Behe was present at Dover, and the transcripts would have provided an opportunity to see how he addresses strong direct criticism of his various claims.

and therefore I believe it is safe to call ID theory, not wrong, but simply irrelevant.

Allen–

Did we categorize ID as challenging only OoL, or did we also find it relevant to the entire question of the usefulness of N.S., origination of novel form, function, and specified information at later times?– essentially, everything on our chart that dealt with questions of mechanism?

Moreover— must something challenge all of evolution to be relevant?

It seems to me that counterexamples abound…..

In other words, we tended to stick to primary sources (i.e. books written by people directly involved in the “evolution versus design/purpose” debate - people like Richard Dawkins and Michael Behe) rather than secondary sources (which the trial transcripts and final decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover represent).

Personally, I was quite pleased by the way things went this summer. I believe that we cleared up quite a few misconceptions. Specifically, we concluded that:

1) Contrary to public perception, both Behe and Dembski’s arguments do not really address the processes of macroevolution at all, nor do they have much relevence for microevolution either.

2) Instead, they are primarily focussed on a very limited area of evolutionary theory: the origin of life and the genetic code, plus the origin of a small set of biochemical pathways.

3) Given the foregoing, it became clear to us that nearly all of what could be subsumed under the heading of the “theory of evolution” (and especially the entirety of Darwin’s original theory, which did not address any of the topics listed in #2, above) is essentially unaffected by the work of Behe and Dembski.

4) Therefore, it would be safe to say that the work of the primary authors in the field of ID theory do not in any way undermine (indeed, they do not effect) almost all of current evolutionary theory in any significant way.

Personally, I find discussion about the origin of life and the genetic code almost irrelevent to evolutionary theory as a whole. As I have pointed out in several posts and publications, these events happened at such a remote time in the past, and in ways that would leave virtually no unambiguous “fossil” remains, that it may very well be that we will never reach concensus on the causes of these events.

So what? The evolution of life on Earth after it’s origin was what Darwin was interested in, and has been the subject of study of nearly all evolutionary biologists for the past 150 years. As we concluded this summer, none of the theoretical work of the principle authors in ID theory has the slightest bearing on these processes, and therefore I believe it is safe to call ID theory, not wrong, but simply irrelevant.

My understanding from MacNeill’s previous postings was that the entire trial transcripts were to be covered, not just the judge’s decision.

The “rules of engagement” are different in a courtroom, in ways that I think are good.

Who are you challenging as “spinning” the course? We’re not part of the political ID/evo battle and not interested in the “who won?” mentality you all seem to think necessary. We’re at college, afterall, and like thinking about and debating interesting ideas– even politically incorrect ones. We had fun, came to clarity on a great many issues, and I think can say unequivocally that “our experiment” worked. What you or anyone else think that entails for their personal agenda is irrelevant here.

Ivy– Coverage here was uneven, but we never did discuss Kitzmiller in class. It sort of went the way of Wedge of Truth, I think… afterall, who cares about reading commentary from a random judge when debating the actual arguments themselves is so much more interesting?

Stockholm Syndrome?