Live-blogging Nova, Part 2

37 minutes in. Opponents of Dover school board are in overreact mode. "What would prevent them (the school board) from teaching pseudo-history?"

Both sides estimate their chances based on the judge they drew. Now, this is a sad commentary-we don't expect the judge to base his decision on the facts & the law.

National Center for Science Education brought in by plaintiffs. NCSE "tracks" challenges to evolution. Do they have an agenda? They are presented as objective.

Expert witness defines natural selection-uses micro-evolution as example, without clarifying difference with macro-evolution.

43 minutes-discussion of transitional creatures. Scientific expedition is looking for them in Canadian Arctic. The scientists are on their last expedition-no more funding. And they find a transitional fossil! A fish with a flat head & eyes on top. Is this more like an amphibian, or more like a flounder?

We get the plaintiff's case, re-enacted, with no cross-examination.

50 minutes and: "Theory" is now being redefined as something more robust than a "Fact".

Ah, some cross-examination-& "Friction" is adduced as a theory. Well, maybe. Is evolution as robust as physics?

57 minutes. Apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes; humans only 23. If humans once had 24 pairs, we should find evidence of two chromosomes merging; that merged chromosome would have a different structure. If we don't find the merged chromosome, evolution is falsified. Apparently, chromosome #2 has the odd structure being sought. From which the witness infers that the case is closed, evolution is confirmed. But there is a huge difference between failure to falsify & success in confirming. "All crows are black". seeing another black crow doesn't prove the statement; seeing a white crow disproves the statement. It doesn't matter how many black crows are observed, the statement is still unconfirmed.

So, finding chromosome 2 does not confirm evolution. Indeed it doesn’t even confirm how chromosome 2 came into existence. Nor is there any explanation of the evolutionary advantage to having the merged chromosome.

But let's grant that chromosome 2 somehow proves that humans once had 24 chromosomes. This doesn't confirm our relationship with apes; it's simply fails to disconfirm the existence of the relationship.

59 minutes in: Sciences defined as necessarily excluding supernatural causes.

ID is a "negative argument"- therefore wrong. Even allowing for that inference to be true, it does not make evolution true by default. In fact, a lot of ID consists of challenging Darwinism-IDers want the question to be reopened. Why are the scientists so determined to keep the question firmly closed?

And we hear a bell sounding in the musical background, as if it were all over.

Now is the turn for the defendants-& Nova decides to tell us about hate mail that plaintiffs were getting.

Science teacher supporting plaintiffs says he can't live in a school district that mandates certain teachings. But is that not exactly what he wants? To mandate evolution-only?

Another reference to "the war on evolution ", as if evolution is sitting there quietly minding its own business. In fact, ID supporters are asking only that more than one theory be shown to the students.

Promised defense witnesses withdrawn. This is treated as somehow ominous, while it could be the result of a change in strategy, or a matter cost.

Now we get the defense case: Michael Behe explaining the bacterial flagellum. Irreducible complexity

We see a bacterial "syringe" which looks like the bacterial flagellum stripped-down. It serves a completely different purpose-& still requires multiple elements.