The transcripts from the Kansas Kangaroo Court of May 2005 are finally up (unfortunately labeled, “Science Standards Expert Testimony” – someone should count how many times the witnesses said something like “I’m not an expert” on relevant scientific questions). Briefs, presented materials, etc., are also available on the KSDE website.
The transcripts run to 308 pages total, if I count correctly. Still, it’s far better than trying to listen to the recordings and write down the shocking bits. I planned to do this one weekend, but it took me most of the day just to get through Bill Harris’s opening presentation.
Hear is one random bit of bogusness from Harris’s talk:
4 If a Coke bottle fell out of the sky into 5 an African desert and I was a native – you 6 know, the movie I’m talking about “The Gods 7 Must Be Crazy.” Those people knew that that 8 Coke bottle was a design, but they had no idea 9 what it was.
10 There’s an entire wing in one of the 11 museums in DC that’s dedicated to objects that 12 we don’t know what they are, but we know 13 they’re objects made by humans. I mean, you 14 don’t have to know where it comes from, you 15 don’t have to know who did it, you don’t have 16 to know where it was done, you don’t have to 17 know when it was done to come to the conclusion 18 that something was designed.IDNet’s Bill Harris, May 5 Kansas Hearings
The claim that there is an “entire wing” at a museum in DC devoted to designed objects of unknown function is a mutant version of a virulent creationist meme that has been flitting about in ID discourse for over 5 years. Jeff Shallit traced the origin and evolution of this notion in 2002 – see Anatomy of a Creationist Tall Tale – and showed it was almost entirely false. Here is the evolutionary series:
“The Smithsonian Institution has a collection of obviously designed human artifacts, concerning the purposes of which no one has a clue.” (Del Ratzsch, essay in Mere Creation, 1998)
“There is a room at the Smithsonian filled with objects that are obviously designed but whose specific purpose anthropologists do not understand.” (William Dembski, 1998)
“For example, the Smithsonian contains thousands of intelligently-designed objects whose function, or intended function, is unknown to us.” (Steve Renner, 2002 – Note: this page has been corrected)
“There’s an entire wing in one of the museums in DC that’s dedicated to objects that we don’t know what they are, but we know they’re objects made by humans.” (Bill Harris, May 2005 Kansas Hearings)
Jeff Shallit, however, managed to track down the original source. He contacted the Smithsonian, and they wrote back,
“The Smithsonian has no room such as described in William Dembski’s book. He may be referring to a section of an exhibition called Nation’s Attic which was displayed at the National Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History, Behring Center) from April 1, 1980 through February 8, 1981. We have enclosed a photocopy of a short article concerning the exhibition from Smithsonian magazine, April 1980. In one showcase in the exhibition a number of unindentified articles were displayed, but there was never a whole room devoted to them.”Shallit, quoting the SmithsonianAnatomy of a Creationist Tall Tale
Shallit summarizes the Smithsonian Magazine article:
The April 1980 issue of Smithsonian reveals that the entire exhibit consisted of 125 objects; for nearly all of these objects the purpose was well-known. The only reference to objects whose purpose is unknown consists of a single line:
“The final category, Unidentified Objects, consists of several items that no one can figure out.” [emphasis in bold added]
In other words, “several items” exhibited once in 1980-1, in one showcase of an exhibit, have become in true creationist fashion, an entire room devoted to the artifacts.Shallit, Anatomy of a Creationist Tall Tale
Anyway, the transcripts are full of this kind of stuff. I’m not even sure Bill Harris got the bit about the movie The Gods Must be Crazy right. I don’t specifically remember if the design of the bottle was discussed by the natives or not. I do vaguely remember that the main character, the Junt-wasi tribesman Xi, comes across tire tracks at one point, but rather than seeing them as designed, interprets them as some kind of strange animal tracks. This would be a counterexample (well, a fictional counterexample to Harris’s fictional example; we much remember that the Baez Crackpot Index gives out “20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.”)
I have a question for PT denzens. We have all of this data on ID and “Teach the Controversy” proponents, in text form. What kind of analysis should we do? Obviously, we should count how many ID witnesses are Young Earthers, how many wouldn’t or couldn’t answer that question, etc. But there are many additional possibilities. Post your ideas here.
PS: Hat-tip to Wes Elsberry for beating me to Harris’s “entire wing” remark.
Anything that equates ID with creation “science” is a high-caliber legal bullet. I can’t find one ID argument anywhere that wasn’t already amde decades ago by ICR’s minions.
Anything that equates ID with endorsing religion is higher-caliber. Such as their constant attempts to equate evolution with atheism.
