IDiotic "amendment"
    to the no child left behind legislation that was submitted by Santorum
    and ended up in the appendix of that legislation.  Both Santorum and
    Johnson claimed that the inclusion of the "amendment" supported teaching intelligent design in the public schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute likely understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID science in the
    public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID perps were invited
    to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio State School board the ID
    perps decided to start running a bait and switch scam where they would
    just use ID as bait, but only give the rubes an obfuscation and denial
    swtich scam that the ID perps would tell the creationist rubes had
    nothing to do with ID.  It does not look like the ID perps bothered to inform Santorum and Johnson of what they planned to do because both
    Johnson and Santorum came out in support of teaching ID in the public
    schools in Ohio before the bait and switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait and
    switch was going down in Ohio.  There is no reason why Johnson would
    hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait and switch
    scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for Santorum to have written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait and switch was going
    down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express
    them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education
    is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's defense
    of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include intelligent design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate from Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift for
    the ID scam.  After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach ID scam
    as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any creationist rubes
    that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch had
    gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58

    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
         Local school boards and state education officials are frequently pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding biological
    origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National Academy of Sciences,
    go so far as to deny the existence of any genuine scientific controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless, teachers should be reassured that
    they have the right to expose their students to the problems as well as
    the appeal of Darwinian theory. Moreover, as the previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the authority to permit, and even
    encourage, teaching about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution--and this includes the use of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that present evidence for the theory of intelligent design.

         The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of alternatives
    to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives are based on
    scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly religious concerns.
    Since design theory is based on scientific evidence rather than
    religious assumptions, it clearly meets this test. Including discussions
    of design in the science curriculum thus serves an important goal of
    making education inclusive, rather than exclusionary. In addition, it provides students with an important demonstration of the best way for
    them as future scientists and citizens to resolve scientific controversies--by a careful and fair-minded examination of the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in every instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum supported
    the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover public schools
    in 2005.  Santorum was eventually clued in and had to flip flop on the
    issue during his campaign for reelection.  As sad as it may seem some of
    his republican opponents in the primary questioned his religious
    convictions due changing his mind about teaching intelligent design in
    the Pennsylvania public schools.  Santorum was not reelected, and when
    he ran for president he no longer claimed to support intelligent design,
    but instead claimed to support creationism.  It would take some willful ignorance of what the ID perps were doing by running the bait and
    switch, but the ID perps still called the switch scam "Teach the
    Controversy" and if you look at the old propaganda produced by the
    Discovery Institute teaching ID was part of the controversy that they
    wanted to teach.  You can see ID included in the conclusion of the teach
    ID booklet quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with the
    video that they had produced as one of the goals listed in the Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson claimed
    that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public schools. Johnson
    sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and changed his mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution

    This is the quote that was removed.  In one post in the previous thread
    I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design
    at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s
    comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific
    people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims.  I used to quote
    two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
    of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational
    world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
    just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue at all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
    glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now that
    the public schools are not going to change their line in my lifetime.
    That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to be.”
    END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also admitting
    that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical creationism because
    of his claim that "the courts are just not going to allow it.  They
    never have."  Only Biblical creationism had, had previous Federal court failures and one failure in the Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after Kitzmiller.
     After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial.  At the time I did not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was strange that Johnson did not
    participate in the celebration, but Johnson had likely already given the interview published in the Berkeley Science Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto

    Governments do pay teachers to propagandize to the little
    children that governments do constructive things rather than
    destructive things.

    This doesn't quite work when they build nuclear weapons to
    incinerate the little children but they try. It looks cute
    when they do the Hitler salute in a graceful manner in a
    play or something like that.

    There is something pretty totalitarian in the concept of a
    state mandated 'lesson plan'.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From x@21:1/5 to Kestrel Clayton on Sat Aug 31 14:34:26 2024
    On 8/31/24 14:17, Kestrel Clayton wrote:
    On 31-Aug-24 16:36, x wrote:
    On 8/28/24 18:16, RonO wrote:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no valid
    reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed
    the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I guess
    nothing has come of the request.

    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which a
    major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent design
    creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught in
    the public schools.  He had made it part of his Wedge strategy.  It
    was one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but 20/20
    hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the science,
    and did not understand that the ID perps never had any legitimate ID
    science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not
    understand scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on
    Science and Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial by
    Nancey Murphy, an associate professor of Christian philosophy at
    Fuller Theological Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as
    "dogmatic and unconvincing", primarily because "he does not
    adequately understand scientific reasoning.""  Johnson had been
    convinced by the other ID perps that the ID science existed, and
    could be taught in the public schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam.  Most notably then
    Senator Santorum.  Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the IDiotic
    "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation that was
    submitted by Santorum and ended up in the appendix of that
    legislation.  Both Santorum and Johnson claimed that the inclusion of
    the "amendment" supported teaching intelligent design in the public
    schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute likely
    understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID science in the
    public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID perps were
    invited to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio State School
    board the ID perps decided to start running a bait and switch scam
    where they would just use ID as bait, but only give the rubes an
    obfuscation and denial swtich scam that the ID perps would tell the
    creationist rubes had nothing to do with ID.  It does not look like
    the ID perps bothered to inform Santorum and Johnson of what they
    planned to do because both Johnson and Santorum came out in support
    of teaching ID in the public schools in Ohio before the bait and
    switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait and
    switch was going down in Ohio.  There is no reason why Johnson would
    hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait and
    switch scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for Santorum
    to have written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait and switch
    was going down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express
    them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education
    is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the
    classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's defense >>> of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to
    students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching
    standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught that may
    generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include intelligent >>> design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a
    first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate from
    Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International
    copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift for
    the ID scam.  After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach ID
    scam as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any creationist
    rubes that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch
    had gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/
    scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58

    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
          Local school boards and state education officials are
    frequently pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding
    biological origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National Academy
    of Sciences, go so far as to deny the existence of any genuine
    scientific controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless, teachers
    should be reassured that they have the right to expose their students
    to the problems as well as the appeal of Darwinian theory. Moreover,
    as the previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the
    authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory
    as an alternative to Darwinian evolution--and this includes the use
    of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that present evidence for
    the theory of intelligent design.

