Kansas Evolution Hearings

Day 2 (5/6/05)

By: Kansas Board of Education

A subcommittee of the Kansas Board of Education holds hearings on whether the state's science curriculum should permit alternate theories to be taught alongside evolution. During the first three days of hearings, proponents of intelligent design present their views. They are represented by a retired lawyer, John Calvert, who heads the Intelligent Design Network of Shawnee Mission, Kansas. The witnesses are questioned by the members of the subcommittee and by attorney Pedro Irigonegaray, who supports the teaching of evolution.Listen to Day 1, Day 3, and Day 4 (Conclusion) of the Kansas Evolution Hearings.

Also, listen to great related books, magazines, and lectures available right now from audible.com®:
Darwin on Trial
The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial
Scientific American Special Edition: Evolution
What's The Matter With Kansas?: A Lecture

©2005 Kansas Board of Education (P)2005 Audible, Inc.

Thanks for this valuable service

Thank you, Audible, for allowing people to listen to this event. I think regardless of which side of the argument you may be on, I think we can all agree that we owe our gratitude to audible for making this content available.

a second day of ranting

OK, the first day was interesting both to hear the intellectual & scientific arguments, bankrupt arguments, put forth in their best possible light. And it was interesting to hear the utterly biased comments of the Kansas educational commission members, promoting their "religion-in-the-schools" view while at the same time vigorously protesting their secular orientation. But to hear a second day of it was a drag. Depressing. I couldn't even go on to the third day, which I also downloaded. I still would recommend, very highly, the audio transcript of the first day. But don't bother listening further unless you are already a partisan of the creationist view, and want to hear the arguments in their full glory.

MINORITY REPORT MAKES GOOD SENSE

I found thise audio extremely interesting and informative. The minority report makes many excellent points supported by professional scientists with impecable credentials.

The key points that I heard were:
1) Definition of "Evolution " is disgustingly vague and confusing
- "Evolution" can mean change over time (Micro Evolution) or the origins of all living things (Macro evolution).

2) The scientific evidence supporting Macro Evolution is very poor.
- Much scientfic evidence contradicts Macro evolution

3) Some people are pushing phylisophy/religion in the science classroom.
- Since the evidence for Macro evolution is weak; clever linguistic tricks are used to confuse the issue propogate a the Evolutionary fantasy as a scientific "fact".

The expert witnesses state very forcefully by their testimony that "THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES ON" - Darwinian/Macro evolution is not supported by the scientific method. The fact cross examination did not diminish their position is highly significant

Being a teacher myself I had a great interest in this topic. I would recommend this audio to anyone. The fact that it is free makes it absurdly good.

More interesting than you think it would be.

I thought there were a lot of great comments made by extremely competent scientists (almost all PhD’s). Basically, bringing up such facts as: that the biology books have fake pictures and drawings in them regarding evolution; that it’s a million to one that any mutation is beneficial; that the same rigors that are forced on other science is not enforced on the evolutionary paradigm (for example the amount of time where the improbable becomes probable – the evolutionist are not required to answer that for some reason). On the other hand, the other side had no facts. They also had no witnesses to cross-examine. What were they afraid of???

The prosecutor wasn’t interested getting at the truth; he was only interested in manipulating the witnesses down his path with yes/no answers only, and putting words into the witness’s mouths. It was weird that he kept up bringing up the age of the earth, which doesn’t have anything to do with evolution - if evolutionists were honest, a standard 4.5 billion year old earth does not have enough seconds in it to produce beneficial mutations. I thought the witnesses handled themselves very well against him, I think they, and the sub-committee that brought up theses hearings should feel good regarding their efforts - they did a right thing, and it must have been difficult going against the political correctness of our day. If we had more people in the world like them, this world would be a beautiful place.