Our pal Nelson even got quoted, extensively, saying that ID has nothing scientific to offer:
An interesting bit from Nord’s testimony:
Gee, I’d VERY much like to see an IDer make a case for teaching religion in mathematics class . …
Paul? Sal? Blast? Anyone?
Another gem from Nord’s testimony — seems as if the IDers have found themselves yet another, uh, “controversy” to teach:
Two questions:
1) Is it impossible to figure out how the objects were made without invoking mysterious aliens and their awesome powers?
2) Does the phrase “no one can figure out” mean that “no one knows for certain what they used for” or, rather, that the objects do not resemble anything made by humans or animals throughout history?
I assume the answer to both questions is “yes” in which case Harris’ anecdote is more than just dumb.
Where is the testimony of Robert diSilvestro? He said some really revealing things that need to be out in the sunlight, especially in light of his role in the currently unfolding Leonard affair here in Ohio.
Careful, I think much of that quote got misattributed somehow. Starting at “Easily the biggest challenge facing the Intelligent Design…” the quote is authentic, from a roundtable interview in Touchstone, pp. 64-65. But the preceding comments are not in that article as far as I can tell. They might be from an ID skeptic, who then quoted Nelson.
In reading through the transcripts, I keep finding more and more ammo. It looks as if the Kansas Kangaroo Kourt was even more a disaster for the IDers than I thought it was.
Here’s a gem from Harris. Remember it the next time some IDiot blithers on about ID being “just a science controversy”:
Bill Harris misspoke. It’s not a wing of a museum, it’s a warehouse, and all of the artifacts were clearly made by intelligent beings [not necessarily by humans].
I know.
I saw it in that archeological biography, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Another gem from Harris:
These idiots don’t have a prayer in court.
Pardon the pun.
Testamony from Nancy Bryson PhD aka the church lady MR. IRIGONEGARAY: Excuse me a second, Mr. Calvert. Pursuant to the rules, I have an objection. This has nothing to do with science standards in Kansas. This has been a litany about complaints about something that happened when this witness (Nancy Bryson PhD) was trying to give a speech–
The whole line of questioning had nothing to do with science standards.
BY MR. IRIGONEGARAY: Q. I have a few questions for you that I’d like place on the record first, please. The first thing I’d like to ask you is what is your personal opinion as to what the age of the world is? A. I’m undecided. Q. What is your best guess? A. I’m totally undecided. Q. Give me your best range. A. Anywhere from 4.5 billion years to ten thousand years. 3 Q. And, of course, you have reached that conclusion based on the best scientific evidence available? A. Yes.
I’m glad we got that narrowed down. Fortunately, she’s only a temp.
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From Bryan Leonard’s testimony:
Pfffft. Some “expert” . … . …
(snicker) (giggle)
If there’s a theory of intelligent design, they should be able to do the following: pick a feature of living things, any feature. Then answer at least some of the following questions:
When was it designed? Where was it designed? How was it designed? What considerations were involved? By whom was it designed? How was the design implemented?
Evolutionary theory has led to many answers about the origins of many things. Can we get some for design, too?
Nick asks what kind of analysis should be done on these transcripts.
First, I agree with previous comments that it’s important to compile all the passages that prove this really is all about religion. That compilation would be useful in convincing judges of the unconstitutionality of these efforts.
Second, I think it would be valuable to tally all the outright lies and egregiously false statements. That might actually be much more valuable in winning the support of the Average American.
If you go to the man on the street and say “Look; this is wrong because it’s unconstitutional,” you’re fighting an uphill battle. You get bogged down in all kinds of questions about what the 1st Amendment really means, what the founders wanted it to mean, what it really should mean, etc.
But, if you go to him and say “Look; these guys are just lying through their teeth. Literally making shit up. They don’t care at all about truth; they just want to keep your kids from learning things they don’t like,” maybe it would have some impact.
Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
;^)
The creationists won.
Sorry, but regardless of what actually happen, they’ll revel in the “legitimacy” given by the event, and selectively quote from the transcripts to make that so. Truth has no chance against a media apparatus.
I’ve only gotten through Harris’s testimony and part of Thaxton’s so far, but I note some interesting contradictions.
Harris complains that the standards go too far in teaching biological evolution. We can’t ever know for sure what happened historically, he says. We must admit that we just don’t know.
Then comes Thaxton, who complains the standards don’t go far enough in teaching chemical evolution (i.e. abiogenesis).
So, where we have a coherent theory, well-supported by evidence, with proven predictive power, Harris wants us to say “Eh, we don’t really know.” But when all we have is a bunch of competing hypotheses, none of which is well-supported (yet), Thaxton says we need to teach the hell out of ‘em.