          The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision >>> in Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of
    alternatives to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives are
    based on scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly religious
    concerns. Since design theory is based on scientific evidence rather
    than religious assumptions, it clearly meets this test. Including
    discussions of design in the science curriculum thus serves an
    important goal of making education inclusive, rather than
    exclusionary. In addition, it provides students with an important
    demonstration of the best way for them as future scientists and
    citizens to resolve scientific controversies--by a careful and fair-
    minded examination of the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in
    every instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum
    supported the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover
    public schools in 2005.  Santorum was eventually clued in and had to
    flip flop on the issue during his campaign for reelection.  As sad as
    it may seem some of his republican opponents in the primary
    questioned his religious convictions due changing his mind about
    teaching intelligent design in the Pennsylvania public schools.
    Santorum was not reelected, and when he ran for president he no
    longer claimed to support intelligent design, but instead claimed to
    support creationism.  It would take some willful ignorance of what
    the ID perps were doing by running the bait and switch, but the ID
    perps still called the switch scam "Teach the Controversy" and if you
    look at the old propaganda produced by the Discovery Institute
    teaching ID was part of the controversy that they wanted to teach.
    You can see ID included in the conclusion of the teach ID booklet
    quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with the video that
    they had produced as one of the goals listed in the Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson claimed
    that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public schools.
    Johnson sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and changed his
    mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://
    sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution

    This is the quote that was removed.  In one post in the previous
    thread I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design >>> at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s
    comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific
    people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite >>> convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is
    ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims.  I used to quote
    two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
    of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational
    world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any
    efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
    just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than
    accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue at >>> all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
    glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now
    that the public schools are not going to change their line in my
    lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to be.” >>> END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also admitting
    that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical creationism
    because of his claim that "the courts are just not going to allow
    it.  They never have."  Only Biblical creationism had, had previous
    Federal court failures and one failure in the Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after
    Kitzmiller.   After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary
    celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial.  At the time I did
    not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was strange
    that Johnson did not participate in the celebration, but Johnson had
    likely already given the interview published in the Berkeley Science
    Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto

    Governments do pay teachers to propagandize to the little
    children that governments do constructive things rather than
    destructive things.

    This doesn't quite work when they build nuclear weapons to
    incinerate the little children but they try.  It looks cute
    when they do the Hitler salute in a graceful manner in a
    play or something like that.

    There is something pretty totalitarian in the concept of a
    state mandated 'lesson plan'.

    That's an interesting claim. Is it your position that all educational standards are "totalitarian"? Would the United States be in better hands
    if it didn't try to give kids a basic grounding in reading, writing, mathematics, science, art, and history?

    There are also generally educational requirements for teaching
    positions.

    I am thinking that a bachelor's degree is often required to
    be a substitute teacher, and those often have general education
    requirements as well.

    The general idea is that the other degree requirements to go
    into teaching at different levels would expose the potential
    teachers into the subtleties of the subjects in these areas.

    I am thinking it is at lowest a masters for some low level
    subjects in college. They often have general education
    requirements that go into those degrees. They also some
    times have 'peer review' for who does what, and grade
    schools and high schools have school boards.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From x@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 31 14:47:43 2024
    On 8/31/24 14:34, x wrote:
    On 8/31/24 14:17, Kestrel Clayton wrote:
    On 31-Aug-24 16:36, x wrote:
    On 8/28/24 18:16, RonO wrote:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no
    valid reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had
    emailed the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I
    guess nothing has come of the request.

    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which
    a major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent
    design creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught
    in the public schools.  He had made it part of his Wedge strategy.
    It was one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but
    20/20 hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the
    science, and did not understand that the ID perps never had any
    legitimate ID science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not
    understand scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on
    Science and Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial by
    Nancey Murphy, an associate professor of Christian philosophy at
    Fuller Theological Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as
    "dogmatic and unconvincing", primarily because "he does not
    adequately understand scientific reasoning.""  Johnson had been
    convinced by the other ID perps that the ID science existed, and
    could be taught in the public schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam.  Most notably then
    Senator Santorum.  Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the IDiotic
    "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation that was
    submitted by Santorum and ended up in the appendix of that
    legislation.  Both Santorum and Johnson claimed that the inclusion
    of the "amendment" supported teaching intelligent design in the
    public schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute likely
    understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID science in the
    public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID perps were
    invited to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio State School
    board the ID perps decided to start running a bait and switch scam
    where they would just use ID as bait, but only give the rubes an
    obfuscation and denial swtich scam that the ID perps would tell the
    creationist rubes had nothing to do with ID.  It does not look like
    the ID perps bothered to inform Santorum and Johnson of what they
    planned to do because both Johnson and Santorum came out in support
    of teaching ID in the public schools in Ohio before the bait and
    switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait
    and switch was going down in Ohio.  There is no reason why Johnson
    would hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait
    and switch scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for
    Santorum to have written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait
    and switch was going down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express >>>> them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education >>>> is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the >>>> classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's
    defense
    of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to >>>> students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching
    standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught that may >>>> generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include
    intelligent
    design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a
    first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate from
    Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International
    copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift
    for the ID scam.  After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach
    ID scam as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any
    creationist rubes that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch
    had gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/
    scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58

    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
          Local school boards and state education officials are
    frequently pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding
    biological origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National
    Academy of Sciences, go so far as to deny the existence of any
    genuine scientific controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless,
    teachers should be reassured that they have the right to expose
    their students to the problems as well as the appeal of Darwinian
    theory. Moreover, as the previous discussion demonstrates, school
    boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching
    about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution--and
    this includes the use of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that
    present evidence for the theory of intelligent design.

          The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision >>>> in Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of
    alternatives to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives
    are based on scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly
    religious concerns. Since design theory is based on scientific
    evidence rather than religious assumptions, it clearly meets this
    test. Including discussions of design in the science curriculum thus
    serves an important goal of making education inclusive, rather than
    exclusionary. In addition, it provides students with an important
    demonstration of the best way for them as future scientists and
    citizens to resolve scientific controversies--by a careful and fair-
    minded examination of the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in
    every instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum
    supported the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover
    public schools in 2005.  Santorum was eventually clued in and had to
    flip flop on the issue during his campaign for reelection.  As sad
    as it may seem some of his republican opponents in the primary
    questioned his religious convictions due changing his mind about
    teaching intelligent design in the Pennsylvania public schools.
    Santorum was not reelected, and when he ran for president he no
    longer claimed to support intelligent design, but instead claimed to
    support creationism.  It would take some willful ignorance of what
    the ID perps were doing by running the bait and switch, but the ID
    perps still called the switch scam "Teach the Controversy" and if
    you look at the old propaganda produced by the Discovery Institute
    teaching ID was part of the controversy that they wanted to teach.
    You can see ID included in the conclusion of the teach ID booklet
    quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with the video that
    they had produced as one of the goals listed in the Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson
    claimed that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public
    schools. Johnson sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and
    changed his mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://
    sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution

    This is the quote that was removed.  In one post in the previous
    thread I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design >>>> at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s
    comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific >>>> people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are
    quite
    convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is
    ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims.  I used to
    quote two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
    of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational >>>> world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any >>>> efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
    just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than
    accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue at >>>> all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and >>>> glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now
    that the public schools are not going to change their line in my
    lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to be.”
    END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also admitting
    that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical creationism
    because of his claim that "the courts are just not going to allow
    it.  They never have."  Only Biblical creationism had, had previous
    Federal court failures and one failure in the Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after
    Kitzmiller.   After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary
    celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial.  At the time I
    did not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was
    strange that Johnson did not participate in the celebration, but
    Johnson had likely already given the interview published in the
    Berkeley Science Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto

    Governments do pay teachers to propagandize to the little
    children that governments do constructive things rather than
    destructive things.

    This doesn't quite work when they build nuclear weapons to
    incinerate the little children but they try.  It looks cute
    when they do the Hitler salute in a graceful manner in a
    play or something like that.

    There is something pretty totalitarian in the concept of a
    state mandated 'lesson plan'.

    That's an interesting claim. Is it your position that all educational
    standards are "totalitarian"? Would the United States be in better
    hands if it didn't try to give kids a basic grounding in reading,
    writing, mathematics, science, art, and history?

    There are also generally educational requirements for teaching
    positions.

    I am thinking that a bachelor's degree is often required to
    be a substitute teacher, and those often have general education
    requirements as well.

    The general idea is that the other degree requirements to go
    into teaching at different levels would expose the potential
    teachers into the subtleties of the subjects in these areas.

    I am thinking it is at lowest a masters for some low level
    subjects in college.  They often have general education
    requirements that go into those degrees.  They also some
    times have 'peer review' for who does what, and grade
    schools and high schools have school boards.

    Sorry, I recognize that the last post could be pretty jarring.

    Somewhere, I learned maybe wrongly, that you should close to
    never use the same word on a page. Way too many uses of the
    word 'general' in the last post.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From x@21:1/5 to RonO on Sun Sep 1 07:05:26 2024
    On 8/31/24 16:15, RonO wrote:
    On 8/31/2024 3:36 PM, x wrote:
    On 8/28/24 18:16, RonO wrote:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no valid
    reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed
    the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I guess
    nothing has come of the request.

    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which a
    major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent design
    creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught in
    the public schools.  He had made it part of his Wedge strategy.  It
    was one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but 20/20
    hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the science,
    and did not understand that the ID perps never had any legitimate ID
    science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not
    understand scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on
    Science and Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial by
    Nancey Murphy, an associate professor of Christian philosophy at
    Fuller Theological Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as
    "dogmatic and unconvincing", primarily because "he does not
    adequately understand scientific reasoning.""  Johnson had been
    convinced by the other ID perps that the ID science existed, and
    could be taught in the public schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam.  Most notably then
    Senator Santorum.  Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the IDiotic
    "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation that was
    submitted by Santorum and ended up in the appendix of that
    legislation.  Both Santorum and Johnson claimed that the inclusion of
    the "amendment" supported teaching intelligent design in the public
    schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute likely
    understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID science in the
    public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID perps were
    invited to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio State School
    board the ID perps decided to start running a bait and switch scam
    where they would just use ID as bait, but only give the rubes an
    obfuscation and denial swtich scam that the ID perps would tell the
    creationist rubes had nothing to do with ID.  It does not look like
    the ID perps bothered to inform Santorum and Johnson of what they
    planned to do because both Johnson and Santorum came out in support
    of teaching ID in the public schools in Ohio before the bait and
    switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait and
    switch was going down in Ohio.  There is no reason why Johnson would
    hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait and
    switch scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for Santorum
    to have written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait and switch
    was going down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express
    them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education
    is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the
    classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's defense >>> of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to
    students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching
    standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught that may
    generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include intelligent >>> design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a
    first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate from
    Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International
    copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift for
    the ID scam.  After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach ID
    scam as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any creationist
    rubes that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch
    had gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/
    scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58

    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
          Local school boards and state education officials are
    frequently pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding
    biological origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National Academy
    of Sciences, go so far as to deny the existence of any genuine
    scientific controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless, teachers
    should be reassured that they have the right to expose their students
    to the problems as well as the appeal of Darwinian theory. Moreover,
    as the previous discussion demonstrates, school boards have the
    authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory
    as an alternative to Darwinian evolution--and this includes the use
    of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People that present evidence for
    the theory of intelligent design.