I also like Harris’s two-faced position on evolution being undirected. First, he complains that it’s an unwarranted assumption, and that it contradicts various religious views. But then, he complains that the Majority-approved standards don’t actually describe evolution as being undirected! So he thinks it’s an unwarranted assumption, but he wants it included in the standards?
Thaxton does the same thing. He goes to all the trouble to explain the enormous inadequacies of current hypotheses on “chemical evolution” and then says the standards are wrong not to include all of it anyway.
I’m frankly amazed that these people can function in day-to-day life.
Alas for them, though, the “media apparatus” was finally convicned by the Kansas debacle that the IDers are all nutjobs and liars. Most reporters didn’t even stick around for the second or third day of hearings – the first day had already shown them what they needed to know.
And the only major newspaper I saw that had anything even remotely favorable to the IDers was the Moonie-owned Washington Times. Everyone else declared that the IDers were, well, nutjobs and liars. The DI’s Media Complaints people were working overtime trying to keep an intact hide.
ID is dead. It’s all over but the funeral. And that will come in Dover.
Dumbski was half right —- Kansas did turn out to be SOMEBODY’S Waterloo. (snicker)
This about sums it up: The Rockall Times
Cheers Amos
Unfortunately, the answers I was interested on, Giuseppe Sermonti’s, are apparently blurred by a thick italian accent, and therefore do not appear in the Pdfs. Has anyone any ideas on what the old genetic professor said? Or was he so forgettable? Thanks a lot.
Marco Ferrari
P. S. By the way, everything else was a lot of fun.
What a crazy zoo this is! Do such creatures truly exist? “How long will you simpletons love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?”
From my own mathematical and physical keyword search:
Here’s Calvert questioning one Ralph Seelke of UW-Superior being questioned by John Calvert, in which Dr. Seelke compares the timescales of the asexual evolution of bacteria to the sexual evolution of humans (“I have it on a CD”, “people don’t tend to flaunt their failures” – you just can’t make up stuff like this!), and claims that biological order is inconsistent with natural laws!
[FYI, the name of Seelke’s “hero” mentioned below is actually Richard Lenski, author of the article “Evolution: Fact and Theory”. Seelke appears to be confused by the 1999 Science article about Lenski’s work.]
The testimony of John Millam (being questioned by John Calvert), who claims that an infinite static universe violates thermodynamics, and that this shows that naturalism can be mistaken!
The testimony of Nancy Bryson of the Mississippi University for Women (being questioned by Chairman Abrams), in which Dr. Bryson says that self-organization violates thermodynamics!
The testimony of Warren Nord of University of North Carolina (being questioned by John Calvert and Pedro Irigonegaray), in which Dr. Nord says that religion should be incorporated into mathematics!
I enjoyed reading Dr. Thaxton’s comments and responses. Mr. Irigonegaray wound up looking like that rookie challenger on Iron Chef America last night who lost by nearly 20 points (and even failed to plate 3 of his 5 planned dishes for the judges, a new record low.)
Yummy!
FL
Marco: Sermonti’s testimony is available in audio format here, towards the end of day 1. It’s free, but you have to register. His English was pretty bad for a scientist, but I didn’t think it would be so utterly incomprehensible to an American ear that it couldn’t be transcribed. Of course, I can’t vouch for how it sounded to a Kansan. ;-)
Hi, FL.
I believe you were about to explain to me why Adam didn’t crap himself to death because of all the immortal bacteria being fruitful and mutliplying inside his intestines . … .
And then you were about to show me the kidnergarten science that you have to go along with your kindergarten theology . … . .
Me too. Especially the parts where he confirms that ID is all about religion and not science:
And the parts where he admits that he’s just a creationist, and not an expert on evolution anyway:
And the part where he admits that the Kansas standards don’t even mention any of the things that he has been bitching about:
And the part where he stumbles all over himself trying to explain why he doesn’t want science limited to “natural causes” but also says he doesn’t want any “supernatural causes” taught:
Indeed, Thaxton’s testimony is a very good microcosm summary of ALL the, uh, “expert testimony”.
‘Rev Dr’ Lenny Flank,
I enjoy your insights and thanks for the transcript posts … alas, not sure whether to laugh or cry.
tytlal
Not even Behe found it worth this time to read the Majority Report.
I’m glad they have the transcripts up, because every time I tried to listen to the audiofiles, my ADD kicked in and I just couldn’t concentrate and listed to it. Now that I can read it, though, it’s even more starkly obvious how inane and moronic the entire thing is.