          The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision >>> in Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of
    alternatives to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives are
    based on scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly religious
    concerns. Since design theory is based on scientific evidence rather
    than religious assumptions, it clearly meets this test. Including
    discussions of design in the science curriculum thus serves an
    important goal of making education inclusive, rather than
    exclusionary. In addition, it provides students with an important
    demonstration of the best way for them as future scientists and
    citizens to resolve scientific controversies--by a careful and fair-
    minded examination of the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in
    every instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum
    supported the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover
    public schools in 2005.  Santorum was eventually clued in and had to
    flip flop on the issue during his campaign for reelection.  As sad as
    it may seem some of his republican opponents in the primary
    questioned his religious convictions due changing his mind about
    teaching intelligent design in the Pennsylvania public schools.
    Santorum was not reelected, and when he ran for president he no
    longer claimed to support intelligent design, but instead claimed to
    support creationism.  It would take some willful ignorance of what
    the ID perps were doing by running the bait and switch, but the ID
    perps still called the switch scam "Teach the Controversy" and if you
    look at the old propaganda produced by the Discovery Institute
    teaching ID was part of the controversy that they wanted to teach.
    You can see ID included in the conclusion of the teach ID booklet
    quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with the video that
    they had produced as one of the goals listed in the Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson claimed
    that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public schools.
    Johnson sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and changed his
    mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://
    sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution

    This is the quote that was removed.  In one post in the previous
    thread I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design >>> at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s
    comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific
    people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite >>> convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is
    ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims.  I used to quote
    two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
    of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational
    world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any
    efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
    just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than
    accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue at >>> all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
    glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now
    that the public schools are not going to change their line in my
    lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to be.” >>> END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also admitting
    that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical creationism
    because of his claim that "the courts are just not going to allow
    it.  They never have."  Only Biblical creationism had, had previous
    Federal court failures and one failure in the Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after
    Kitzmiller.   After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary
    celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial.  At the time I did
    not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was strange
    that Johnson did not participate in the celebration, but Johnson had
    likely already given the interview published in the Berkeley Science
    Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto

    Governments do pay teachers to propagandize to the little
    children that governments do constructive things rather than
    destructive things.

    This doesn't quite work when they build nuclear weapons to
    incinerate the little children but they try.  It looks cute
    when they do the Hitler salute in a graceful manner in a
    play or something like that.

    There is something pretty totalitarian in the concept of a
    state mandated 'lesson plan'.


    This is an article on the IDiotic switch scam lesson plan adopted by the
    Ohio State Board of education, and their subsequent abandonment and
    removal of the state creationist lesson plan after the creationist loss
    in Dover.  The Ohio State Board of Education tried to present the obfuscation and denial IDiotic switch scam to the Ohio school kids.  The
    ID perps would sell the creationist rubes the teach ID scam, but then
    once the rubes had taken the bait, the ID perps would run the bait and
    switch on them and only offer them their obfuscation and denial switch
    scam that the ID perps would tell the rubes had nothing to do with intelligent design.

    https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED496133.pdf

    The Ohio creationist rubes were the first ones to bend over for the
    switch scam after the bait and switch went down on them.  Nearly all the other creationist rube school boards and legislators that had the bait
    and switch run on them have dropped the issue and not bent over for the switch scam.  It looks like only Texas and Louisiana have switch scam
    school board junk or switch scam legislation active, and both states
    adopted their switch scam junk after the creationist defeat in Dover.
    Both states had the bait and switch run on them again when they tried to
    use the switch scam junk to teach ID back in 2013.  Neither state was requiring ID to be taught, but the bait and switch went down anyway, and
    the ID perps had to remind the creationist rubes that the switch scam
    had nothing to do with ID.  Both states dropped the issue and did not
    follow through with trying to teach intelligent design creationism.
    Louisiana had even called what they wanted to teach intelligent design
    and also called it creationism in their textbook supplement.  It is
    pretty obvious why both states bent over and took the switch scam from
    the ID perps instead of the "intelligent design science" that they had claimed to want to teach in their public schools.

    Ron Okimoto

    You know an organized outline can often be very helpful when presenting
    some sort of subject.

    I am thinking I should probably drop the matter.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Athel Cornish-Bowden@21:1/5 to Athel Cornish-Bowden on Tue Sep 3 11:18:42 2024
    On 2024-08-30 07:50:27 +0000, Athel Cornish-Bowden said:

    On 2024-08-30 02:39:01 +0000, Chris Thompson said:

    RonO wrote:
    On 8/29/2024 2:26 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
    On 2024-08-29 01:16:08 +0000, RonO said:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki. There seems to be no valid >>>>> reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had emailed >>>>> the editor that made the edit to see what was going on. I guess
    nothing has come of the request.

    No. I had a back-and-forth discussion with the editor in question,
    mainly consisting of me suggesting a wording that he would accept and
    refrain from editing it back to what it was. He objected to all of
    these, except the last, which he hasn't replied to. I thought I'd leave >>>> it a month and then fix it.

    If you do not get this guys buy in, can he just remove it again? What
    were his reasons for removing a perfectly valid quote, and Johnson's
    admission about the ID scam when Johnson never retracted what he had
    said.

    In the previous thread I note other people using the quote including
    Ken Miller in a public presentation, and I do not recall any blow back
    from Johnson.


    It's instructive to look at Laurence Moran's attempts to correct
    Wikipedia on the subject of junk DNA. A long-term editor/contributor
    (who is not a biologist/chemist/biochemist) to Wikipedia put up a ream
    of garbage on the topic and Larry rewrote it. The editor deleted
    Moran's work and put his own back up. They went around a few times but
    of course Larry's expertise meant nothing and the buffoon's seniority
    at Wikipedia meant everything.

    If the person who changed the Johnson page is someone with an ax to
    grind and has been at Wikipedia for any length of time, it's probably
    useless to try to present anything (s)he doesn't like.

    In his User Page, GuardianH describes himself as follows:

    "I'm an American high school student from Massachusetts with a passion
    in history, philosophy, and law along with an additional interest
    pertaining to sociology and higher education. I write and edit
    primarily on topics concerningconstitutional lawand legal
    scholarship."

    No obvious expertise in Intelligent Design, therefore, but he has been
    a very active editor, with more than 40000 contributions to Wikipedia.
    I'm not sure he has an axe to grind, but he's just stuck his heels in.

    I have found one suitable secondary source that refers to Johnson's retreat:

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-intelligent-design-fails

    However, it would e nice to have two. It surely must have been
    mentioned in reputable newpapers: New York Times, Washington Post,
    Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, etc., but I haven't found
    anything. Any suggestions? Maybe something in Nature or Science?


    --
    Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
    in England until 1987.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From x@21:1/5 to Kestrel Clayton on Tue Sep 3 11:20:47 2024
    On 9/1/24 08:57, Kestrel Clayton wrote:


    On 31-Aug-24 17:34, x wrote:
    On 8/31/24 14:17, Kestrel Clayton wrote:
    On 31-Aug-24 16:36, x wrote:
    On 8/28/24 18:16, RonO wrote:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki. There seems to be no
    valid reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had
    emailed the editor that made the edit to see what was going on. I
    guess nothing has come of the request.

    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which
    a major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent
    design creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught
    in the public schools. He had made it part of his Wedge strategy.
    It was one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but
    20/20 hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the
    science, and did not understand that the ID perps never had any
    legitimate ID science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not
    understand scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on
    Science and Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial
    by Nancey Murphy, an associate professor of Christian philosophy at
    Fuller Theological Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as
    "dogmatic and unconvincing", primarily because "he does not
    adequately understand scientific reasoning."" Johnson had been
    convinced by the other ID perps that the ID science existed, and
    could be taught in the public schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam. Most notably then
    Senator Santorum. Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the
    IDiotic "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation that
    was submitted by Santorum and ended up in the appendix of that
    legislation. Both Santorum and Johnson claimed that the inclusion
    of the "amendment" supported teaching intelligent design in the
    public schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute
    likely understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID
    science in the public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID
    perps were invited to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio
    State School board the ID perps decided to start running a bait and
    switch scam where they would just use ID as bait, but only give the
    rubes an obfuscation and denial swtich scam that the ID perps would
    tell the creationist rubes had nothing to do with ID. It does not
    look like the ID perps bothered to inform Santorum and Johnson of
    what they planned to do because both Johnson and Santorum came out
    in support of teaching ID in the public schools in Ohio before the
    bait and switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait
    and switch was going down in Ohio. There is no reason why Johnson
    would hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait
    and switch scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for
    Santorum to have written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait
    and switch was going down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to
    express
    them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of
    Education
    is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in
    the
    classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's
    defense
    of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being
    taught to
    students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching
    standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught
    that may
    generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include
    intelligent
    design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a
    first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate from
    Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International
    copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift
    for the ID scam. After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach
    ID scam as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any
    creationist rubes that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch
    had gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.


    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/ scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58

    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
    Local school boards and state education officials are
    frequently pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding
    biological origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National
    Academy of Sciences, go so far as to deny the existence of any
    genuine scientific controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless,
    teachers should be reassured that they have the right to expose
    their students to the problems as well as the appeal of Darwinian
    theory. Moreover, as the previous discussion demonstrates, school
    boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching
    about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution--and
    this includes the use of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People
    that present evidence for the theory of intelligent design.

    The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision
    in Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of
    alternatives to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives
    are based on scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly
    religious concerns. Since design theory is based on scientific
    evidence rather than religious assumptions, it clearly meets this
    test. Including discussions of design in the science curriculum
    thus serves an important goal of making education inclusive, rather
    than exclusionary. In addition, it provides students with an
    important demonstration of the best way for them as future
    scientists and citizens to resolve scientific controversies--by a
    careful and fair- minded examination of the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in
    every instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum
    supported the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover
    public schools in 2005. Santorum was eventually clued in and had
    to flip flop on the issue during his campaign for reelection. As
    sad as it may seem some of his republican opponents in the primary
    questioned his religious convictions due changing his mind about
    teaching intelligent design in the Pennsylvania public schools.
    Santorum was not reelected, and when he ran for president he no
    longer claimed to support intelligent design, but instead claimed
    to support creationism. It would take some willful ignorance of
    what the ID perps were doing by running the bait and switch, but
    the ID perps still called the switch scam "Teach the Controversy"
    and if you look at the old propaganda produced by the Discovery
    Institute teaching ID was part of the controversy that they wanted
    to teach. You can see ID included in the conclusion of the teach ID
    booklet quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with the
    video that they had produced as one of the goals listed in the
    Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson
    claimed that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public
    schools. Johnson sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and
    changed his mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://
    sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution

    This is the quote that was removed. In one post in the previous
    thread I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design
    at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s
    comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the
    scientific
    people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are
    quite
    convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is
    ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims. I used to
    quote two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
    of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational
    world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any
    efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
    just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than
    accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue
    at all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
    glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now
    that the public schools are not going to change their line in my
    lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to
    be.”
    END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also
    admitting that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical
    creationism because of his claim that "the courts are just not
    going to allow it. They never have." Only Biblical creationism
    had, had previous Federal court failures and one failure in the
    Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after
    Kitzmiller. After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary
    celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial. At the time I
    did not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was
    strange that Johnson did not participate in the celebration, but
    Johnson had likely already given the interview published in the
    Berkeley Science Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto

    Governments do pay teachers to propagandize to the little
    children that governments do constructive things rather than
    destructive things.