Still, it was difficult to read past the first dozen pages or so, the stupidity, and worse, blatant logical fallacies became so bad that I just had to stop to save my brain. I think I’ll go back and read them again if I can manage to smoke enough weed so as to dumb myself down to their level…hey, I could test a scientific hypothesis: I propose that a subject smoking marijuana will finally “get” the ID hypothesis at around the dosage level that kitty litter becomes an acceptable snack food, but not before.
In the June 12, 2005 opinions section of the Boston Sunday Globe, Jeff Jacoby provides the following description of the Kansas debate (This is part of Mr. Jacoby’s support for his “get government out of the schools” kick):
Kansans have been debating how the development of life on earth should be taught in public schools - as the unintended result of random evolution or as the complex product of an evolution shaped by intelligent design. The board of education is to decide this summer whether the science standards should be changed. Kansas is just one of 19 states in which the Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design contest is being fought. Emotions have been running high, as they often do when the state takes sides in a clash of fundamental values and beliefs.
Interestingly, I do not recall “evolution shaped by intelligent design” as being the consensus or even majority view of the ID promoters. Interestingly, My. Jacobs does not describe how difficult it was for testifying ID proponents to even come forward and say that the earth is most definitely greater that a few million years old.
It’s William Jennings Bryan all over again, isn’t it? “I do not think about things I don’t think about…”
Bloody hell.
I have to say, that I am an alum of ‘ol UW- Superior and I even had a couple of classes with the fabulous Dr. Seelke; he teaches a good cell biology course. He has been touting the “evolution of bacteria” nonsense for at least 10 years now, luckily his creationist bend doesn’t infuse his teaching too badly (the other facutly do a good job of keeping him in check). I went to a Behe talk with him and he must have tried to get all of us to understand his generational problem for at least an hour on our way back to UWS. What really depresses me, is that he found his study of bacterial evolution, just like he always wanted, but he ignores the evolution that did occur and tries to focus on the failures as providing evidence that evolution can’t occur. That’s a real shame and I’m very disappointed to see him stoop to the standard creationist drivel.
I agree with qetzal that it might be useful to have an enumeration of all the lies, evasions, and “I’m not an expert but I play one in front of a credulous audience” the alleged experts committed. And then send this to the various media and school board representatives (in case they got bored and missed some). Sure, lots of folks support the IDiots, perhaps because they assume what the IDiots say is correct; but I suspect (hope) most people do not want to be lied to.
Why hasn’t Saturday Night Live done an ID sketch?
The, and, but, um, I.….
I see that Dr Harris was playing the straight ID party line when he talked about scientists using methodological naturalism but that had so many syllables that “I’ll just call it naturalism.” What a thin excuse for claiming that the two are equivalent. Of course, his definition of methodological naturalism had a lot more to do with philosophical naturalism, but even so, this is very misleading.
Who was it who said that the primary aim of creationists is to confuse people? I think that’s a very good example of it.
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Regarding religion and mathematics.
I definitely see a connection there. Anybody who didn’t do a lot of heavy praying the night before one of Dr. Odel’s diff-eq tests deserved to fail! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Although, there was that one exam on tensors where I heard a distinctive voice say
“Feel the Force, Master Bill, the derivative you must take.”
How little WE learn. Isn’t this pretty much what happened at the McLean trial? Although, interestingly enough, the transcripts for the creation side seem to have been, ahem, lost, there are enough snippets out there to get a good idea of how well the creationists shot themselves in the foot. (Science and Creationism, A. Montague, Oxford U Press 1984 makes some great reading). Yet creation science by no means died, very simply because it’s not based on evidence, science- or courtroom-wise. All they did was put on a happy face and rally the troops by telling them everything was o.k.
And evolve into ID, of course.
Now that’s all ID needs to do.
Everyone: download and save your copies of the Kansas transcripts, lest the ID movement make some silly claims 20 years down the road.
> Gee, I’d VERY much like to see an IDer make a case for teaching religion in mathematics class … .
*giggling madly* 1 + 1 + 1 = 1?
I enjoyed reading Dr. Thaxton’s comments and responses. He did indeed put on a tutorial par excellence. By the time Thaxton was done, Mr. Irigonegaray wound up looking like that recent challenger on Iron Chef America who failed to plate 3 of his expected 5 cuisine dishes and lost the entire match by nearly 20 points. Delicious reading!
FL
You’ve posted that before, and it didn’t make any sense then either. But keep reaching for that rainbow.
Somebody kick the FL-bot, he’s skipping again…
Wow, tim, a killer refute there for sure.
Mr. Irigon would be proud of you; that’s about his speed, really.
FL
From my reading of the transcripts, I thought Mr.Irigonegaray did a pretty good job. So you think the IDCists could have been made to look more foolish with higher-caliber questioning?