    This doesn't quite work when they build nuclear weapons to
    incinerate the little children but they try. It looks cute
    when they do the Hitler salute in a graceful manner in a
    play or something like that.

    There is something pretty totalitarian in the concept of a
    state mandated 'lesson plan'.

    That's an interesting claim. Is it your position that all educational
    standards are "totalitarian"? Would the United States be in better
    hands if it didn't try to give kids a basic grounding in reading,
    writing, mathematics, science, art, and history?

    There are also generally educational requirements for teaching
    positions.

    I am thinking that a bachelor's degree is often required to
    be a substitute teacher, and those often have general education
    requirements as well.

    The general idea is that the other degree requirements to go
    into teaching at different levels would expose the potential
    teachers into the subtleties of the subjects in these areas.

    I am thinking it is at lowest a masters for some low level
    subjects in college. They often have general education
    requirements that go into those degrees. They also some
    times have 'peer review' for who does what, and grade
    schools and high schools have school boards.

    I'm still not clear on your point. Is it okay if individual states in
    the US have educational standards, or is that also totalitarian? What
    about standards at the county or school board level?

    One thing I remember doing a long time ago, is this.

    I took the Constitution of NAZI Germany under Hitler.

    Then I took the Constitution of the Soviet Union under
    Stalin.

    And then I took the Constitution of the United States
    and the US Bill of Rights.

    And then compared all three of them.

    I came to the conclusion that all three of them have
    wording in them very similar to the wording in the US
    Bill of Rights.

    Therefore, totalitarianism is something that is
    extra-constitutional, or in other words, it is
    something that tends to not be explicitly written
    into something as general as the written laws or
    structure in documents described as such.

    I am thinking that the Constitution of Germany
    has a lot in it on the family, and a lot of it
    did not change from during the time of NAZI Germany
    to when it was reformed from the US, French, and UK
    occupation zones after WWII. The German Constitution
    of 1870 of course says that 'the President of Germany
    is the King of Prussia' (to make it explicit that it
    is not the king of Austria). To not diverge too much
    into 'President' versus 'Chancellor' however I tended
    to get the idea that totalitarianism in Germany in the
    1930s and early 1940s was the concept of 'martial law',
    or more completely, that 'martial law' means that
    'there are no laws at all' (except maybe 'obey this
    person' who can render his or her decisions based upon
    whim, caprice, or random chance).

    As far as the Soviet Union, perhaps it could be summarized
    as 'laws only exist to favor the rich, so let us do away
    with all of the lawyers'.

    They had all of those 'show trials' and 'kangaroo courts'
    under Stalinism. But the courts may have very well
    rubber stamped what the politicians told them to rubber
    stamp. 'Due process of law', may very well have not
    actually been 'due'. The problem however is that
    the term 'due process of law' may very well actually
    be very vague.

    Then I am thinking there is also the British position
    from both the American Revolution and slightly later -
    something like - a constitution is not a specific written
    document but rather - the people and institutions of a
    country and its colonies.

    I am not quite sure to what extent they do that in various
    law schools throughout the world, and then after they have
    the class debate these issues, they end with a debate about
    what are 'laws' and how do they differ from things that are
    'not laws'.

    I tend to think of totalitarianism as an a-legalism that
    tends to favor the government at the expense of human freedom.
    It is a matter of extremes and may not necessarily have to
    do with anything specific.

    I am thinking I was comparing one extreme with another in
    the past argument. As such, it may very well have not been
    valid reasoning.

    > Or is it your position that as long as a teacher has a degree and any
    necessary official qualifications, it doesn't matter what they actually teach to kids?

    You know about 30 years ago, in college I remember there were some
    professors in college that were conducting some job interviews for
    a potential candidate for a position at the college there. It seemed
    to me, that they were acting like the job interview was something like
    the defense of a masters or doctoral degree and that they were expecting something like a class or lecture for each of the candidates.

    Sadly, I forgot what the topic of some of those lectures were by now.

    At the time, it did not seem to me like they were patting each other
    on the back and saying 'we do not need to teach any classes or do
    any research any more because we are all such friends of each other'.

    There is also the question, does the title of the course reflect the
    outline of the course.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From x@21:1/5 to All on Tue Sep 3 20:26:19 2024
    On 9/3/24 11:20, x wrote:
    On 9/1/24 08:57, Kestrel Clayton wrote:


    On 31-Aug-24 17:34, x wrote:
    On 8/31/24 14:17, Kestrel Clayton wrote:
    On 31-Aug-24 16:36, x wrote:
    On 8/28/24 18:16, RonO wrote:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

    Earlier this month I noted that someone had remove the Johnson
    capitulation quote from the Johnson wiki.  There seems to be no
    valid reason for removing the quote, and Athel claimed that he had
    emailed the editor that made the edit to see what was going on.  I
    guess nothing has come of the request.

    The quote actually brings closure to the entire wiki entry of which
    a major part is about Johnson's participation in the intelligent
    design creationist scam.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Phillip Johnson wanted ID taught
    in the public schools.  He had made it part of his Wedge strategy.
    It was one of the 5 years goals listed in the Wedge document, but
    20/20 hindsight indicates that Johnson never fully understood the
    science, and did not understand that the ID perps never had any
    legitimate ID science worth teaching in the public schools.