Wow!
But not to leave out ‘Enough’s’ post either.
The thing is, when stuff remains unrefuted, I reserve the right to offer the same stuff again. And in this case, the transcript is clear. Mr. Irigon couldn’t even touch Dr. Thaxton’s primo tutorial on the witness stand.
And Thaxton more than held his own on whatever end-run questions Mr. Irigon could work up the nerve to ask. Adding it all up, you have the full equivalent of an Iron Chef wipeout, Mr. Irigon duly serving as the wipee.
FL
In retrospect, I’m deeply sorry that I did not recognize the genius in FL’s reasoning, nor even recognize the need to “refute” his statements after all. On second reading, it is clearly a well-reasoned presentation of the scientific facts in favor of ID, and deserves a lively academic discussion. I will prepare a full rebuttal, complete with references to primary sources*, entitled “How Pedro Irigonegaray is Clearly Eternal-Champion Iron Chef Michiba, and the IDiots Resemble a Host of Carl’s Jr. Line Cooks Who Can’t Even Handle Spoons Without Requiring Stitches”. I will be submitting it the the venerable Journal of Really Crappy Analogies, where I presume FL is currently publishing.
* The original Japanese Iron Chef, b*tches, not the pale roundeye imitation.
Whee. Trolling creationist morons find other creationist morons persuasive. This is news?
Is that exhibit at the Smithsonian the same one where they keep my penis?
Quick question: I like to tinker, and I built a little gizmo that a really cute girl I know just doesn’t understand. Does this, I hope, mean I am a god to her?
Thanks in advance.
Speaking of “kilelr refutes”, FL, I believe you were about to tell me how it is that Adam didn’t crap himself to death from all those fruitfully-multiplying immortal bacteria in his guts . … ?
Oh, and you said somethign about showing me the science behind ID — ya know, the kindergarten sciecne to go along with your kindergarten theology?
And gee, FL, you still haven’t answered my simple quesiton about the source of your religious authority — what makes your religious opinions and interpretations any better than mine, my next door neighbor’s, my car emchanic’s, or the kid who delivers my pizzas? Other than your holy say-so?
Ya know, FL, if you keep avoiding my simple quesitons, people are gonna start thinking that you CAN’T answer them. Wouldn’t want THAT, would we . … ?
Comment # 34844
There are audio files? Can anyone point me to where these may be please.
Audio is at audible.com. Search on something like “Kansas evolution”.
“FIRST GRADE TEACHER DEBUNKS EVOLUTION WITH HELP FROM GOD”.
Google for news on connie Morris -
Kansas School Official Calls Evolution ‘Fairy Tale’
POSTED: 9:14 am CDT June 14, 2005
TOPEKA, Kan. – A member of Kansas’ State Board of Education who’s involved in writing new public school science standards calls evolution a “fairy tale” that’s sometimes defended with “anti-God contempt and arrogance.”
A newsletter written by board member Connie Morris said students should be taught “criticism of Darwinism alongside the age-old fairy tale of evolution.”
In her newsletter, Morris said she’s a Christian who believes that the creation account in the Book of Genesis is literally true.
But she also acknowledges that many other Christians have no trouble reconciling faith and evolution.
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
If you find the audible.com format and software a real pain (as I did), it might help that I converted them to MP3 and I share them on LimeWire.
It turns out GoldWave can save them as WAVs and, of course, you can then compress from there. I’ve encoded at 32kbps constant bitrate, 16khz, mono, but it’s still 250MB in total. Perhaps they should be torrented!
Others may have done the same and made smaller files.
P.S. Can anyone tell me how legal what I’m doing is?
Thanks Nick, I did just what you said.… listened to the first day of the trial. One thing I find interesting is that they say its a leap of faith to extrapolate micro evolution to macro evolution but they have no problem extrapolating something having the appearance of design to “it is designed”
I also see the IDers got their facts all wrong about the whole journal scandal. He said the paper was peer reviewed, which it wasn’t. Said that he lost his position as the editor because of it, which he didn’t, and lost his position at the S.I. which is also false.…oh and he said no one had any issue with the actual content of the article…which many did and wrote about
They live in a different world don’t they. A world where facts just don’t matter.
> you don’t have to know when it was done to come to the conclusion that something was designed.
coming to the conclusion that the universe was designed .. is as natural to the ancients to conclude that zeus is the highest of all gods. maker of lightnings and thor who makes thunder. and neptune lord of the seas makes tsunamis ..
but we all know now thru science that all of these are natural phenomenons ..
Instead, they live in a world much too important to permit facts to run around loose and unsupervised. Facts must be managed in the interests of right thinking.
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