    The Phillip Johnson wiki has the claim that Johnson did not
    understand scientific reasoning "In 1993 the ASA's Perspectives on
    Science and Christian Faith published a review of Darwin on Trial
    by Nancey Murphy, an associate professor of Christian philosophy at
    Fuller Theological Seminary, who described Johnson's arguments as
    "dogmatic and unconvincing", primarily because "he does not
    adequately understand scientific reasoning.""  Johnson had been
    convinced by the other ID perps that the ID science existed, and
    could be taught in the public schools.

    Johnson got others involved in the ID scam.  Most notably then
    Senator Santorum.  Johnson supposedly wrote the draft of the
    IDiotic "amendment" to the no child left behind legislation that
    was submitted by Santorum and ended up in the appendix of that
    legislation.  Both Santorum and Johnson claimed that the inclusion
    of the "amendment" supported teaching intelligent design in the
    public schools.

    By 2002 most of the other ID perps at the Discovery Institute
    likely understood that they had nothing worth teaching as ID
    science in the public schools, so when Ohio hit the fan and the ID
    perps were invited to give their dog and pony show to the Ohio
    State School board the ID perps decided to start running a bait and
    switch scam where they would just use ID as bait, but only give the
    rubes an obfuscation and denial swtich scam that the ID perps would
    tell the creationist rubes had nothing to do with ID.  It does not
    look like the ID perps bothered to inform Santorum and Johnson of
    what they planned to do because both Johnson and Santorum came out
    in support of teaching ID in the public schools in Ohio before the
    bait and switch went down.

    Johnson put up the Santorum editorial on his ARN blog as the bait
    and switch was going down in Ohio.  There is no reason why Johnson
    would hang Santorum, out to dry like that if he knew that the bait
    and switch scam was going to start to go down, and no reason for
    Santorum to have written the opinion piece if he knew that the bait
    and switch was going down.

    https://www.arn.org/docs/ohio/washtimes_santorum031402.htm

    QUOTE:
    "I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to
    express
    them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire
    applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of
    Education
    is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in
    the
    classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's
    defense
    of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to
    prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being
    taught to
    students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

    Today, the Board of Education will discuss a proposal to insert
    "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching
    standards.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    At the beginning of the year, President Bush signed into law the "No
    Child Left Behind" bill. The new law includes a science education
    provision where Congress states that "where topics are taught
    that may
    generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum
    should help students to understand the full range of scientific
    views
    that exist." If the Education Board of Ohio does not include
    intelligent
    design in the new teaching standards, many students will be denied a
    first-rate science education. Many will be left behind.

    Rick Santorum is a Republican member of the United States Senate
    from
    Pennsylvania.

    © 2002 News World Communications. All rights reserved. International
    copyright secured.
    File Date: 3.14.02
    END QUOTE:

    So neither Santorum nor Johnson likely knew of the strategy shift
    for the ID scam.  After Ohio 2002 the ID perps only used the teach
    ID scam as bait, and never delivered any ID science to any
    creationist rubes that wanted to teach it.

    You could still download the teach ID scam booklet from a Discovery
    Institute web site when Dover hit the fan, but the bait and switch
    had gone down in every case for the previous 3 years after Ohio.


    https://web.archive.org/web/20040921022045/http://www.discovery.org/ scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=58

    QUOTE:
    9. Conclusion
           Local school boards and state education officials are
    frequently pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding
    biological origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National
    Academy of Sciences, go so far as to deny the existence of any
    genuine scientific controversy about the issue.(162) Nevertheless,
    teachers should be reassured that they have the right to expose
    their students to the problems as well as the appeal of Darwinian
    theory. Moreover, as the previous discussion demonstrates, school
    boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching
    about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution--and
    this includes the use of textbooks such as Of Pandas and People
    that present evidence for the theory of intelligent design.

           The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision
    in Edwards v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of
    alternatives to Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives
    are based on scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly
    religious concerns. Since design theory is based on scientific
    evidence rather than religious assumptions, it clearly meets this
    test. Including discussions of design in the science curriculum
    thus serves an important goal of making education inclusive, rather
    than exclusionary. In addition, it provides students with an
    important demonstration of the best way for them as future
    scientists and citizens to resolve scientific controversies--by a
    careful and fair- minded examination of the evidence.
    END QUOTE:

    For some reason even though the bait and switch had gone down in
    every instance for 3 years both Johnson and then Senator Santorum
    supported the Dover School boards efforts to teach ID in the Dover
    public schools in 2005.  Santorum was eventually clued in and had
    to flip flop on the issue during his campaign for reelection.  As
    sad as it may seem some of his republican opponents in the primary
    questioned his religious convictions due changing his mind about
    teaching intelligent design in the Pennsylvania public schools.
    Santorum was not reelected, and when he ran for president he no
    longer claimed to support intelligent design, but instead claimed
    to support creationism.  It would take some willful ignorance of
    what the ID perps were doing by running the bait and switch, but
    the ID perps still called the switch scam "Teach the Controversy"
    and if you look at the old propaganda produced by the Discovery
    Institute teaching ID was part of the controversy that they wanted
    to teach. You can see ID included in the conclusion of the teach ID
    booklet quoted above that the ID perps used to give out with the
    video that they had produced as one of the goals listed in the
    Wedge document.

    I recall an interview at the Federal courthouse where Johnson
    claimed that ID would prevail and be taught in the Dover public
    schools. Johnson sat in the courtroom everyday of testimony, and
    changed his mind.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20070609131601/http://
    sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution

    This is the quote that was removed.  In one post in the previous
    thread I quote the use by others like Ken Miller.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design
    at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the
    Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a
    fully
    worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s
    comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the
    scientific
    people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are
    quite
    convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…No product is
    ready for competition in the educational world.
    END QUOTE:

    As far as I know Johnson never retracted the claims.  I used to
    quote two parts of the interview.

    QUOTE:
    I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent
    design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative
    to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might
    contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design
    theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job
    of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement.
    Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for
    them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the educational
    world.
    END QUOTE:

    QUOTE:
    For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any
    efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are
    just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change
    things in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than
    accomplish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue
    at all.”

    “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and
    glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now
    that the public schools are not going to change their line in my
    lifetime. That isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to
    be.”
    END QUOTE:

    Using the two quotes you get the idea that Johnson is not only
    acknowledging the failure of ID as science, but he is also
    admitting that what he was trying to get taught was Biblical
    creationism because of his claim that "the courts are just not
    going to allow it.  They never have."  Only Biblical creationism
    had, had previous Federal court failures and one failure in the
    Supreme Court.

    I do not recall Phillip Johnson supporting the ID scam after
    Kitzmiller.   After Dover the ID perps held a 15th anniversary
    celebration of the publication of Darwin on Trial.  At the time I
    did not know of Johnson's defection, and I thought that it was
    strange that Johnson did not participate in the celebration, but
    Johnson had likely already given the interview published in the
    Berkeley Science Review.

    These types of historical details should get into the Johnson wiki.

    Ron Okimoto

    Governments do pay teachers to propagandize to the little
    children that governments do constructive things rather than
    destructive things.

    This doesn't quite work when they build nuclear weapons to
    incinerate the little children but they try.  It looks cute
    when they do the Hitler salute in a graceful manner in a
    play or something like that.

    There is something pretty totalitarian in the concept of a
    state mandated 'lesson plan'.

    That's an interesting claim. Is it your position that all educational
    standards are "totalitarian"? Would the United States be in better
    hands if it didn't try to give kids a basic grounding in reading,
    writing, mathematics, science, art, and history?

    There are also generally educational requirements for teaching
    positions.

    I am thinking that a bachelor's degree is often required to
    be a substitute teacher, and those often have general education
    requirements as well.

    The general idea is that the other degree requirements to go
    into teaching at different levels would expose the potential
    teachers into the subtleties of the subjects in these areas.

    I am thinking it is at lowest a masters for some low level
    subjects in college.  They often have general education
    requirements that go into those degrees.  They also some
    times have 'peer review' for who does what, and grade
    schools and high schools have school boards.

    I'm still not clear on your point. Is it okay if individual states in
    the US have educational standards, or is that also totalitarian? What about standards at the county or school board level?

    One thing I remember doing a long time ago, is this.

    I took the Constitution of NAZI Germany under Hitler.

    Then I took the Constitution of the Soviet Union under
    Stalin.

    And then I took the Constitution of the United States
    and the US Bill of Rights.

    And then compared all three of them.

    I came to the conclusion that all three of them have
    wording in them very similar to the wording in the US
    Bill of Rights.

    Therefore, totalitarianism is something that is
    extra-constitutional, or in other words, it is
    something that tends to not be explicitly written
    into something as general as the written laws or
    structure in documents described as such.

    I am thinking that the Constitution of Germany
    has a lot in it on the family, and a lot of it
    did not change from during the time of NAZI Germany
    to when it was reformed from the US, French, and UK
    occupation zones after WWII.  The German Constitution
    of 1870 of course says that 'the President of Germany
    is the King of Prussia' (to make it explicit that it
    is not the king of Austria).  To not diverge too much
    into 'President' versus 'Chancellor' however I tended
    to get the idea that totalitarianism in Germany in the
    1930s and early 1940s was the concept of 'martial law',
    or more completely, that 'martial law' means that
    'there are no laws at all' (except maybe 'obey this
    person' who can render his or her decisions based upon
    whim, caprice, or random chance).

    As far as the Soviet Union, perhaps it could be summarized
    as 'laws only exist to favor the rich, so let us do away
    with all of the lawyers'.

    They had all of those 'show trials' and 'kangaroo courts'
    under Stalinism.  But the courts may have very well
    rubber stamped what the politicians told them to rubber
    stamp.  'Due process of law', may very well have not
    actually been 'due'.  The problem however is that
    the term 'due process of law' may very well actually
    be very vague.

    Then I am thinking there is also the British position
    from both the American Revolution and slightly later -
    something like - a constitution is not a specific written
    document but rather - the people and institutions of a
    country and its colonies.

    I am not quite sure to what extent they do that in various
    law schools throughout the world, and then after they have
    the class debate these issues, they end with a debate about
    what are 'laws' and how do they differ from things that are
    'not laws'.

    I tend to think of totalitarianism as an a-legalism that
    tends to favor the government at the expense of human freedom.
    It is a matter of extremes and may not necessarily have to
    do with anything specific.

    I am thinking I was comparing one extreme with another in
    the past argument.  As such, it may very well have not been
    valid reasoning.

    ; Or is it your position that as long as a teacher has a degree and any
    necessary official qualifications, it doesn't matter what they actually teach to kids?

    You know about 30 years ago, in college I remember there were some
    professors in college that were conducting some job interviews for
    a potential candidate for a position at the college there.  It seemed
    to me, that they were acting like the job interview was something like
    the defense of a masters or doctoral degree and that they were expecting something like a class or lecture for each of the candidates.

    Sadly, I forgot what the topic of some of those lectures were by now.

    At the time, it did not seem to me like they were patting each other
    on the back and saying 'we do not need to teach any classes or do
    any research any more because we are all such friends of each other'.

    There is also the question, does the title of the course reflect the
    outline of the course.

    Yea the more I think this through the more I think the reasoning is wrong.

    It might be that some of the structures in education might help
    to reduce the imposition of bad phenomena from the top, but this
    isn't about private education, but rather whether a state should
    have the right to overview public funds for public education.

    Yea just forget it.




    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)